Caspian’s Happiest Times
In conversation with
Caspian, Trumpkin convinced him to stay and meet a group that Trumpkin referred
to as “the Others.”The summary of this interaction isn’t even too substantial,
as Caspian simply meets a collective group of various animals. They have long
talks (some more suspect than others), and eat all kinds of foods. It seems to
be a rather innocuous set of interactions: the food, the animals, Trumpkin’s
ridiculousness. However, there are two statements made before the pair ventures
into the glade that make this scene interesting philosophically: Caspian’s
enjoyment, and the mention of the Other.
“Caspian should stay and
even promise that, as soon as he was able to go out, he should be taken to see
what Trumpkin called ‘the Others.’” The Other can have a vast array of meanings
depending on the genre, whether it is psychology, philosophy, or literature
theory. But because of the capitalization of the O in Other, I feel as if this
is at least a nod to some kind of theory one way or the other. Perhaps Jacques
Lacan would have seen it as a specific nod to the imaginary (which would fit in
well with Lewis’ train of thought). I think it speaks to Trumpkin’s suspicion
in general, as he would likely assume any various groups were in a class of “Other”.
But then, why
would Lewis call these the “happiest time that Caspian had ever known?” After
all, the interactions are nothing more than Trumpkin and Caspian walking
through various glades, and meeting random animals, and having food – food that
Caspian doesn’t even necessarily want (he tries to reject some honey, and it is
forced onto him). Then why is this such a happy time? He wakes up and at first
assumes it was a dream, but sees hoofprints, and recognizes the reality of the
situation. Maybe there was some kind of makeshift jubilation created from all
of these different groups of animals? Feel free to post a journal entry in response
to this, as I feel it could be debated from many different angles.
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