710 Lewis, C. s.
sit enthroned over Narnia—which are parallels
to prophecies of the Old Testament of the Bible),
it seems that Edmund must die for justice to be
served.
But Lewis shows that there is another way. If
someone else would lay down his life for Edmund
to pay the price or consequences of the law, then
justice would be satisfied, but the person (or beast
in this case) has to be suitable—a perfect person,
not someone who already owes a price to justice for
himself. Since Aslan is the son of the Emperor of
the Sea, like Jesus is the son of God, he makes a per-
fect substitute. He more than satisfies the demands
of justice and the law.
The justice theme requires consequences to be
paid in other character’s lives in the story as well:
Tumnus, the faun Lucy met in her first encounter
with Narnia, must spend time frozen in stone in
the White Witch’s castle—not because he betrayed
the Witch, but because he intended to betray the
Lion and the Old Sayings by helping the White
Witch, telling her when he saw human children.
Just because he changes his mind and regrets lur-
ing Lucy into his tree hovel, Tumnus is not exempt
from the consequences of his actions. This is another
way in which Lewis shows that wickedness, even
when only contemplated, as Tumnus did, has severe
consequences.
However, justice is not necessarily negative as it
works out for the Beavers. Mr. and Mrs. Beaver are
rewarded for their actions—supporting the Lion by
helping the children safely meet Aslan on the hill
that holds the Stone Table. First they receive a new
sluice gate for their dam from Father Christmas,
who all children know gives gifts only to “good little
girls and boys”—showing that even mythological
and legendary characters must follow the logic of
justice. Then the Lion commends them in the same
way that Jesus says those who do right will be told:
“Well done, thou good and faithful servant” (Mat-
thew 25:21).
The scales are balanced when wrong is punished
and right is rewarded. Edmund’s consequences are
paid upon Aslan’s death as a perfect substitution
sacrifice; Tumnus must bear his consequences in a
death-like frozen state until he’s forgiven and saved
by Aslan overcoming the White Witch’s power
by rising from the dead; and the Beavers receive
their positive consequences for remaining true to
what is right. Justice and balance are restored, and
righteousness reigns at Cair Parieval at the end of
the novel.
Susan K. Jaegernature in The Lion, the Witch and the
Wardrobe
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is set in Narnia,
an imaginary world created by C. S. Lewis as the
background for his Chronicles of Narnia. As opposed
to the ordinary world, where Peter, Susan, Edmund,
and Lucy come from, Narnia is a mythical world in
which nature, in its widest meaning, functions as one
of the protagonists of the story rather than as a mere
background for the plot. Throughout the book the
four main characters have to deal with the natural
elements and the magical creatures living in this
secondary world, in order to fulfil their mission and
save Narnia from the White Witch.
From the very beginning of the Pevensie sib-
lings’ adventures in Narnia, nature is one of the
prominent features of the story, functioning both
as the contact point between the primary and the
secondary world and the complication that puts in
motion the whole plot. Indeed, before the children
realize that they are in a different and magical
world, Narnia’s natural environment is the first
thing they get in touch with, a natural environment
that is seemingly the same as that of the primary
world, that is, 20th-century England. The wardrobe
leads to a wood covered in snow. The apparent
ordinariness of the snow-covered trees makes the
entrance of the characters into the secondary world
soft and the suspension of disbelief in the reader
easier, in spite of the awkwardness of finding a
wood in a wardrobe. The seasonal difference—in
Narnia it is evidently winter while in England it
is summer—and the presence of a lamppost in the
middle of the wood beyond the back of the ward-
robe are elements that give both the characters and
the readers a hint of the very special nature of the
place. But the Narnian winter is also the complica-
tion that sets the whole plot in motion: The White
Witch has cast a spell that makes the winter peren-
nial and Christmas forbidden. A deadly and endless