The Silver Chair’s climax is at the point when the children, Prince Rilian, and Puddleglum face off against the evil Witch who uses her magic to enchant her foes into sleeping. Puddleglum saves the day as he puts his foot into the fire and dispels her evil enchantment from the others. His action is backed up by his reason, in which he famously says to the Witch, “…We’re just babies making up a game, if you’re right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That’s why I am going to stand by the play-world. I’m on Aslan’s side even if there isn’t any Aslan to lead it. I’m going to live as like Narnian as I can even if there isn’t any Narnia.” This miraculous defense of belief struck me in my heart, and that is when the Silver Chair became my favorite book of the Narnia series.
It was a clever and very imaginative approach by Clive to come up with this scenario to relay a commonly held defense for Christianity. The defense being, “I’d rather be wrong and dead, then right and in hell”. But Puddleglum’s reason goes beyond the mere fear factor that Christianity’s hell damnation principle is infamously known for. He seems to find the world of Narnia, whether it exists or not, a far better one than the underground he found himself then to be in. Seeing how Puddleglum could not prove to the Witch that Aslan and the outside world actually existed, he was forced to give up on any logical argument of their existence, and instead through his unwavering belief in it, whether actually right or wrong, it became true…at least to him. Through his action of belief, the reality of Narnia became real.
Say Puddleglum, after the Witch’s defeat, and the others were never able to leave the underworld for some reason…Could they have transformed the underworld subjectively into another Narnia?
In meditation to the climax of the Silver Chair, I am awe-struck at the creative capacities of the human mind and how it shapes our lives, outlooks, and beliefs.
2 comments:
Kevin, I think it's funny that you call him "Clive."
Furthermore, though, I don't know that Lewis (Clive, as it were) is saying there is a pessimism that's NECESSARY for faith, but rather that faith is something which much run much deeper and more profoundly than mere "niceness" or "glumness," and that you should never observe the one (being nice) and then assume the other (being deep in faith).
(ps that was me, Susan)
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