Outside Reading #2

In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Aslan is killed by the White Witch, is tied to a slab, and dies. Yet his death in one realm makes way for his birth in another--he is alive, in an obvious mirroring of the Christ myth. Another book I draw a comparison to in this regard is The Little Prince by Antoine de St.-Exupery.

While Aslan's death clearly parallels Christ's story, the titular character of the Little Prince also dies and moves on--in this case to the stars. Poignantly, the Little Prince accepts that his body is "too heavy" to get him home to his beloved rose. Forevermore, the aviator hears the prince laughing among the stars.

I will add that Lewis claimed his stories were NOT an allegory for the Christ myth, but instead a fantasy story for children. I think he either felt it was important to be thought of as a fantasy writer as some sort of exercise of Lewis's ego, or his ingrained Christian view was so powerful he could not even see it in himself. But frankly, I don't see how Aslan is NOT a stand-in for Jesus Christ.

Aslan, like Jesus, is mourned but he defeats death as well. Both books demonstrate the mythos that there is a life after this one. In religious traditions across countless cultures, there is a belief that the soul is an entity separate from the body--whether that body is a slain lion or a young prince in a desert. There is a myth that the soul goes on.

What is clear in both books is that we must not mourn for too long--we must instead be comforted by the life being lived on another plane of existence. Whether that is in a magical land or amongst the stars of the universe.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Heidegger (I Guess)

In "The Origin of the Work of Art," Martin Heidegger characterizes the essence of art as work which contributes to the unconcealment ( aletheia ) of reality, i.e. the literal (or perhaps literary, given his emphasis on poetry) construction of truth. This philosophy/ontology seems quite compatible with Lewis's bit in "Myth Became Fact," wherein he describes myth as reality. Heidegger describes unconcealing as the existential project of the Dasein, i.e. the human being, and artistic manifestation of the aesthetic impulse is a prime way of doing this: realizing and bringing-forth qualities of Being, facilitating the dialectical relationship between world and earth. Poetry is a privileged art form for Heidegger, given the profound intertwining of language with the human condition (the Dasein ). "Language is the house of the truth of Being," says Heidegger. Thus, Lewis's proclamation that myth, i.e. narrative, i.e. a particular manifestation of poetic a...
Read more

The Liberal Arts Experience

When I was applying for colleges, I was for more concerned about getting accepted to any  school rather than any particular kind of college. So when it fell to a choice between CNU and Radford after my other 5 choices rejected me outright, it was an easy choice. But that choice was really between two liberal arts institutions. I always thought of those liberal arts classes as some sort of natural phenomena. Most people don't question why the sun has the appearance of rising every day, it's just a part of their lives. Something they accept and live with. So it was also with the fulfillment of my liberal learning classes. I didn't choose them any more than I chose to go to CNU. And with an attitude like that, I can't help but wonder if I was putting in enough effort to get any qualitative experiences out of them. An old English teacher of mine once said that we'll become real scholars when we start taking charge of our own education, and that idea has sort of stuck wi...
Read more

Inklings About Inklings

It seems quite strange to be reading a more autobiographical work about Lewis after spending all this last semester studying his fiction. Being empirically minded it feels like I've done things in reverse - perhaps I should have known the man before I came to know his myth. A poet might say they're one and the same, and perhaps so, but understanding the man can make the myth deeper. Of course, having thought about that concept for one moment longer, it can probably go both ways. I just recalled a band, as well as a series of t.v. shows that were made worse for me by having a greater understanding of the people behind them. So it may be just as well. Regardless, I was interested to learn that Lewis had an early fascination with Norse fiction, and was an avid reader his whole life. Many of his professors would go on to remark that they had never met a man more well-read in the classics. Also I found it quite interesting that after getting a degree in Philosophy, he could not find...
Read more