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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: The Problem of Susan, and of Narnia, and of CS Lewis
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
quote:
Originally posted by MouseThief:
And I'm gobsmacked that in a discussion of Lewis's portrayal of women, nobody has mentioned Till We Have Faces.
They have; scroll up.
Sorry, my mistake. You'll have to scroll up, over and down: it was mentioned on the other thread, here.
I did, however, mention Orual in my listing of strong female Lewis characters.
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Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
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Scholar Gypsy
Shipmate
# 7210
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Posted
Re: whether it's psychologically realistic for Susan to turn her back on Narnia. I always thought, when I was old enough to be bothered by it and think it through, that she made herself believe it had all been a dream or a game because that was the only way she could cope. She's grown up, had suitors (if not lovers), been a Queen with quite a lot of power, presumably, and then she was shoved back to being English schoolgirl, before women had many choices. Perhaps she didn't cope as well as the others, with the pain of 'not being allowed back' and so concinved herself it was a dream.
Or perhaps it could be viewed as a more conscious rebellion - the first time Aslan told her she couldn't go back to Narnia she thought 'bugger this then, see if I care'.
Perhaps the analogy is with someone who has a very intense religious experience and can't deal with teh empitness of 'normal' life afterwards so decides it must have been a dream, or something they imagined.
Posts: 822 | From: Oxford | Registered: May 2004
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Nicolemr
Shipmate
# 28
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Posted
BTW, I wonder if Lewis ever considered that Susan was then left with, as far as we know, only two relatives. Her unplesant Aunt and Uncle, Eustice's parents.
Poor Susan!
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On pilgrimage in the endless realms of Cyberia, currently traveling by ship. Now with live journal!
Posts: 11803 | From: New York City "The City Carries On" | Registered: May 2001
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Hooker's Trick
Admin Emeritus and Guardian of the Gin
# 89
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mummyfrances:
The way I have always read the Last Battle was that EVERYONE dies, but Susan is not in heaven. Because in her effort to "grow up" she discarded her experiences and turned away from Narnia.
This is also how I've always read it: the Last Battle is the End Times, the Final Judgment, The End.
I also don't think it's particurly shocking or revolting or mind-boggling to imagine a person who believed as a child (had faith) and grew up and grew out of them. Surely what Lewis is saying in that our Faith is Real, and while we might be more receptive to it as children, convincing ourselves as adults that it is false does not turn it into faery stories or falsehoods. It's still Real.
I'm sure I know more adults who have turned their backs on "childish" beliefs like Christianity than I know adults who retained such beliefs.
Why is it so hard to believe that Susan would do it?
Posts: 6735 | From: Gin Lane | Registered: May 2001
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adso
Shipmate
# 2895
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Posted
I don't see the fate of Susan as a problem and I don't see it as misogynistic. I'm sure most of us have met girls like Susan at the end of TLB. And boys like Eustace at the start of VOTDT. And unpleasant characters like half the characters in That Hideous Strength (not that this really reflects CSL's thought; it's a bad pastiche of Charles Williams IMHO).
I've read Narnia all my life, from the age of about 6 or 7, and didn't stop in my teens. I saw Susan in TLB as someone I was free not to be and found this quite a relief.
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os justi meditabitur sapientiam, et lingua eius loquetur judicium. lex dei eius in corde ipsius, et non supplantabuntur gressus eius. alleluia.
Posts: 688 | From: pays de galles | Registered: Jun 2002
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Hooker's Trick:
Why is it so hard to believe that Susan would do it?
Part of the problem is the way Lewis describes Susan's fall (if you will). There are no big reasons - no death of a child or a parent, no great ethical dilemma, no grave crime perpetrated by her or on her, no growing existential doubt. Just lipstick and nylons. Just boys. Just culture. That's all.
And for those who love Narnia, we can't quite believe that that would be enough to tear us away from our belief. If we had been Susan, we would have stayed faithful. We feel both betrayed (by Susan) and outraged (by Lewis). Or for that matter betrayed by Lewis and outraged by Susan. And we have pity and compassion that this Queen of Narnia will never go further on and further up.
And as Hooker's Trick says, we all know someone who's lost faith in Jesus for just those 'just' reasons. Nothing big. Just. ![[Frown]](frown.gif)
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Gwai
Shipmate
# 11076
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by MouseThief:
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
It is made clear that the rest of her family dies and goes to heaven while she is left behind and probably damned.
And probably damned? I never read that out of it. Clearly not everybody here has, either.
Fair. I noticed that after it was too late to edit. I tend to interpret the ending of the last battle as the end of the world, but I admit that many here clearly don't.
That post was just meant to clarify since it seemed that perhaps my post was being understood as showing that I didn't know how the series ended.
[ 07. January 2008, 22:04: Message edited by: Gwai ]
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A master of men was the Goodly Fere,
A mate of the wind and sea.
