The Bible In The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe

After reading this chapter I came to the conclusion that Aslan is “Jesus”. He took his life just as Jesus did for the people. He cares more about the people them himself just like Jesus. After Aslan died he came back alive just as Jesus did. This story was more than just a regular story, it was telling the story of god in a different form.

Regardless of personal beliefs or opinions, it is nearly impossible to imagine the existence of modern English literature without the influence of religion. Since the dawn of recorded history, religion has played a vital, recurring role in works of fact and fiction, alike. In his book How to Read Literature Like a Professor, author Thomas Foster asserts several points about this relationship between religion and literature, especially in relation to the image of Christ, and states, “Culture is so influenced by its dominant religious systems that whether a writer adheres to the beliefs or not, the values and principles of those religions will inevitably inform the literary work” (125).

The symbolism between C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, the fourth book in The Chronicles of Narnia, and the New Testament in the Bible, particularly the account of Jesus’ death is not merely coincidental because The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe is, in fact, an allegory. An allegory is a story with morals in which characters, plots and settings are used as symbols. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, by C.S. Lewis is rich with Christian symbolism even though the allegorical nature of it is the subject of much controversy. Nonetheless, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe is an allegory. In this tale, four ordinary children find a wardrobe that leads them into Narnia, an extraordinary land parallel to our universe

In C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Lewis emphasizes the three points of philosophy, themes, and symbolism throughout his writing. Lewis was a strong Christian man, and wanted to make children see and understand all the stories of the Bible. Therefore, he put Christian elements through his books, but with fantasy characters as well. Especially in this story, Lewis conveys the differences between good and evil. Aslan is represented as Christ just as the White Witch represents the sense of evil. Lewis wrote several books in this Narnia series, but The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe became the most famous and recognized of his novels.

Thesis Statement: The characters and events of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe have symbolic similarities to events described in the Bible.

In the sixth chapter of Thomas C. Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Foster examines the Bible and its importance throughout stories, poetry and film. The Bible is one of the most commonly known pieces of literature and is even “nonsectarian” in Foster’s eyes (44). Because stories from the Bible are so well known, the Bible is a tremendously easy for authors to reference when constructing a new composition. Especially “prior to sometime in the middle of the twentieth century” writers were “solidly instructed in religion” and could count on the public being very well acquainted with Biblical stories (47). This widespread knowledge of the Bible lead to greater understandings throughout literature, and the recognized allusions helped

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is a fiction in which one of the main characters, the sturdy lion Aslan, has the most power and authority. There are tons of images of Aslan from the book and the movie that relate to Jesus in Bible. The most outstanding images are the death of Aslan on top of the stone table which represents the crucifixion of Jesus, Aslan’s rebirth which is similar to the Resurrection of Jesus, and Aslan’s offering the stone statues life just as the figure of God made everything. Shortly, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe includes a number of biblical images that are the details from the Bible which were reflected by the book and the movie.

Known as a safe read throughout the literary world, Christian fiction is devoid of true human condition such as the grotesque and the sexual. Richard Terrell proposes in his essay Christian Fiction: Piety is not Enough, that Christian fiction cannot rely on being religious anymore to earn the title of “good fiction”. He addresses the issue of Christian fiction limiting itself to a certain range of topics because it is a “religious” work and these limitations result in mediocre writing. Though the credibility is weak throughout Christian Fiction: Piety is not Enough, the elements of logic and emotional appeal are effective in convincing Christian readers that today 's Christian fiction is subpar.

C.S. Lewis wrote The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe because he wanted to write a children’s book “as a gift for his godchild” (Palmer). It began for him with a series of pictures that came into his mind. “Lewis stated, ‘Everything began with images; a faun carrying an umbrella, a queen on a sledge, a magnificent lion” (Kennedy). A fairy tale was forming in his mind and “‘At first there wasn't anything Christian about them; that element pushed itself in of its own accord’” (Kennedy), As the story progresses and Lewis’s characters and storyline begin to develop a seemingly clear relationship formed between The Bible and this novel. “Given Lewis’s strong Christian faith, that is not surprising. In fact, once the story was established, Lewis said he ‘...saw how stories of this kind could steal past a certain inhibition which had paralysed much of my own religion in childhood’” (Kennedy.) Even though C.S. Lewis started off writing a children's novel, many people perceive it to be a novel written in parallel to the Bible. Lewis has used Biblical references and a classic storyline to prove that good will alway triumph over evil. Aslan is labeled as a divine figure in the novel; he is also known as the son of the Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea. Aslan’s death and resurrection is like that of Christ. The four children are all considered important to in the world of Narnia, but in the real world they are

C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia is a series of books that contain a countless amount of biblical allusions. In each of the seven total books of the series, there are references to both characters and major themes in the Bible. For example, in the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, there are many allusions to the Bible such as when Edmund betrays not only his brother, Peter, and two sisters, Susan and Lucy, but also Aslan in order to stay with the Wicked Witch in her palace. This is similar to the story of Judas and the way that he leaves the disciples and betrays Jesus. Furthermore, in the same book, Aslan is killed by the Wicked Witch for the sake of Narnia similar to how Jesus is crucified for the sins of his people. Additionally, both

Macdonald, (2010) suggested that the bible is a cultural work of art because it is used in storytelling, preaching, drama and visual posters. The bible tells God’s story in how he created the world, the fall, redemption and the new creation. The bible has a sequence of events, songs, proverbs, prophetic books, writing of wisdom and letters. In the bible there is a comparison between connecting scripture and constructing culture. It is able to change one’s life and one’s culture because

This paper will focus on the theological nature of CS Lewis’ book based film, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. This will include a number of noticeable parallelisms, allusions and symbolisms found in

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is the first of several novels in the C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia. These books tell stories of another universe that is called Narnia. Here there are many unearthly things from talking animals and evil witches. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is the story of four young siblings who discover this new world by entering a wardrobe. Little did they know, they were destined to become the new royalty of Narnia but only after going through many battles. In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis analyzes the character Lucy, the theme of good versus evil, and the parallels of Narnia to other literature and Lewis’s life.

Writers for many centuries have depicted the greatest event of history, Christ's sacrifice in many ways. Fantasy writers, especially, have symbolized it as either the sacrifice of a lion on the Stone Table, a mighty warrior battling a red dragon, or less obviously, the destruction of a ring, and numerous other ways. However once writers chose to directly write about Christ's sacrifice without using symbols. Nonetheless even these writers differed greatly in their portrayal of Christ's sacrifice. Among these, William Langland, who wrote Piers Plowman, and the poet who penned “Dream of the Rood” both discuss Christ's sacrifice vividly and poetically. While Piers Plowman and “Dream of the Rood” share many similarities in their portrayal of Christ

The Gospel of Luke thoroughly illustrates the themes of mercy and compassion in his use of literary devices such as symbols, stories and parables. Luke urges how significant it is to feel and deliver the ready willingness to help anyone in need in our society. The Gospel offers a model to live out these virtues through Jesus’ actions and his parables.