Reflection on trees:
In "What Lucy Saw," from Prince Caspian of Chronicles of Narnia, Lucy is awake in the forest after a long day of travel while her companions sleep. Lewis depicts her in a "dreamish kind of wakefulness"(Narnia 121). She wanders/wonders through the forest where she is led by a nightingale's song to a clearing. Once there, Lucy feels "a great longing for the old days when the trees could talk" (Narnia 122). She begins to imagine what the the trees would be like in human form, creating complexity within the myth. I thought this was a great example of Sehnsucht, because she longs for something greater than what is around her, and then she goes even further to make her imagination a reality when the trees truly do come alive! Like the inklings, I think that trees are a symbolic tie to the life cycle found in nature, seen in common metaphors like the tree of life. I see the tree as the ultimate nurturer that dies and comes back to life as the seasons change.
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