If they think they ha’ slain our Goodly Fere
They are fools eternally.
Posts: 11914 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
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Arabella Purity Winterbottom
Trumpeting hope
# 3434
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by adso:
I don't see the fate of Susan as a problem and I don't see it as misogynistic. I'm sure most of us have met girls like Susan at the end of TLB. ... I saw Susan in TLB as someone I was free not to be and found this quite a relief.
But Susan is not a bad person, or at least, if she is we have no evidence beyond her becoming a fairly average young woman. When you say "girls like Susan" what do you mean? And do those girls remain "like Susan" forever?
This is my biggest problem with the stories - they're terribly lacking in nuance when it comes to good and bad.
Also, in regard to some of the earlier discussion, I have always read The Last Battle as being about the end of the worlds, including our own, because of the view of the Professor's house as they gallop further up and further in. Clearly, other posters think otherwise, and I'd be interested in how they view it.
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Hell is full of the talented and Heaven is full of the energetic. St Jane Frances de Chantal
Posts: 3702 | From: Aotearoa, New Zealand | Registered: Oct 2002
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
I've always thought the end of TLB was the end of the Narnian world, and that our world continued. Each world has its own "heaven" -- ie a place where, as someone in TLB says, all that is best and loveliest in that world is preserved in perfect form (and presumably where people from that world go when they die), but only when the Narnian world ends is everyone and everything good from Narnia taken up into Aslan's eternal kingdom. I read it as a promise that this would someday happen to our world, but hadn't yet. In Lewis's cosmology each separate inhabited world has its own version of incarnation/redemption, also its own version of heaven, but they are all connected.
I also agree with whoever said that the ending of TLB fits well with Lewis's theology, as also expressed in Screwtape -- better to die young as a believer than live a long life and have the chance to lose your faith. It's a bit harsh but I have to say that in terms of traditional Christian theology it's hard to disagree.
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Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
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cattyish
Wuss in Boots
# 7829
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Posted
Lewis describes the place they get to at the end of TLB as the "real" Narnia, so isn't the house they see in the real England as opposed to the poor reflection we currently live in?
Lewis seems IMO to leave it to God to decide whether Susan gets another chance.
In The Great Divorce Lewis wrote again about what happens at death. I think he believed we can reject God and lose out on Heaven, and that Hell is real and horrible.
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...to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived, this is to have succeeded.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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JonahMan
Shipmate
# 12126
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
I've always thought the end of TLB was the end of the Narnian world, and that our world continued. Each world has its own "heaven" -- ie a place where, as someone in TLB says, all that is best and loveliest in that world is preserved in perfect form (and presumably where people from that world go when they die), but only when the Narnian world ends is everyone and everything good from Narnia taken up into Aslan's eternal kingdom. I read it as a promise that this would someday happen to our world, but hadn't yet. In Lewis's cosmology each separate inhabited world has its own version of incarnation/redemption, also its own version of heaven, but they are all connected.
I agree - given that the time from the beginning of Narnia (in The Magician's Nephew) to its ending (in The Last Battle) occupies only a few decades in Earth time, I always imagined that Narnia time was very foreshortened relative to 'our' Earth and thus we would carry on for much longer (as seen by an observer outside both - please ignore relativity!).
The presence of the Prof's house in heaven-Narnia is anomolaus though. I have a vague memory it was destroyed somehow in Earth (not sure about this at all) so perhaps that would allow it to be recreated there?
Or maybe all worlds end up in the same Heaven, with the best bits of each intermingled, and being temporally divorced, the best bits can appear independent of their otherwise pseudo-simultaneous coexistence on their place of origin.
Or something.
Jonah
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Thank God for the aged
And old age itself, and illness and the grave
For when you're old, or ill and particularly in the coffin
It's no trouble to behave
Posts: 914 | From: Planet Zog | Registered: Dec 2006
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by cattyish:
Lewis describes the place they get to at the end of TLB as the "real" Narnia, so isn't the house they see in the real England as opposed to the poor reflection we currently live in?
Lewis seems IMO to leave it to God to decide whether Susan gets another chance.
In The Great Divorce Lewis wrote again about what happens at death. I think he believed we can reject God and lose out on Heaven, and that Hell is real and horrible.
Though he does leave open the possibility of universalism in TGD. I think (IIRC) he asks George Macdonald about universalism specifically, attributing the belief to Macdonald and asking if it's true. Macdonald tells Lewis such knowledge is beyond him.
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Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
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Hooker's Trick
Admin Emeritus and Guardian of the Gin
# 89
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
There are no big reasons -
She lost her faith. I think Lewis is telling us that is a Big Reason.
I'm very unclear about why it should matter if Susan were "bad" or not. Our Lord, like Aslan, loved "bad" people -- again the Last Battle shows us the wicked dwarf and the Calormen (am I the only one who wonders if that's meant to sound like "coloured men"?) who is admitted.
