Lewis/Narnia #2
Why
does Lewis favor the use of children characters?
It
seems that the easy and convenient answer would be to reply that his tales were
meant to be read by children and therefore children characters made the most
sense to create a children’s story. But this does not strike me as satisfying.
I believe that Lewis wrote with far too much intentionality for that to be the
only reason for his use of children. We also have read elsewhere that Lewis had
very different views of “children’s stories” than most do.
I think
there may be a connection here to the gospel of Matthew, in Chapter 18. In
verse 3, Jesus says “Truly
I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not
enter the kingdom of heaven.” There is obviously a distinctive innocence and
purity that accompanies childhood. Adults are susceptible to great levels of
sin and corruption. There is an exhortation in the New Testament that we should
have faith like little children—maybe the theme of having a strong imagination
and almost naïve belief relates to Lewis’ myth?
In any case, I believe that the
verse from Matthew can be connected to the idea in Narnia that one must be like
a child to successfully cross over from this world to another. In the cases
where we do see adults move between worlds, such as Uncle Andrew in “The
Magician’s Nephew,” they do not do so with much success. It is only when one is
like a child that one can be fully open to the experience of another world.
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