Hello and welcome to chapter 5 of our
read-through of The Lion the Witch and
the Wardrobe.
I'm Jem the reader at St John the Baptist
Parish Church in Beeston and if you
haven't read this chapter scurry away
and read it - the rest of us will wait for
you!
You need to read from 'Because the game
of hide-and-seek was still going on
it took Edmund and Lucy some time to
find the others' and read down to 'Peter
held the door closed but did not shut it;
for, of course, he remembered, as every
sensible person does, that you should
never, never shut yourself up in a
wardrobe.' So, as with previous episodes,
I'd like to talk about a few things that
particularly struck me and made me think
in this chapter. I won't be giving a line
by line or a page by page account of the
meaning of the novel, but rather
reflecting on bits and bobs that
seemed most significant. In this
chapter then, Edmund and Lucy come out of Narnia and Lucy is expecting Edmund to
to validate everything she's been saying
about this magical world and he decides
not to, and indeed to lie about it and
say that they've just been playing a game.
This causes Peter and Susan to become
even more worried about Lucy and they go
to see the Professor and ask him what
they should do and he has a rather
surprising response to them, suggesting
that in fact it is possible that there is a magical world that's visited through a wardrobe and posing them some
questions before muttering to himself
'what they teach them in these schools
and why can't they apply logic to things'.
So there are several things here and
they're all points that are touched on
that stretch back into the previous
chapters and forward into the subsequent
chapters. Perhaps most obviously we
have a chapter beginning with another
act of small betrayal by Edmund. "What's
this all about, Ed?" said Peter. And now we come to one of the nastiest things in this
story. Up to that moment Edmund had been feeling sick, and sulky, and annoyed with
Lucy for being right, but he hadn't made
up his mind what to do. When Peter
suddenly asked him the question he
decided all that wants to do the meanest
and most spiteful thing he could think
of. He decided to let Lucy down. "Tell us, Ed"
said Susan and Edmund gave a very
superior look
as if he were far older than Lucy. (there
was really only a year's difference) and
then a little snigger and said "Oh, yes, Lucy
and I have been playing - pretending that
all her story about a country in the
wardrobe is true. Just for fun, of course.
There's nothing there really". Poor Lucy
gave Edmund one look and rushed out of
the room. Edmund, who was  becoming a nastier person
every minute, thought that he had
scored a great success, and went on at
once to say, "'There she goes again.
What's the matter with her? That's the
worst of these young kids, they always - ". So as I've suggested we can see the
development of Edmund's psyche and moral
character and it's not a very pleasing
development, through these
chapters. When he comes to betray his
family, as he will in a couple of
chapters, it doesn't come out of the blue.
There is a chain of logic to it, there's
a series of circumstances in which
Edmund gets himself sort of deeper and
deeper into moral problems and it's
quite striking that the form this act
takes, the nastiest and most spiteful
thing as that as the text says, the form
of this takes is betrayal. He's
specifically in a sort of bond with
someone. Lucy regards him as all in it
together, as she says at the end of it of
the previous chapter and he decides to
essentially push her out and continue to
say that it is not true.
So he lies but also he betrays her. Why
does he betray her? We're told that he's
particularly annoyed at her for being
right and that it's going to embarrass
him and make him feel bad to admit in
public that he's been wrong and she's
been right. Why would that embarrass and
annoy him? Because unlike Peter and Susan
he hasn't been concerned about Lucy and
worried that she's apparently lying or
fantasizing unhealthily but he's seen
her claim about this magical world as a
sign of weakness and has been sort of
mocking and jeering at her all the way
through. So the reason for this moral
lapse is embedded in his previous moral
lapse. He simply doesn't decide
to be motivelessly nasty to her at
this point but he's in a position where
he has to either do something he
doesn't want to do, admit that she's
right and he's been wrong. Or he has to
go the next stage further into his
sort of moral floor and betray her in a
new way. So I think, as I've suggested,
that there's a gradualism
to Edmund's development into his
final betrayal but there's also logic to
it. It does actually make sense that,
having picked on Lucy, he'd have
to make a greater act of virtue here
than he would be if he seemed to be
nicer to her earlier. It would have been a smaller investment
of good so to speak, to just be nice to her and not pick on and not see it as the
chance to exert power over her. But
having done so he's now in a position
where he'd have to buy himself out with
a greater level of generousness and
unselfishness and he chooses not to do
so. He chooses to go further into it.
