Gabrielle Hunt - Narnia 1

Gabrielle Hunt

22 February 2012

Narnia 1

Bree and His Pride

                Being not only a talking horse, but a war horse, it was understandably difficult for Bree to have a realistic self image while in Calormen. Before running away with Shasta, he clearly felt superior to all the non-talking horses around him, those not of Narnian blood. He never had anyone to contradict him, either in his pride or in his “factual” ideas of Narnia and Aslan, since he had to hide the fact that he could talk from his captors. When he meets up with Shasta, Aravis, and Hwin, his pride frequently causes him to override any input they may have in favor of his own.

                When the group finds themselves being chased by a lion, Bree takes off at top speed, abandoning the other members of his group. This causes him great shame, to be a talking Narnian horse and yet fail to protect his friends. This, along with actually meeting the Aslan who he had claimed to be nothing more than a symbol, helps him realize that he is not as special as he was socialized to believe while in Calormen, and is actually just one of many talking horses, many of whom will be more educated and more courageous than he, once they actually get to Narnia.

                Our context determines so much of who we are. I’m the shortest of anyone over 11 in my family, at 5’2,” and thought of myself as abnormally short until I came to college and realized that my height is actually very close to average. Someone who grows up in a city may think of their speech as normal, but find that other people think they talk too fast when they are in a new location. But it’s larger than self-perception. If Bree had listened to his mother and grown up in Narnia rather than Calormen, who knows what kind of horse he would be. He may still have had issues with pride and vanity, but he wouldn’t have grown up thinking he was superior to any creature, talking or not. He may not have become a war horse. His entire life would have been different, just because he would have been in a different setting.