Silver Chair Essay, Research Paper
Imagine that you are in a different world from earth, time is different, and all
living things around you can talk. While in this world you will go through the
most amazing adventure that you could ever think of. That is just what happens
in the novel The Silver Chair. It is an action packed, and keeps you wanting to
read the whole way through. The author of the novel The Silver Chair is C.S.
Lewis. The most well known novels that C.S. Lewis has written are The Chronicles
of Narnia, which is made up of seven novels. This story takes place in the
present time. The adventure in Narnia that these children go on takes about 12
days, however on earth it is like you had never left as time is different in
Narnia. For example, if you left to Narnia while shooting hoops you would return
to earth at that exact day and time when you were shooting hoops. This story
starts out on a dull autumn day at a special school called the Experiment house.
As the story goes on they are transferred to a knew magical world called Narnia.
While in Narnia the children travel around a lot and go to several different
places, they include: The Wild Waste Lands of the North, The Hill of the Strange
Trenches, The House of Harfang, and The Underland. The main characters of this
story are: Jill Pole, Eustace Scrubb, Puddleglum, Aslan, Prince Rilian, and The
Queen of Underland. Jill Pole is a wimpy girl that gets picked on at the
Experiment House who meets a unpopular boy named Eustace Scrubb, and the two of
them travel to the magical world Narnia. Here they meet Aslan, Lord of the whole
wood, and son of the Emperor across the sea. Aslan is the Lion, the Great Lion.
He comes and goes as and when he pleases; he comes to help guide Jill and
Eustace on their great adventure. They also get help on their travels from a
Marsh-wiggle named Puddleglum, who helps guide the children as they do not know
this knew world well. Prince Rilian disappeared when riding his horse in the
woods about 10 years ago. The Queen of Underland is a bad green witch that is up
to no good, living in the Underland of Narnia. This story starts out at the
children’s school (The Experiment House) where Jill and Eustace meet each other.
They are both unpopular children who were hiding behind the gym from the other
kinds when they noticed a hole in the wall. The hole seemed to be some sort of
passage way, and at the end of this passage was a great lion. By now the
teacher’s and students were looking for the children, Jill and Eustace did not
want to stay so they traveled down this tunnel to meet this great lion Aslan.
Eustace is sent to Narnia right away but Jill is left behind, Aslan explains
that he let them come to Narnia because he needs their help. What had happened
was that the resent king of Narnia was very old and needed a replacement, the
king has a son (Prince Rilian) but he mysteriously disappeared about 10 years
ago. It was the two children’s job to find Prince Rilian, and to do this they
must follow the steps that the lion tells Jill. Eustace and Jill meet up in
Narnia and set out on their journey, early on they meet a marsh-wiggle(Puddgelum)
who joins them on there great journey. First they must travel to the Wild Waste
Lands of the North or the Land of the Giants. It is very rough terrain and very
cold, Jill and Eustace are dying for a warm place to stay. The three travelers
bump in to a beautiful lady dressed in green and a mysterious knight dressed in
black, the lady explain that they could stay with the giants. They would provide
food, cloths, and a warm place to stay, because Jill and Eustace are so hungry
and tired they decide to go to the castle(The House of Harfang). Puddgelum
explains that this might be a bad idea but they still end up going, while
staying there the three of them find out that the giants are planning to eat
them. They barley get away from the giants, and it was just by fluke that they
crawled underground to the Underland. While in the Underland they meet a lot of
the little munchkin people, who are digging some kind of hole to Narnia.
Something was weird about this place and the three travelers were determined to
find out what. When looking around the Underland they found the black knight who
they saw before. They figured out that this knight was Prince Rilian and that he
and everybody in the underland was under a great spell buy the green witch.