So Edmund's moral psychology, as I've
suggested, is I think one of the
interesting parts of the book. It's both
Lewis being coherent about the
character but also developing a line of
moral conduct in a way that is
relatively realistic I think and
literally shows us the way in which
small lapses and small flaws can can
grow on a character and can lead them
into greater flaws. So when Peter and
Susan go to see the Professor and
explain why they're worried about Lucy
and what's going on, he surprises
them very much by saying and "how do you
know", he asked 'that your sister's story is
not true?" "'Oh, but  -" began Susan and then stopped. Anyone could see from the old
man's face that he was perfectly serious'
etcetera etcetera and he says "Is Lucy
usually truthful?" they say "yes usually
Lucy is more truthful than Edmund."
"But then" said Susan, and stopped. She had
never dreamed that a grown-up would talk
like the Professor and she didn't know
what to think.
"Logic!" said the Professor half to himself
"Why don't they teach logic at these schools?
There are only three possibilities. Either your sister is telling lies, or
she is mad, or she is telling the truth.
You know she doesn't tell lies, it is
obvious that she is not mad'" he said
earlier that you only have to sort of
talk to her and see the way she behaves
no she's not deranged. "For the moment
then and unless any further evidence
turns up, we must assume that she is
telling the truth." Susan looked at him
very hard and was quite sure from the
expression on his face that he was not
making
fun of them. "But how could it be true, sir"
said Peter. "Why do you say that?" asked the
Professor. "Well for one thing," said Peter
"if it was real why doesn't everyone find
this country every time they go to the
wardrobe?" and he explains his problem
with this theory. The Professor has
brought out one of Lewis's most famous
theological arguments in this situation.
A piece of reasoning that's often known
as Lewis's trilemma. Although in fact it
wasn't Lewis that first phrased it but
Lewis very famously used this argument
about Jesus Christ in mere
christianity. To quote 'I am trying here
to prevent anyone from saying the really
foolish thing that people often say
about him. I'm ready to accept Jesus is a
great moral teacher but don't accept his
claim to be God. That is the one thing we
must not say. A man who was merely a man
and said the sort of things Jesus said
would not be a great moral teacher. He
would either be a lunatic on the level
with a man who says he is a poached egg,
or else he would be the devil of hell. You
must make up your choice. Either this man
was and is the son of God, or else a
madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool. You can spit at
him and kill him as a demon. Or you can
fall at his feet and call him Lord and
God but let us not come with any
patronizing nonsense about his being a
great human teacher, he has not left that
open to us.
He did not intend to. Now it seems to me
obvious that he was neither a lunatic
nor a fiend and consequently however
strange or terrifying or unlikely it may
seem, I have to accept the view that he
was and is God'. This is, as I say, a
very famous argument. It's one that is
often quoted by fans of Lewis. It has not
always found favour with theologians or
apologists. There are a few I think
obvious weaknesses. Most famously
that Jesus's claims are, claims as
this trilemma takes them and are
transmitted via the Gospels and the
Gospels have been edited and written and
transmitted for centuries and
centuries. We have not actually met Jesus
and had these claims put to us. So
it's possible that other people have
said things
about him that he didn't say. There are
also other elements of the gospel which
might cast doubt on this such as the
Messianic Secret; the fact that Jesus
seems at pains at various points to
prevent people either saying that he is
the Messiah and the awaited Son of David,
or from spreading that message.
He seems keen to prevent other people
from saying that more generally.
