During September 1939, Operation Pied Piper evacuated 3 million children from London and other urban target areas vulnerable to aerial bombing. The story of the The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (LWW) starts with four of them--Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy Pevensie being sent to the country home of a distant relative. It’s not difficult to imagine the stress and uncertainty that the prospect of war, separation from parents, and the interruption of routines imposed on children.
In the past year, Canada has welcomed thousands of Ukrainian children seeking safety after Russia’s invasion. Each day our screens are populated with images of children killed, maimed, or traumatized in conflict zones around the world, including Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Ethiopia, Israel, Gaza, Haiti, and elsewhere. In historical terms, children have always been and continue to be innocent victims of war.
In historical terms, children have always been and continue to be innocent victims of war.
By situating the LWW in the context of WWII, author C.S. Lewis uses a particular Christian doctrine (the sanctity of human life) to challenge the human disposition for war as a means to solve problems of power, land, and economics. By doing so, Lewis unpacks many of the threads that underlay the ongoing struggle between tyranny and liberty. WWII was one of those pivotal events in human history meant to extinguish the tyranny of fascist regimes and preserve the foundations of liberal democracies.
The Pevensies are just ordinary children, displaced by war, exploring an old country house when they discover a wardrobe ingress to the magical world of Narnia. We follow their adventures as they learn what it takes to respond with courage, cunning and character to the tyranny of a White Witch who rules a land where it is always winter and never Christmas. The threat to their survival in Narnia is just as real as the tyranny in Europe where war destroys children and all that is familiar and dear to them. What is different about these otherwise ordinary Pevensees is that they are the subjects of a Narnian prophecy:
When two Sons of Adam and two Daughter of Eve sit at Cair Paravel in throne, it will mean the end of the witch’s reign--and her life.
This prophecy incites the action in the story: the tyrannical witch and her allies are bent on killing the children to stop fulfillment of the prophecy while a few Narnians commit themselves to saving the children whose arrival coincides with the return of Father Christmas. The purpose of a prophecy is to point out the problems of the present and point to a solution in the future. In this story, the solution appears in the return of Aslan, the former ruler of Narnia, who ushers in spring and gathers his allies to fight the witch.
While the LWW is a fun fantasy romp with talking animals, mythological creatures, and dramatic battles, it is also a spiritual allegory that resonates with the Christian story. When Jesus was born over 2000 years ago (an event we now celebrate as Christmas), Herod--the Jewish king installed by the Roman occupiers of Israel at the time—ordered the slaughter of all males in and around Bethlehem aged two and under to stop fulfillment of rumours based on a prophecy in the Old Testament (Micah 5:2) that foretold of the ascension of a different King.
Lewis unpacks many of the threads that underlay the ongoing struggle between tyranny and liberty. WWII was one of those pivotal events in human history meant to extinguish the tyranny of fascist regimes and preserve the foundations of liberal democracies.
Shocking as it is to our modern sensibilities, infanticide was a common practice in the ancient world. Furthermore, babies that were not killed were often abandoned on garbage dumps. Infanticide was part of the “natural order” of social life. Early Christians vigorously opposed infanticide because of Jesus’ teachings on the sanctity of all human life--a revolutionary doctrine that we now take for granted but was transformative in fueling the rapid and remarkable spread of Christianity throughout the Mediterranean, according to sociologists. They suggest that Christianity revitalized life in Greco-Roman cities by providing new norms and new kinds of social relationships able to cope with many urgent urban problems:
- To cities filled with orphans and widows, it provided a new and expanded sense of family.
- To cities filled with the homeless and impoverished, Christianity offered charity as well as hope.
- To cities filled with newcomers and strangers, it offered an immediate basis for attachments.
- To cities torn with violent ethnic strife and racism, it offered a new basis for social solidarity.
- And to cities faced with epidemics, fires, and earthquakes, Christianity offered effective nursing services.
GEORGE DUTCH is Associate Artistic Director and Dramaturge for 9th Hour Theatre Company
Read Part 2 of "A Crown for Children"
Listen to George discuss the story's themes on the Telling The Story podcast.