The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe 709knights; Aslan uses this sword, which recalls other
famous swords such as Excalibur and Durendal, to
knight him after Peter kills the wolf. Susan is given
a bow with arrows, another typical weapon of epic
and romance stories, and a horn. The horn in such
a story is usually given to valiant warriors to call the
army to battle or to ask for help, and indeed, Susan
uses her horn to call Peter to his first battle. Lucy
receives a dagger for self-defense and a bottle full of
a magic cordial that can heal all kinds of wound; in
receiving this magic object Lucy becomes the healer,
another typical figure in the heroic poems. She will
heal all the creatures wounded in the final battle and
end the series of deaths caused by the White Witch
and her evil deeds.
Father Christmas’s advice on how and when to
use the precious gifts introduces another important
idea: The children will have to do their best to
complete their mission no matter how difficult it
will be and how much it will cost them. This is a
recurrent idea in the story. Aslan himself, during his
first meeting with Peter, Susan, and Lucy, when they
ask him to save Edmund, underlines that “all shall be
done” but it will probably be harder than the chil-
dren think. Aslan’s words are the perfect expression
of Lewis’s idea of heroism as sacrifice and respon-
sibility. This idea culminates with Aslan’s extreme
self-sacrifice to save Edmund and satisfy the Deep
Magic demanded by the White Witch. The heroism
of the lion recalls Jesus’s heroism and makes Aslan a
Christ figure. The lion must suffer humiliation and
death in order to save Edmund as Jesus faced agony
and gave his life to save the human race. In the epic
poems written in the Middle Ages, pure and brave
knights such as Gawain, Perceval, or Galahad are
often compared to Christ. Lewis, however, goes one
step further and rewards his literary hero with an
actual resurrection. Apart from the theological sig-
nificance of this innovative conception of heroism,
the main idea is that personal suffering and sick-
ness cannot be a deterrent for the heroism/sacrifice
required by the situation. When Peter has to kill
the wolf who has attacked Susan, he declares that
though he is about to be sick it makes no difference
to what he has to do. Thus, in The Lion, the Witch
and the Wardrobe, heroism cannot be detached from
sacrifice and responsibility.
Edmund himself, after being rescued by Aslan,
understands that acting only to satisfy one’s own
pleasure is not right. For this reason, in the final
battle he is the one who fights with the greatest
enthusiasm and until the battle is over, regardless of
the serious wound that threatens his life. At the end
of the voyage and when the battle between the good
and the evil forces is won, as in the typical hero’s
quest, the children are rewarded and crowned kings
and queens of Narnia.
Chiara SgroJuStice in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
Justice is often pictured symbolically, as a blind-
folded liberty-figure holding a scale to depict the
balance of righteousness. C. S. Lewis’s The Lion, the
Witch, and the Wardrobe develops the major theme
of justice through the depiction of the consequences
and sacrifices required to save Edmund from his
own faults and choices. Righteousness requires an
honest, moral, and ethical personality, which Lewis
shows is lacking in all human characters.
Edmund, the prime example, is a traitor on so
many levels: He lies about the time Lucy found him
in Narnia, betraying her and leaving her open to
Peter and Susan’s ridicule; he sides with the White
Witch even though he knows she is the evil ruler
about whom Lucy’s friend Tumnus has warned her;
and, because he is not the center of attention when
all four children are at Beaver’s, he abandons them
to go tell the White Witch where they can be found,
placing his own siblings’ lives at risk. Therefore,
when the White Witch demands justice, accord-
ing to the Deep Magic or the Laws written on the
Stone Table, Edmund stands condemned by his own
actions.
Peter, Susan, and Lucy are frantic for Edmund’s
safety and ask Aslan if something can be done to
save him. Because Aslan is the King of Narnia, as
a parallel Jesus Christ, he can reveal the Deeper
Magic from “before the dawn of time,” implying he
existed, like Christ, “before the beginning.” While
justice says the consequence or cost of Edmund’s
treachery is sacrifice upon the Stone Table (and
since the White Witch is not willing to give up
her supposed victory over the Old Sayings—that
two sons of Adam and two daughters of Eve would