I have a bit of a running theory about The voyage of the Dawn Treader, the fifth book in the Narnia series (it is the third book Lewis wrote, but fifth in the chronological order of the stories). The Voyage has always been my favorite of the seven books, the one I’ve spent the most time thinking about, so it’s maybe to be expected that I’d have a theory about it (I should also give credit where credit's due: this reading came to me one afternoon when I was watching the award winning BBC film adaptation of Voyage, produced by Wonderworks, which is well worth a watch... far better than the hatchet-job that Walden Media made of the story, which I could barely stomach, let alone watch in its entirety).
If you’ve never read The
Voyage of the Dawn Treader, stop everything right now, and go read it. I’ll wait.
If you really can’t spare the time, here’s the book in a nutshell: Lucy and Edmund, long-time veterans of
Narnia, are summoned back to the Magical Country through a mysterious picture
frame, this time bringing with them their stinker of a cousin, Eustace Clarence
Scrubb (a boy so rotten he almost deserves the name...) They join Prince Caspian and an assorted crew
of Narnians on a mystical quest to sail to the eastern edge of the World, searching for the seven lost lords of Narnia that sailed away many years ago and never
returned. Along the way they discover a
number of strange islands, encounter all sorts of wonderful characters,
de-stinkify their cousin Eustace and ultimately find their way to the Aslan’s
Country, beyond the end of the world.
To get my theory, you have to understand first that, as
the third book that Lewis wrote for the series, Voyage is a sequel to Prince
Caspian, a book that was, for all intents and purposes, about the revival,
or re-conversion of Narnia back to
the ways of Aslan (so: The Lion, the
Witch and the Wardrobe tells the Easter story, with Aslan's allegorical
Death and Resurrection; Prince Caspian
is set hundreds of years later, after Narnia has forgotten the story and has fallen away from “the old ways”; Prince Caspian is the only human in Narnia who
believes in Aslan and he’s able to “convert” the people back to the old
ways.) Then comes Voyage: Caspian, having led the revival in Narnia, is now on an
east-ward journey to the end of the world, to make it, at last to Aslan’s Country.
If Lion is the story
of the Cross (Redemption), and Caspian
is the story of conversion (Salvation), then Voyage is the story of Discipleship (Sanctification). It's the
story, that is, about the spiritual journey (as symbolized by the sea-quest)
through the triumphs and trials of life (as symbolized by the islands they
encounter along the way), to reach, eventually, our heavenly home (as
symbolized by Aslan’s Country).
This reading takes on weight and substance when you look
closely at each of the stops they make along the way. Lewis has written extensively and eloquently
elsewhere (both in The Screwtape Letters and
also in Mere Christianity) about the
classical virtues and vices of the Christian tradition, and when you read it with that in mind, if becomes clear that at each
one of the island stops on the journey to Aslan’s Country deal with either one
of the seven deadly sins, or one of
the seven cardinal virtues. In this way,
as they confront the seven deadly sins and grow in the seven cardinal virtues,
the children advance further in their quest for Aslan’s Country. This is not just vague symbolism,
either. Consider the following itinerary
of the Dawn Treader in its eastward journey. (For your reference, remember that the seven deadly sins are: anger, greed,
sloth, envy, gluttony, lust and pride; and the seven cardinal virtues are:
courage, wisdom, temperance, justice, faith, hope and charity).
1. Their first stop is on the Lone Islands, where they
need to put an end to the slave trade conducted there. In so doing they explicitly demonstrate the
virtue of justice, and
encounter the first of the lost lords, Lord Bern.
2. Their next stop
is on “Dragon Island,” where Eustace sneaks away while the work's being done, specifically because he's too lazy to help, demonstrating the sin of sloth. He takes a nap in a dragon’s cave, only to
waken the next day as a dragon himself.
He is eventually restored by Aslan, and they discover the remains of the
second lost Lord, who himself turned into a dragon previously.
3. En route to the next stop, they have two narrow
escapes: they are attacked by a sea
serpent, where Eustace demonstrates the virtue of courage fighting it off (the text specifically points out
his bravery); and then they land on an island where the water turns everything
it touches to gold, and they must overcome the enchantment of greed (they also discover the
remains of the third lost lord, who unwittingly swam in the pool and got turned into a gold
statue).
4. Next they land
on an island peopled by a group of foolish, one-legged dwarfs named the
Dufflepuds. The Dufflepuds have made themselves
invisible because they believe an evil wizard put an “ugly spell” on them, and
they couldn’t bear to look at one another; now they wish to be visible again,
so they force Lucy to sneak into the Wizard’s study and read a spell from his
book. Along the way Lucy is tempted to
read a spell that will make her beautiful, and it is revealed she has always
felt envy towards her sister, who was always considered the prettier one. (The Dufflepuds are the embodiment of folly,
the total opposite of the virtue of wisdom, and their foolishness is played up for comic relief.)
5. Next they come
to an island where “all your wildest dreams come true,” which seems promising
at first, until they learn that the dreams in question are really the deepest,
darkest corners of the id, the stuff that spins your nightmares in the dead of
night. This one’s a bit Freudian, but it’s
my contention that this island is Lewis’ way of handling the theme of lust on a level a child would be able to process and understand. (Notably, they meet the fourth Narnian Lord
here, who ostensibly arrived at the island do to his lack of temperance.)
6. Finally they
arrive at the last island in the book, and are forced to decide if they will
carry on to Aslan’s country or not. Here they
discover the last of the three Narnian Lords.
It’s worth pointing out here that in Christian ethics (and Lewis cites this concept
in Mere Christianity, so we know he
was familiar with it), the first four of the cardinal virtues—justice, courage,
wisdom and temperance—were said to be virtues even the pagans could attain to,
without Christ. But the last three
virtues—faith, hope and love—were said to be virtues that it took the special grace
of the Holy Spirit to attain. So it’s no
accident that the last three Narnian Lords are all found together on the last island
before Aslan’s Country. Interestingly,
the three lords have fallen into an enchanted sleep because they could not
agree whether they should carry on to Aslan’s Country or not, and the only way
to awaken them is for the crew to journey on themselves and leave someone in Aslan’s Country. (Also notable: the reason they are asleep is because they had been quarreling about whether or not to go on to Aslan's country, and one of them grabbed hold of a sacred knife in an outburst of anger, causing the enchantment to fall on them.)
7. When they
finally arrive at Aslan’s Country, Prince Caspian himself wishes to stay
behind, even though he must return to be king of Narnia. The rest of the
crew tries to convince him of this, but in his pride, he insists on staying, until Aslan encounters him and
helps him to repent.
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