Lewis is telling us it's not about good or bad. It's about Faith. Whosever liveth and believeth on me shall never die and all that.
Trudy --
quote:
I've always thought the end of TLB was the end of the Narnian world, and that our world continued.
I can't remember how the parents figure in. Don't they meet their (English) parents in the New Narnia?
Posts: 6735 | From: Gin Lane | Registered: May 2001
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The Revolutionist
Shipmate
# 4578
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by JonahMan:
I agree - given that the time from the beginning of Narnia (in The Magician's Nephew) to its ending (in The Last Battle) occupies only a few decades in Earth time, I always imagined that Narnia time was very foreshortened relative to 'our' Earth and thus we would carry on for much longer (as seen by an observer outside both - please ignore relativity!).
The presence of the Prof's house in heaven-Narnia is anomolaus though. I have a vague memory it was destroyed somehow in Earth (not sure about this at all) so perhaps that would allow it to be recreated there?
Or maybe all worlds end up in the same Heaven, with the best bits of each intermingled, and being temporally divorced, the best bits can appear independent of their otherwise pseudo-simultaneous coexistence on their place of origin.
Or something.
Jonah
In the books, Aslan's country, the real Narnia, already existed prior to the destruction of the Narnia of the shadowlands, and in the same way, the heavenly England, including the heavenly home of the professor of which the one in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was only a shadow, just as our whole world is only a shadow that will one day pass away, leaving the reality. It's all in Plato - what do they teach them in schools these days? ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
Not particularly Christian, in my opinion - Lewis took the Platonic influence too far for my liking, and the idea of a physical resurrection seems notably absent from The Last Battle.
But I think that Lewis has been badly misrepresented over the "problem of Susan". I wrote a blog post responding to some of Philip Pullman's criticisms, and also an essay giving a more scholarly look at the differences in Pullman and Lewis's views of growing up in His Dark Materials and the Chronicles of Narnia. Writer Rebecca Anderson also has a very good essay on the subject here.
[ 07. January 2008, 23:24: Message edited by: The Revolutionist ]
Posts: 1296 | From: London | Registered: May 2003
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
quote:
However, in context, that's a sacrifice. It is made clear that the rest of her family dies and goes to heaven while she is left behind and probably damned.
There's nothing that indicates damnation. At the end of the "Through The Stable Door" chapter, there's a discussion about Susan. Her siblings say she's "no longer a friend of Narnia", she's growing up too fast, and is basically being a brat. Polly speculates that Susan may live a rather shallow life, but hopes she really *does* grow up.
Even from a very fundamentalist view of salvation, Susan still has a chance. She's still alive.
IMHO, lots of people put away the *wrong* "childish things" as they grow up. (And not just religious thing.) If they're lucky, they get time to straighten that out. Part of growing up is looking at where you've been, and beginning to understand it.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
I quit reading Lewis after Till We Have Faces because I thought he was cruelly unsympathetic to the plain sister. What girl wouldn't be jealous of a beautiful sister, so obviously favored by their father? Yet, Lewis seems to encourage the reader to view her with a superior, judgmental eye. I felt the same thing in the Narnia books, to a lesser degree, that he was telling us certain children were "bad" and it was right that they should meet a bad end.
So many people love C. S. Lewis that I always end up thinking that I just must not "get" him. I really don't.
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
If The Great Divorce really does indicate anything about Lewis's view of the Afterlife, Susan is sitting on the foothills of Heaven in some deep confab with an angel/ departed acquaintance while everybody else is climbing up the waterfall. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
[ 08. January 2008, 00:02: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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bush baptist
Shipmate
# 12306
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Posted
Doc Tor wrote: quote:
Part of the problem is the way Lewis describes Susan's fall (if you will). There are no big reasons - no death of a child or a parent, no great ethical dilemma, no grave crime perpetrated by her or on her, no growing existential doubt. Just lipstick and nylons. Just boys. Just culture. That's all.
I think her "fall" is foreshadowed in Prince Caspian, where she is shown as wilfully not believing that Lucy saw Aslan, or rather, crushing the little faith she had, out of weariness of the journey. She says "I believed deep down, or I could have, if I'd let myself." (Not a precise quote -- I haven't got the books here.) I think we're meant to imagine that the same process is going on -- the others see only that she's caught up in worldliness, but she's actually crushing her remaining belief from weariness at being "odd" in her local culture. (And maybe other reasons, too.)
I'd like to to think that the "once a queen" promise holds good, and that she is able to fight her way back to belief.
Nicolemrw wrote:
quote:
BTW, I wonder if Lewis ever considered that Susan was then left with, as far as we know, only two relatives. Her unplesant Aunt and Uncle, Eustice's parents.
Poor Susan!
I don't suppose Lewis thought about that at all.