Anyway as an attitude and as an approach to the apparent claims that people put
forward having read the Gospels, this is
one of Lewis's classic defences - the
Lewis trilemma - and it's interesting, and perhaps amusing,
that he puts in the mouth of the
Professor in this story about the
magical world of Narnia. It's also
interesting that he, whilst writing a
book that is clearly based upon the
biblical accounts of the Passion of
Christ, also adds, if you like, a character
who does a bit of theology on the
life of Christ. We'll discuss later
on how much this novel is not simply a
retelling of particular passion
narratives but it blends things, it
synthesizes things, it cuts things out
and introduces things. Lewis is by no
means a simple-minded writer but it's striking that there is actually a
character, who is alongside this
narrative sort of doing apologetic
of doing philosophical defenses of the
possibility of Narnia, even in a story in
which Narnia is apparently there. It also
struck me, and I'd like to pause on this,
that he says "Logic, why don't they teach
logic?" It's one of Lewis's concerns
and a concern of other thinkers at the
time, particularly now it's obviously
said this before, for writers in the
evangelical tradition but writers in
Christianity more generally, that
Christianity is reasonable. Reasonable in the, if you like,
technical sense that it is
subject to reason. It's not vague and
misty and an abrogation of our duty to
think and to reason about the world. The thing that the Professor says, it strikes me, 
when it comes to them
is not 'oh the world's very strange and 
mysterious, we don't really know anything
about it and you know the Loch Ness 
Monster probably exists, the fairies
probably exists, Narnia probably exists.' He
encourages them to apply reason and
logic, specifically and rationally. Lewis,
like other apologists, believes that
Christianity is not only coherent, it
actually stands to the reason if you
apply reason and logic to it, it stands
up and the other options, if you like
the critiques of it, don't stand up. This reminded me of this insistence on
reason, reminded me of another famous
Christian apologist and novel writer
GK Chesterton, who famously wrote the
Father Brown stories. The very first of
these published in 1910, called The Blue Cross, ends with the passage in which
Father Brown, the little detective priest,
and Flambeau, the famous French villain,
are sitting in a lonely place and
they're discussing the sky and the stars
and there's an inspector of police who's
overhearing them because he knows that
Father Brown is carrying, or he thinks
Father Brown is carrying, a very valuable a
silver cross inlaid with jewels and he
knows that Flambeau is after this and
might hurt Father Brown to get
it. The first he heard was the tale of
one of, sorry I  should point
out at this point Flambeau and Father Brown
are both dressed as priests. Flambeau has
disguised himself as a priest as a way
of trying to get this piece of
religious artwork. The first he heard was
the tale of one of Father Brown's
sentences which ended "what they really
meant in the Middle Ages by the heavens
being incorruptible." The taller priest, that's
Flambeau, nodded his bowed head and said
"ah yes these modern infidels appeal to
their reason but who can look at those
millions of worlds and not feel there
may well be wonderful universes above us,
where reason is utterly unreasonable."
"No" said the other priest, "reason is
always reasonable, even in the last limbo,
in the last board land of things. I know
that people charge the church with
lowering reason but it is just the other
way. Alone on earth the church makes
reason really supreme. Alone on earth the
church affirms that God himself is bound
by reason." The other priest raised his
austere face to the spangled sky and
said "yet who knows if in that infinite
universe." "Only infinite physically" said the
little priest, turning sharply in his
seat. "Not
infinite in the sense of escaping from the
laws of truth." Now whilst what the
story calls 'this mild metaphysical
gossip' but with two old parsons is going
on there's something essential in the
plot of the story and Father Brown later
explains to Flambeau, this is the point
at which Flambeau makes his most fatal
error in his disguise because he asks "how did you know I wasn't a priest, how did you know I was a robber?" and
Father Brown says 'it's very simple you
attacked reason, it's bad theology."
Now both Chesterton and Lewis clearly
saw reason and logic as not inimical to
Christian faith, which was one of the
chargers of course that was 
brought against Christian faith in the
early 20th century coming off the back
of the confusion and debates over things
like geology and Darwinism and indeed
personal morality. The typical charge
perhaps and we see this today
indeed, the typical charge was that
Christianity is irrational, unscientific,
unlogical. This was given a particularly sharp
edge by the fact that one of the major
critiques of Christianity in the early
20th century of course came from Marxism, which claimed to be a science of
history. A scientific, entirely reasonable and
entirely logical and rational way of
looking at the world. It's critique of
Christianity was that Christianity
mystified. It vagued things up. It obscured
the relationships between power and
people and property and the way history
actually worked and it cast a 'vast moth eaten
musical brocade' to borrow Philip
Larkin's phrase, perhaps in apposite in
this situation, over what was actually
there and the counter-attack
from intellectuals like Chesterton and Lewis was always, not that the world is more
woogly than you might think, or that a
bit of vagueness is good, but that no,
that Christianity is absolutely rational
and indeed is the only purely rational
form of metaphysic, form of belief and
ideology in the world. So I was
interested that Lewis embedded the
trilemma in that chapter but also
particular interested that
he grounds this on logic. The Professor
teaches them to use logic, not to believe
any old nonsense that might come their way,
or indeed to become less precise in
their thinking but actually to become,
when dealing with forms and satyrs and
witches and snowy realms found for a
wardrobe, you must become more precise
and more rational and forensic in your
thinking if you're going to survive them.
