About the pevensie kids from Narnia?

Question

so u know how the four pevensies (peter susan edmund lucy) all sybolize things from christian teachings? for example: susan is the one who lost faith and (as far as we know) wont go to Heaven, edmund is the tratior who was forgiven, and lucy is the only on who, i guess you could say, truly believes (in Prince Caspian she was the only one who could see Aslan for awhile). Is peter just "the leader" or does he have a deeper meaning?

also if you know any other symbols u can say those too, just not the obvious ones like Aslan is Jesus and the white witch is the devil.

Additional Details

greenday: yes thats one of the things im asking, what does peter represtent and what do other characters represent in christian teachings?

ya, duh, i guess i should have connected PETER to st. PETER. i wasnt thinking about the apostles

Answer 1

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker

Two points

1) You are only looking on a very shallow level here. You are on the right track, no question about it, there isn't a "one to one" corespondance between Narnia and Christianity. Sure Aslan being the Son of "The Emperor over the Sea" is kind of obvious, but the different carachters don't just symbolize one thing, and not every carachter symbolizes something.

For example, Edmund isn't just "the traitor", and he isn't Judas. Edmund is ALL mankind. Christianity teaches that we ALL are fallen, ("Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone") and we are ALL redemed by the Blood of Christ. Aslan died for Edmund, but Jesus died for EVERYBODY. (Christians aren't perfect they are just forgiven).

Edmund also symbolizes how a redemed person can go on and do great things. Remember it is HE that smashes the White Witches wand in the battle...everyone else goes after HER, Edmund is the only one clever enough to go after her wand..and that turns around the battle. Also notice that Edmund was brave enough to take on, and vanquish, the evil/sin that had once imprisoned him...because through Aslan he was now free of it/her.

So don't get too hung up on who symbolizes what particular thing... some things symbolize many things, other things don't symbolize anything.

Perhaps the biggest symbol in the whole of the first book is that in Narnia under the White Witch it is "always winter and never Christmas". The Witch is anti-nature...in many ways she symbolizes the of the modern, cold, tecnocratic, mechanical, bureaucratic "1984" sort of world that was so in fashon in Lewis's day. The perfect socialist state that would be run by "experts" and computers for "our own good". (The sort of place where, in the old Irish saying "After the Revolution everyone will be terribly happy and enjoy life, and those that aren't will be forced to do so." When Aslan comes he brings with him not just religon (Father Christmas) but also spring...nature.

Second...you are leaving out the best books!

2) My favorite is Voyage of the Dawn Treader.
Reepecheep makes it to the utter East...tons of symbology there... Reep is nothing but the embodyment of courage and honor...and his purity of heart wins him a great honor in the end of Dawn Treader...you have got to love Reepecheep.

Also there is Eustace Clarance Scrubb. Eustace is my favorite Narnian... he learns some important lessons. I'll leave it to you what Eustace's adventures mean...but the whole Dragon Island vision is pretty simple to figure out, if you just think about it.

Jill Pole comes in for a mention. Jill never gets anything right...or so she thinks.

The Queen of the Underground in the Silver Chair is simply loaded with symbology. In many ways she is very similar to the White Witch from the first book in what she symbolizes...the modern athiest scientific socialist view of the world. The speech that Puddlegum makes after stomping on her fire and burning his foot not only makes a great point VERY clearly...it gives you a good idea of who and what she is. Who Puddlegum symbolizes should be easy to figure out as well...but I'll give you a clue..he's not a particular person...Puddlegum isn't rich, or smart, or distinguished...he's not from Earth...he's just a marshwiggle who knows what he knows and believes what he believes.. and you can figure out the rest from there.

There is the Queen of Charn too...I think the Queen of Charn is actually a comment on nuclear weapons...the closest Lewis comes to a political comment, ever...but she is MORE a comment on the sort of person who would use Nukes rather than on the Nukes themselves.

Lastly, remember that Lewis was a midevalist...he studied and taught mideval literature.
The West, and England, had been forged in the Middle Ages. That is where Western Culture has it's roots. Lewis lived in the declining days of the British Empire, and as the Empire declined it was also walking away from the ideas and ideals that had built it and made it great. Lewis thought (quite correctly in my opinion) that there was a link between the two.