Though they weren't so very bad (of course, I'm a fellow-vegetarian ) and they would be devastated too, having just lost their only child; I expect they'd be needing Susan very much, as the last person other than themselves who'd known Eustace all his life, and as someone who might have been able to help them understand how and why he'd changed over the past two or three years. I can imagine the three of them would have a lot to work through together.
Posts: 1784 | From: drought-stricken land | Registered: Jan 2007
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
Grief counselling with Susan, Harold and Alberta. Now there's a fanfic I bet no-one's written.
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Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
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bush baptist
Shipmate
# 12306
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Posted
Go for it, Trudy! ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
ETA: I can hardly wait!
[ 08. January 2008, 00:24: Message edited by: bush baptist ]
Posts: 1784 | From: drought-stricken land | Registered: Jan 2007
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
I'd be far more concerned if Lewis had shown Susan's falling away as a matter of crime, or abuse, or some dreadful, uncope-with-able event. Those things do come, and I suspect the Lord cuts people a lot of slack under such pressure. I think all of us would, and I'd be pretty upset with Lewis if we had to listen to even the pretty mild blame of Susan we get at the end of the Last Battle, under such circumstances.
But what's going on with Susan is that she has (temporarily, at least) traded her birthright for a mess of pottage--for mere lipsticks and nylons and such. All well and good in their own way, but nothing in comparison of what she used to have, and has discarded, devalued. Put simply, she is being silly. Like most of us at one time or another.
But should silliness result in such a heavy punishment? Well, we would hope not--but there's no denying that being silly at the wrong moment has some pretty drastic results for some people. Witness the Darwin Awards. It's just the nature of the world we live in.
I don't actually think Susan is being punished at all by being "left behind." I think she is being given another chance, a whole series of second chances, if you will, to grow up and get her head on straight. There's every reason to hope that she will succeed. After all, "once a queen in Narnia, always a queen in Narnia." Her road may be a bit longer and rockier, but I think she'll get there by God's grace in the end.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
Fair. I noticed that after it was too late to edit. I tend to interpret the ending of the last battle as the end of the world, but I admit that many here clearly don't.
That post was just meant to clarify since it seemed that perhaps my post was being understood as showing that I didn't know how the series ended.
If any of that was directed at me...I didn't think that you didn't know how the story ended over all, but that you and some of the other posters might have missed that point. People were assuming that Susan was both dead and (probably) damned.
![[Angel]](graemlins/angel.gif)
I've had similar discussions with people who think Narnia is an allegory.
As to the end of the world, I read it as only the end of the temporal Narnia. The only reason the kids' parents were there was that they got to the train station about the same time, and were involved in the accident. Since they weren't Narnians, they went into Heaven by a different path--but as the kids traveled further into Narnia, they could see their parents a long ways off. They were all headed to the same place.
I think it's also possible that Lewis viewed Susan's loss of her family as "severe mercy"--something that would rock her enough to make her get her priorities straight.
Many people do lose their childhood faith, and eventually find their way back as adults.
FWIW.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Dinghy Sailor
Ship's Jibsheet
# 8507
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Hiro's Leap:
Assuming Lewis' views on salvation and damnation are correct, killing off Christian characters is merciful. ISTM it's just a logical conclusion from his premise, which is one reason I diagree with his faith.
If you killed Christians when they were young, they wouldn't be able to evangelise anyone else and the faith would die off pretty quickly (cf. Romans 10:14
Posts: 2821 | Registered: Sep 2004
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Paul.
Shipmate
# 37
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:
I quit reading Lewis after Till We Have Faces because I thought he was cruelly unsympathetic to the plain sister. What girl wouldn't be jealous of a beautiful sister, so obviously favored by their father? Yet, Lewis seems to encourage the reader to view her with a superior, judgmental eye.
It's entirely possible that he did, I can't really remember. I've only read Til We Have Faces once and I can't remember much about it. However what I do remember is the scene near the end where she meets with the widow of the man she loved and discovers, to her surprise that they both shared parts of his life that the other envied. I remember feeling glad for her then.
I also have an impression of her as someone who carved out a place for herself despite her lack of looks and favour, that she was 'self-made' and that that was to her credit, and that I had admiration and respect for her because of that. I assumed that because I felt that way that that's how Lewis deliberately portrayed her but perhaps not. I can't recall it in enough detail to be sure.
I must dig out my copy...
Posts: 3689 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2004
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Nicolemrw:
Dyfrig, thanks for mentioning The Shoddy Lands (or whatever it was called), I was trying to remember the details of that story. I remember reading it and being quite dismayed by it, the total difference between the character's "experience" and my own as a female.
How interesting you thought it was about you. I didn't take it to be about women but about that one particular woman. Woe to Lewis for allowing female characters to have faults, especially faults that were stereotypically female for the time. How dare he not be 50 years ahead of his time!
