A visit to Narnia

In C. S. Lewis’ classic children’s book, The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, World War II is raging, and London is oppressed by air-raids. Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy Pevensie are sent to the country for safety, to the home of an old professor who has more rooms than people to fill them.

One day while exploring the house, Lucy, the youngest Pevensie, discovers a room with a large wardrobe in it. She steps inside it to see what secrets it might hold and discovers the greatest secret of all. The wardrobe is a door to another world, Narnia, where animals talk and live side-by-side with fairy tale creatures like fauns, centaurs, nymphs, and dryads (as well as other, more horrible, creatures).

But Narnia has been under the rule of the evil White Witch for a hundred years, and she has made it so that it is always winter but never Christmas. The Pevensies’ arrival in Narnia is the answer to an old prophecy that states that when two sons of Adam and two daughters of Eve sit on the Narnian throne, the time of evil will end. Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy aren’t the only ones to arrive in Narnia at this time. Aslan, the great Lion, the King, the Lord of the whole wood, who has been absent from Narnia for longer than anyone can remember, has returned to Narnia, and means to set things right.

In this story, we are confronted with issues of good and evil, and with characters who remind us of ourselves in so many ways. While Edmund is often the least likable of the Pevensie children, it is his story of redemption that is most like ours, and it is his story we will examine most closely.