In Prince Caspian what do you see? A "modern" society where people are pretend to be too smart and too sophisticated to believe in the old tales of talking beasts, and Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy, and Aslan...but are still so afraid of them that even talking about Aslan can get you tossed in jail. You see Cair Paravel itself abandoned for a new capital. You see the stone table overgrown and become "Aslan's How" where the rebels take refuge (in the shadow of the Cross as it were). But this new society is opressive, it is un-Narnian, and it is tyrancial. Narnia is restored not by a bi-partisan comission, or a five year economic plan, or a technolgocial breakthrough, but by the old, that nobody believes in anymore, coming back.

Remember how nobody believes in talking beasts, or dwarves, much less Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy...but they DO still exist... the "modern" Telemarines aren't as smart as they think they are.

Asker's Rating:

Asker's Comment:

thanks, you really had a lot there and it was all excellent to read, you really went deep into the plot!

Answer 2

Wait, if the Narnia books reflect Christian teachings, do some of the other main characters symbolize things too, not just the Pevensie kids??? Like Caspian? Does he represent anything, being the main character in the second book? Or is he just included to develop a plot? What about Narnia itself? What would it symbolize?

Answer 3

You already mentioned quite a few of the symbols about the Pevensie children in the Narnia books...

First of all, Aslan is like Jesus and the White Witch is like the devil, as you said.

Susan, in the end, does symbolize the person who turns her back on Christ (when she no longer believes in Narnia) and loses her faith.

Edmund is symbolic of Judas, who betrayed Jesus; and Edmund is symbolic of all sinners, in general, as well...Aslan forgives Edmund just as Jesus forgives sinners.

Lucy is representative of the people who have absolute faith and believe (which is why she can see Aslan when the others can't at first). Also, you could say that she is representative of the apostle John, who was Jesus' friend and who was often referred to in the Bible as Jesus' favorite...Lucy, in a way, is a "favorite" of Aslan's, because of her faith...

Peter is "the leader" as you said, and that is why he represents the apostle Peter (St. Peter), who was a leader in Jesus' group of apostles and who headed the Church. St. Peter was, in a way, given the key to the Church. In the last book of the Narnia series, if I am remembering right, Peter has a key to Narnia, which shows how he is like St. Peter.

For some other symbols...
-The Stone Table on which Aslan died is symbolic of The Cross on which Jesus died.
-The Turkish Delight (in the first book) is symbolic of the coins/money for which Judas betrayed Jesus...Edmund's temptation that caused him to betray Aslan was the Turkish Delight, and Judas' temptation that caused him to betray Jesus was coins/money.
-Made evident throughout the series, and especially in the last book of the Narnia series, Narnia is symbolic of Heaven.
-In the first book, when Susan and Lucy are sitting with Aslan at/on the Stone Table after he has been killed, the two girls represent Mary Magdalene and Mary the Mother of Jesus...After Jesus died on the Cross, Mary Magdalene and Mary the Mother of Christ sat at the foot of the cross with Him, which is why Susan and Lucy represent them at that part in the book.

There are dozens more symbols in the Narnia series. The ones I gave you are mostly just about the Pevensie children, since that is what you asked about. There are some really good books out there that are all about the symbols that can be found in The Chronicles of Narnia.

Best wishes!


***Edit: To answer some of greenday's questions, some of the characters and ideas in The Chronicles of Narnia aren't necessarily symbolic of anything specific in terms of Christianity. As for Prince Caspian, I have read some books about the Christian symbolism in the Narnia books, and Caspian doesn't seem to represent any specific person or idea from the Bible. Some characters, such as Prince Caspian, were mainly used by Lewis to embelish the plot and the other symbols/ideas in the book.

Also, some of the characters and ideas in the Narnia books are good representations of things that happened in C.S. Lewis' peronal life. For example, when WWII was going on, children were sent to the country house/manor in which Lewis lived for safety, just as the Pevensie children were sent to a country manor in the Narnia books. One of the little girls that ended up at Lewis' home during WWII was named Lucy, which is probably how Lucy Pevensie got her name. Also, Prince Caspian being told stories about the Old Narnia by his tutor is representative of how Lewis had a nanny that would tell him stories when he was growing up. So, while some of the characters may not have specific Christian meaning, they have meanings that represent Lewis' personal life...All such information can be found in any given book that discusses the allegories and symbolism in Lewis' Narnia books.

If you truly wish to know more about the deeper symbolism and allegories in C.S. Lewis' Narnia series, then I highly recommend that you pick up a copy of the book called The Keys to the Chronicles: Unlocking the Symbols of C.S. Lewis's Narnia, which is written by Marvin D. Hinten. In this book there is a chapter dedicated to describing the allegories and meanings in each of the seven books in the Narnia series.