Twilight et al.: Really I don't understand why Twilight thinks Orual is unsympathetically drawn. I think Lewis has great sympathy for her, portraying her as both a victim of her circumstances, and of her own choices, and of the capriciousness of the gods. That she makes bad choices, and is envious and possessive of her little sister, is only misogynist if, again, we only allow people with faults to be middle-class white heterosexual males. TWHF is to my mind one of the most incredible books portraying the thoughts of a woman ever written by a man.
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
My point being, all Lewis' knowledge regarding girls up to university age was academic.
Not true.
1. Mrs Moore had a daughter, Maureen, 8 years Lewis' junior and thus still in her teens when he came home after the war and set up housekeeping with Mrs Moore.
2. At least two girls came to stay at the Kilns during the London air raids: Patricia Boshell and Jill "June" Flewett are mentioned in Tolkien and C.S. Lewis: The Gift of Friendship (Colin Duriez. Paulist Press, 2003). Many more children billeted at the Kilns; these are just two whose names I could discover in a quick check.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
quote:
Originally posted by Hiro's Leap:
Assuming Lewis' views on salvation and damnation are correct, killing off Christian characters is merciful. ISTM it's just a logical conclusion from his premise, which is one reason I diagree with his faith.
If you killed Christians when they were young, they wouldn't be able to evangelise anyone else and the faith would die off pretty quickly (cf. Romans 10:14
I think this question deserves a whole new thread.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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sanityman
Shipmate
# 11598
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Late Paul:
All analogies, even Jesus' parables, only work with some, not all of the available details, otherwise they wouldn't be analogies. I think the important thing is not that she experienced things with her own senses but that there's no tangible proof of those experiences once you're back in our world. That's analogous to experience a spiritual reality that you can only apprehend by faith IMO.
None of us can revisit the past, and our memories are all prone to misremembering and false interpolation. I can't get past the fact that she didn't have a subjective, spiritual experience but a real physical one (which just happened to be in a different world). I went to the south of France when I was eight; for Susan to deny Narnia would be like me denying France existed (I haven't been back there since).
You say you have re-evaluated your youger spiritual experiences: so have I (to the extent that I don't think I've had a genuine "spiritual" experience). But I don't think them memory of a place I've been to and the memory of a personal, subjective experience are the same sort of thing at all.
Why do I get worked up about this? I feel cheated by Lewis and have my suspension of disbelief broken at the end of the book so he can make a cheap shot. Susan is as bad as Emeth is good.
- Chris.
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Prophesy to the wind, to the wind only for only the wind will listen - TS Eliot
Posts: 1453 | From: London, UK | Registered: Jun 2006
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bush baptist
Shipmate
# 12306
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Posted
quote:
Susan is as bad as Emeth is good.
Do you mean the character or the writing?
Posts: 1784 | From: drought-stricken land | Registered: Jan 2007
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Paul.
Shipmate
# 37
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by sanityman:
quote:
Originally posted by Late Paul:
All analogies, even Jesus' parables, only work with some, not all of the available details, otherwise they wouldn't be analogies. I think the important thing is not that she experienced things with her own senses but that there's no tangible proof of those experiences once you're back in our world. That's analogous to experience a spiritual reality that you can only apprehend by faith IMO.
None of us can revisit the past, and our memories are all prone to misremembering and false interpolation. I can't get past the fact that she didn't have a subjective, spiritual experience but a real physical one (which just happened to be in a different world). I went to the south of France when I was eight; for Susan to deny Narnia would be like me denying France existed (I haven't been back there since).
But if Narnia is an analogy for Faith then we're already comparing a literal tangible experience with an inner intangible one. If Susan "forgetting" Narnia is like you forgetting France then going to Narnia is like becoming a Christian by literally going to Heaven and seeing Jesus.
quote:
You say you have re-evaluated your youger spiritual experiences: so have I (to the extent that I don't think I've had a genuine "spiritual" experience). But I don't think them memory of a place I've been to and the memory of a personal, subjective experience are the same sort of thing at all.
Neither do I. But neither do I think Jesus is a literal Lion or that his followers can literally see and touch him (sacraments excepted)
quote:
Why do I get worked up about this? I feel cheated by Lewis and have my suspension of disbelief broken at the end of the book so he can make a cheap shot. Susan is as bad as Emeth is good.
My experience of many arguments on the Buffy newsgroups is that if someone feels cheated, has lost suspension of disbelief, then it's pointless to argue the point, because suspension of disbelief isn't generally something that you 'recover'.
To be honest, The Last Battle is my least favourite Narnia book for other reasons and I haven't read it since I was a child. For all I know I would have the same reaction about Susan if I read it again. I guess I just argued this because I do think that the analogy is at least consistent as far as it goes.
Posts: 3689 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2004
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
quote:
But what's going on with Susan is that she has (temporarily, at least) traded her birthright for a mess of pottage--for mere lipsticks and nylons and such. All well and good in their own way, but nothing in comparison of what she used to have, and has discarded, devalued. Put simply, she is being silly. Like most of us at one time or another.
