Narnia Reconsidered Part I: Lucy

I'll admit a personal bias here. C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia was my favorite series as a 'tween (this, of course, long before 'tweens had a name). Actually, to call it my favorite series is an understatement: I actually believed Narnia existed, and would search for entrances to that magical world in closets (we had no wardrobes), attics, and the drain pipes from the hospital that opened into the woods behind our house. I never found Narnia, but I did find a cache of very dirty magazines hidden at the entrance to a boarded up lead mine. That, however, is a story for another time.

My girls are now big fans of Narnia, and always ask me which book was my favorite. Honestly, I was fond of all of them, even the much maligned Last Battle, wherein the dwarves reject Aslan, the Calormenes are pilloried in racist fashion as godless "darkies" and we learn that Susan has abandoned Narnia. More on Susan later. But I loved hearing about heaven as another Narnia, and the steadfast Jill was the heroine I'd been seeking ever since Lucy was banned from Narnia, having used up all of Aslan's passes and grown too old. More on Jill later, when I extol The Silver Chair. For now, let's just say I saw the merits of all the books, though The Voyage of the Dawn Treader struck me, at times, as dull. Naturally, it is my daughters' second favorite, after A Horse and His Boy. (What about Hwin and Aravis? More on Aravis later). First, and foremost, was Lucy.

Lucy was the first heroine that I identified with, despite the fact that she was the youngest of the four Pevensie kids, and I was a classic uptight, anxious first-born. She was, after all, the one who discovered Narnia in the wardrobe, the one who befriended the first Narnian (Tumnus) and the one who never stopped believing even when her siblings mocked and (in Edmund's case) betrayed her. In the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, she uses her diamond vial to heal Edmund's death wound.  In Prince Caspian, it is she who figures out that they've landed in Narnia again and takes up her bow and arrow against King Miraz's army.  In the Voyage of the Dawn Treader, she treats Eustace gently when everyone else has given up on him. In the Horse and His Boy, now an adult, she fights the Calormenes alongside the men. Prince Corin describes her as "as good as a man...or as good as a boy, at any rate."


I liked Susan, but I adored Lucy. I felt as if we'd grown up together, and when Aslan tells her she can't return to Narnia, I was heartbroken. What kind of Narnia would it be without Lucy in the mix? (It turns out, a funnier one--Eustace steals the show, and Jill is more than his match in both battle and sarcastic barbs. But I'll get to Jill eventually. I promise).

Lucy was a proto-feminist heroine: a girl in a man's world who was gentle and kind, yet nevertheless kicked ass in battle. Of all the Narnian heroines, it was she that I most wanted to be. Interestingly enough, while my daughters adore Lucy, it is Susan that has most captured their fascination. Well, Susan and the talking horses of A Horse and His Boy. We listened to that one on our long road trip east this summer, and (Anti-Calormene racism aside) it holds up remarkably well. It does make me wonder, though--why doesn't Lucy appeal in the same way that Susan does?

My theory--which I welcome you to challenge--is that Lucy never really leaves the realm of childhood. There is always something innocent about her, even after she becomes a teenager, even after she envies Susan's beauty in the Voyage of the Dawn Treader. For 'tween readers, Lucy is the little sister--the one you dote on and protect. Susan, on the other hand, is the older sister--the teenager, the young woman, the one you look up to and yearn to be someday.

My daughters were all about Susan...until they learned that she grows up to reject Narnia.

Coming next: Girls, Boys, and Men...but No Women.