Now the children then have another
expedition to the wardrobe which is
going to take us into the next chapter.
This is because there are some
visitors to the Professor's house and
they're being shown round by Mrs.
Macready. 'This house of the Professor's -
which even he knew so little about - was
so old and famous that people from all
over England used to come and ask
permission to see over it. It was the
sort of house that is mentioned in
guidebooks and even in histories; and
well it might be, for all manner of
stories were told about it, some of them
even stranger than the one I am telling
you now. And when parties of sightseers
arrived and asked to see the house, the Professor always gave them permission,
and Mrs. Macready, the housekeeper,
showed them round, telling them about the
pictures and the armour, and the rare
books in the library. Mrs. Macready was
not fond of children, and did not like to
be interrupted when she was telling
visitors all the things she knew. She had
said to Susan and Peter almost on the
first morning (along with a good many other instructions), "And please remember
you're to keep out of the way whenever
I'm taking a party over the house." In
this particular case the children
see Mrs. Macready bringing a party of
people and they dodge out the way.
"Sharp's the word" said Peter and all four
made off to the door at the far end of
the room. But when they had got out into
the Green Room and beyond it, into the Library, they suddenly heard voices ahead
of them, and realized that Mrs. Macready
must be bringing her party of sightseers
up the back stairs - instead of up the
front stairs as they had expected. And
after that - whether it was that they lost
their heads, or that Mrs. Macready was
trying to catch them, or that some magic
in the house had come to life and was
chasing them into Narnia - they seemed to
find themselves being followed
everywhere' and eventually they go into
the room where the wardrobe is and they
go through the wardrobe. Now this is an
excuse for me to return to a theme that I've
been suggesting in previous episodes, the
gothic quality of this novel. I've argued
that it's a war novel,  I've argued that
it's a novel about moral psychology but
I'm convinced is also a gothic novel. We
have
here a big rambling house full of
strange stories that doesn't seem to fit
together quite logically. They go through
passageways that they think
will take them out of her path but
actually she's on the other side and
then they go elsewhere and actually the
spatial dynamics the house don't seem to
be working
PS note to fans of Hogwarts of course.
Hogwarts literally does that. It
rearranges itself as you're moving
through it. So we've got this big old
house and all these strange things
inside it and we've got a housekeeper.
Housekeepers don't do well in gothic
fiction do they. They're not
popular characters. The thing
that sprang to my mind I'm afraid was
Mrs Danvers in Rebecca where there is
another young woman who is overawed by a housekeeper who basically wants to keep
the houses as a museum, only to be told
stories about the past and for no new
life to come into it. Or perhaps we think
about the Wolves of Willoughby Chase
where there is a housekeeper. She ends terribly badly doesn't she.
I think she ends up being blown up
on a sort of steam powered lawnmower
snow shovel if I recall. It's terribly bad. And we might think of The Borrowers where
again where the villain is a
housekeeper who doesn't believe in the
magical goings-on and wants to sort of benefit from being in charge of the
house. I think the image here is, as
I've suggested, someone who is
taking care of the remnant. Someone who
is treating the house as history, as a
shell, as a museum to be preserved, very
strongly in that case, in the case Mrs
Danvers of course because she wants to
keep Rebecca's memory there rather than
the second Mrs Dewinter coming and
living there and the house subverts that.
The house wants new life to happen. The
house wants things to come alive, not
unlike the way in which the winter
that rules over Narnia is going to be
disrupted. I don't mean to slander Mrs
Macready by saying she's as bad as the
White Witch, but on both sides of the
wardrobe we have this female figure who
sort of strict and wants the children to
to behave in unchildren like ways
and is trying to keep things staid and
frozen in time we might say. The
house is going to subvert that and the
children are going to subvert that. So
next chapter
is Into the Forest. You should read from
"I wish the Macready would hurry up and
take all these people away" said Susan
presently. "I'm getting horribly cramped."
All the way to "Great Scott!" said Peter. "I
hadn't thought of that."
"And no chance of dinner either," said
Edmund. As I've said before I'd really
like to know your thoughts about this
chapter, so do leave some in the
comments please and I'll see you next
time