One of the more plausible points in Lewis' ethical scheme is that really spectacularly bad people are corrupted good people. It is those who could have been saints who turn out to be the really bad sinners. Only Lucifer could have ended up as the devil of hell.
Now this being the case Susan's fall ought to be more dramatic. She has been a Queen in Narnia. She has spoken with Aslan and witnessed his resurrection from the dead. Her turn to the dark side, therefore, ought to be spectacularly boggling. But it isn't. It is entirely trivial. Had Susan become the High Priestess of Tash I might be inclined to cut Lewis some slack, but nylons and lipstick?
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by MouseThief:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
My point being, all Lewis' knowledge regarding girls up to university age was academic.
Not true.
1. Mrs Moore had a daughter, Maureen, 8 years Lewis' junior and thus still in her teens when he came home after the war and set up housekeeping with Mrs Moore.
2. At least two girls came to stay at the Kilns during the London air raids: Patricia Boshell and Jill "June" Flewett are mentioned in Tolkien and C.S. Lewis: The Gift of Friendship (Colin Duriez. Paulist Press, 2003). Many more children billeted at the Kilns; these are just two whose names I could discover in a quick check.
Fair comment (see how educational the Ship is!).
I would, however, be interested to know how much time Lewis spent in the company of said girls. From everything else I've read, he seemed to either be in his rooms in Oxford, or in his study, or down the pub, or on long walks - and mostly in the company of men.
I think I'm coming to the conclusion that Lewis was just mystified by the fairer sex and couldn't quite see the point of them (until later in life). Not an uncommon fault in men of any era.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
I think I'm coming to the conclusion that Lewis was just mystified by the fairer sex and couldn't quite see the point of them (until later in life). Not an uncommon fault in men of any era.
From the man himself, emphasis mine:
quote:
The Second Friend is the man who disagrees with you about everything. He is not so much the alter ego as the anti-self... He has read all the right books but has got the wrong thing out of every one. It as if he spoke your language but mispronounced it. How can he be so nearly right and yet, invariably, just not right? He is as fascinating (and infuriating) as a woman...*
*Quoted in Shadowlands by Brian Sibley.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
Had Susan become the High Priestess of Tash I might be inclined to cut Lewis some slack, but nylons and lipstick?
Exactly, plus why do nylons and lipstick represent all that is shallow and worldly?
Doesn't he recognize that an adolescent girl's fascination with these things is not out of vanity but a desire to prove to herself that she is attractive enough to be chosen as a wife. It is through this desirability that women fulfill their destiny as procreators. Would he despise a boy for liking sports and adventure?
Lewis didn't have to have first hand experience of women. He would surely have read George Elliot and Tolstoy.
Posts: 6817 | Registered: May 2002
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angelfish
Shipmate
# 8884
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Posted
Didn't Lewis also have a neice (called Lucy and to whom TLTWATW is dedicated)? He was undoubtedly patronising toward women by our standards, but I'm not sure that by the standards of his time he would have been regarded as a misogynist.
As far the the Susan story goes, I think we need to be careful to remember that this is only a story and characters can be used to make a point without any moral reprehensibility on the part of the author. Are we concerned that by damning Susan, Lewis might be damning us by implication if we also become distracted by nylons and lipstick?
I don't see it as implausible that a person could be distracted from his/her faith by trivial matters such as caring too much about their appearance. I know of one woman in particular, with whom I shared some very strong spiritual experiences as children, who eventually gave up on the Christian life and spent most of her time concerned with boyfriends, fashion, makeup etc. I remember as a teenager thinking she was "doing a Susan". Isn't it a theme of Screwtape and possibly Lewis's other writings that one way the Devil tries to get Christians is to distract them with something that seems harmless and even good in itself, but which can very quickly take over? (Edmund and Eustace are similarly tempted away by Turkish Delight and dragon's treasure respectively - although admittedly they don't have the background knowledge and experience of Aslan that Susan has).
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"As God is my witness, I WILL kick Bishop Brennan up the arse!"
Posts: 1017 | From: England | Registered: Dec 2004
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CCole1983
Apprentice
# 13315
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Posted
The thing about The Chronicles of Narnia is that just about everything in them has some correlation to the world we live in today. I see Susan's character as someone who simply succumbed to society's standard of what women were supposed to be, to be interested in, and went for the shallowness of existence rather than the deeper aspects of it. I see her as more of Lewis' commentary on society rather than any other commentary, and that fits in with Lewis' own philosophy.
Posts: 7 | From: Houghton, NY | Registered: Jan 2008
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Josephine
Orthodox Belle
# 3899
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
One of the more plausible points in Lewis' ethical scheme is that really spectacularly bad people are corrupted good people. It is those who could have been saints who turn out to be the really bad sinners. Only Lucifer could have ended up as the devil of hell.
But Screwtape makes the point to Wormwood that, while it's delightful to make great sinners of their subjects (at least those with the potential of becoming great sinners), it's far safer and more certain to simply distract them with little things -- and most particularly, with a desire to fit in with shallow, trivial, and worldly people.
In the case of Screwtape, of course, he's talking about a man, not a woman. So I don't think his point is misogynistic.
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I've written a book! Catherine's Pascha: A celebration of Easter in the Orthodox Church. It's a lovely book for children. Take a look!
Posts: 10273 | From: Pacific Northwest, USA | Registered: Jan 2003
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
Had Susan become the High Priestess of Tash I might be inclined to cut Lewis some slack, but nylons and lipstick?
Exactly, plus why do nylons and lipstick represent all that is shallow and worldly?
Doesn't he recognize that an adolescent girl's fascination with these things is not out of vanity but a desire to prove to herself that she is attractive enough to be chosen as a wife. It is through this desirability that women fulfill their destiny as procreators. Would he despise a boy for liking sports and adventure?
If, for whatever reason, Lewis had chosen to have Edmund or Peter or Eustace be the one who "fell away" from Narnia (unlikely in the case of Edmund or Eustace since they had already starred in their own redemption narratives), I'm sure we would have been told that he cared about nothing but football and going to the pub with his mates. Or something. In other words, the same concept of being obsessed with shallow, adolescent fascinations and the eagerness to distance himself from "childish" fairy tales and faith.
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Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
One of the more plausible points in Lewis' ethical scheme is that really spectacularly bad people are corrupted good people. It is those who could have been saints who turn out to be the really bad sinners. Only Lucifer could have ended up as the devil of hell.
But Screwtape makes the point to Wormwood that, while it's delightful to make great sinners of their subjects (at least those with the potential of becoming great sinners), it's far safer and more certain to simply distract them with little things -- and most particularly, with a desire to fit in with shallow, trivial, and worldly people.
In the case of Screwtape, of course, he's talking about a man, not a woman. So I don't think his point is misogynistic.
Sure, and if Susan had begun mired in trivia and ended mired in trivia there wouldn't be a problem. But she's a Queen in Narnia so its akin to the problem Screwtape and Wormwood have when the patient finds God and starts hanging out with the nice Christians. The flesh and the world have failed, they have to resort to the devil. Susan's failure should have been equally drastic given what has gone before.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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Nicolemr
Shipmate
# 28
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Posted
Mousethief, it's hard to justify at this point, since it's been at least 20 years, probably more, since I've read it, and details are understandibly, I hope, a bit dim in my memory, but I do seem to recall that I did in fact get the impression that Lewis was presenting this as typical of women's "mindset", not that it was this one particular woman. I think I got the feeling that the idea was not that there was a problem that the younger man was marrying this particular woman, but that he was marrying at all.
However, as I say, it has been over 20 years (now that I think of it, more like 30, because I think I was in high school) since I read it.
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On pilgrimage in the endless realms of Cyberia, currently traveling by ship. Now with live journal!
Posts: 11803 | From: New York City "The City Carries On" | Registered: May 2001
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by angelfish
Didn't Lewis also have a neice (called Lucy and to whom TLTWATW is dedicated)?
She was Lucy Barfield, the daughter of Owen Barfield. She was not Lewis's niece, but his goddaughter.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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Arrietty
Ship's borrower
# 45
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Posted
Without being too psychological, I wonder if the better to die than be apostate thing relates at all to him working through the loss of his mother at a young age.
If that was part of a belief system that got him through, maybe he felt it was important to convey it to others.
Susan then ceases to be a character and becomes a horrible example - but maybe as he wasn't engaged with Susan as character anyway it seems, he didn't think anyone else would mind.
Being a rather plain little girl I have to confess I wasn't particularly bothered about what happened to Susan - I'm ashamed to admit it never occurred to me that she'd lost her whole family!
[ 08. January 2008, 15:47: Message edited by: Arrietty ]
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i-church
Online Mission and Ministry
Posts: 6634 | From: Coventry, UK | Registered: May 2001
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Jonathan Strange
Shipmate
# 11001
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
But she's a Queen in Narnia so its akin to the problem Screwtape and Wormwood have when the patient finds God and starts hanging out with the nice Christians. The flesh and the world have failed, they have to resort to the devil. Susan's failure should have been equally drastic given what has gone before.
I don’t think it is unlikely or difficult that she would forget she was a Queen in Narnia.
Don’t the children forget nearly everything about Narnia when they’re out of it? When they return in Prince Caspian they begin to remember not only small details that anyone could forget, but huge parts of their lives in Narnia. Even in Narnia Susan wants to ignore Aslan even though she believes in him (Prince Caspian, following the River Arrow to Aslan’s How). How much easier would it be to forget him when she was back in our world?
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"Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight,
At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more,
When he bears his teeth, winter meets its death,
When he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again"
Posts: 1327 | From: Wessex | Registered: Feb 2006
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Eigon
Shipmate
# 4917
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Posted
Looking back on it, I'm sure that subconsciously thinking about Susan was one of the reasons why I had to be dragged so unwillingly to the Just 17 counter in Boots to choose my first make-up - I still wanted to be able to go through the wardrobe. (Still do, actually).
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Laugh hard. Run fast. Be kind.
Posts: 3710 | From: Hay-on-Wye, town of books | Registered: Aug 2003
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Arabella Purity Winterbottom
Trumpeting hope
# 3434
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Posted
So, tell me women - how many of you were dressed up for church as children, forced into a frock as teens and now wear lipstick and nylons (or their equivalent) to church? Certainly the first two bits of that are my experience in the 60s and 70s.
I don't think my mother would have insisted, but my Dad certainly pushed for me to look perfect in church.
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Hell is full of the talented and Heaven is full of the energetic. St Jane Frances de Chantal
Posts: 3702 | From: Aotearoa, New Zealand | Registered: Oct 2002
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Hooker's Trick
Admin Emeritus and Guardian of the Gin
# 89
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
but nylons and lipstick?
La Trick asks me to remind you that to some women, nylons and lipstick are a temptation above lucre and influence.
Posts: 6735 | From: Gin Lane | Registered: May 2001
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eigon:
Looking back on it, I'm sure that subconsciously thinking about Susan was one of the reasons why I had to be dragged so unwillingly to the Just 17 counter in Boots to choose my first make-up - I still wanted to be able to go through the wardrobe. (Still do, actually).
A nice right-of-passage, ruined for Eigon.
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Yes, Arabella Purity Winterbottom, my mother and I always went to church wearing nylons, dresses, hats, gloves, and lipstick.
I wonder if Lewis felt that he had gone over to the shallow, worldly side when he started wearing a suit and tie.
I don't really think he hated women, just that he didn't understand them very well and judged them too harshly. I think Jesus would smile at a young girl and her first attempts at grown-up clothes and make-up.
Posts: 6817 | Registered: May 2002
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Bullfrog.
Prophetic Amphibian
# 11014
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Posted
What's so "grown up" about makeup? Gwai never wears any. Does that mean she's still, on some level, a child?
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Some say that man is the root of all evil
Others say God's a drunkard for pain
Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden
Was burned to make way for a train. --Josh Ritter, Harrisburg
Posts: 7522 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
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sanityman
Shipmate
# 11598
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Late Paul:
But if Narnia is an analogy for Faith then we're already comparing a literal tangible experience with an inner intangible one. If Susan "forgetting" Narnia is like you forgetting France then going to Narnia is like becoming a Christian by literally going to Heaven and seeing Jesus.
Fair enough, and I take your point. I don't think Susan's behaviour was credible (which is what a few people in this thread seem to be complaning about). I know analogies work by being "alike but different," but for me this implausibility in the narrative makes it a bad analogy: Susan turning her back on Narnia isn't the same sort of thing as someone re-evaluating the earlier spiritual experiences. I love the book and the rest of the series in spite of this, so perhaps my choice of language was too harsh.
All the best,
- Chris.
PS: I'd be interested in what your other reasons are for disliking TLB, and which your favourite book is (mine's the Silver Chair), but that might be a bit OT...
PPS:
quote:
Bush Baptist wrote:
quote:
Susan is as bad as Emeth is good.
Do you mean the character or the writing?
I meant only that Emeth was saved to make a point, and Susan excluded.
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Prophesy to the wind, to the wind only for only the wind will listen - TS Eliot
Posts: 1453 | From: London, UK | Registered: Jun 2006
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Arabella Purity Winterbottom
Trumpeting hope
# 3434
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Posted
Well, exactly, Mirrizin! I am, as the thread on bridal extravagance would have it, princess-challenged and always have been. My partner, on the other hand, loves nothing better than to dress up.
I don't think either of us is more or less a believer.
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Hell is full of the talented and Heaven is full of the energetic. St Jane Frances de Chantal
Posts: 3702 | From: Aotearoa, New Zealand | Registered: Oct 2002
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Arrietty
Ship's borrower
# 45
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mirrizin:
What's so "grown up" about makeup? Gwai never wears any. Does that mean she's still, on some level, a child?
I think CSL means that Susan thinks makeup is grown up. Maybe it's cleverer than we think - she's decided Narnia is made up and swapped it for make up. (Or maybe not....)
I don't know about Gwai but I certainly hope I'm still on some level a child mirrizin. And I don't wear makeup much but that's because it tends to make me look worse rather than better not because I don't want to be grown up!
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i-church
Online Mission and Ministry
Posts: 6634 | From: Coventry, UK | Registered: May 2001
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