Jill, Eustace, and Puddgelum figure out the source of the Princes spell, break
it, then the Prince kills the evil green witch. However after the witch is
killed the underland starts to crumble, and now all four travelers take the
tunnel that was being made to Narnia. Everyone makes it back to Narnia safely
and Rilian takes his place as King of Narnia. In the Silver Chair Prince Rilian
would have never disappeared if he was not so obsessed with this green witch. Of
course he did not know she was an evil witch, all he knew was that she was a
beautiful young woman. So I think that the moral or lesson of the story is
beware of beautiful woman because sometimes they use their looks to get things
they want. In reading this novel I only came across a few areas of weakness in
this novel. The first is when the children first come to Narnia, and they meet
the great Aslan. I feel that you do not get enough information on him, and that
I only understood who he was because I have read a couple other Narnia books.
The second is that the current King of Narnia goes on a voyage to find another
person to replace him as King. Again you do not get a lot of information on this
character that I feel is important to the story. This is because I feel this
would give the reader a better understanding of what’s going on and who this
great King Caspin is, as I think it would make the novel a little more clearer
and enjoyable. The third is that this great Aslan has to let Jill and Eustace
come to Narnia to find the lost Prince Rilian. He tells Jill these four steps to
follow to find Prince Rilian. " First; as soon as the boy Eustace sets foot
in Narnia, he will meet an old and dear friend. He must greet that friend at
once; if he does, you will both have good help. Second; you must journey out of
Narnia to the North till you come to the ruined city of the ancient giants.
Third; you shall find a writing on a stone in that ruined city, and you must do
what the writing tells you. Fourth; you will know the lost Prince by this, that
he will be the first person you have met in your travels who will ask you to do
something in my name, the name of Aslan." From these four steps he seems to
be able to read the future and knows where the Prince is. Besides those few
areas of weakness I thought that this was a very good novel and has many areas
of strength. Having a new world in a novel could be hard to understand, however
in this novel the author explains the rules of this new world with little bits
of information in the first few chapters. For example in chapter two Jill hears
a lion talking and " she had remembered about what Scrubb had said about
animals talking in that other world, and realized that it was a lion
speaking." This gives you a good understanding of this new world before all
these different things star happening on the children’s travels. Another
strength is that along with the children on their journey is a marsh- wiggle (
Puddgelum ). To have Puddgelum on the journey is good because it is some one
that lives in Narnia and knows what this world is all about. Without having
Puddgelum on this journey the children would be confused which would also make
the reader confused. When reading this book I did not want to put it down
because the main characters were always in some kind of situation, and you did
not know what was going to happen next. Their main situation was to find the
Prince but along their journey they ran into such things as giants, a green
witch, the Underland and the people that live there. Also all these different
things that happen in Narnia compared to earth; such as talking animals,
different types of creatures, the landscape of Narnia, different time, and the
way that the beings in Narnia are not as advanced ( meaning weaponry and housing
etc.) as earth’s. All though I enjoyed reading this novel I think the author
could have improved in some of the areas of this novel. I felt that the author
did not develop the characters enough in this story. He briefly talks about the
two children on earth, and I feel that if he had them in more situations like
what their family life was like and you would learn more about what these
characters were like. Maybe if you learned more about the children you would
feel sorry for them, and while reading it would keep you moving on as you do not
want anything bad to happen to them. Another way that the author could have
improved this novel is to explain more about the green witch. Stuff like how did
this witch come to be? and why did this witch capture Prince Rilian and kill his
mother? There are two areas of this novel that are vague to me. The first is in
chapter one when Jill, Eustace, and Puddgelum first come to Narnia. The
situation that is vague to me is that Eustace falls off this great cliff because
Jill accidentally knocks him off. After this happens somehow Puddgelum is gone
and I am not sure if this is because of Aslan’s magic or because the other
person jumped after the falling Eustace. Another area of this novel that is
vague to me happens in the last few chapters. In these chapters you learn that
the green witch planned to take over Narnia, however it is not clear to me why
the witch needed Prince Rilian to obtain control of Narnia, when she was just
going to take it over by brut force. A thing that bothered me in this novel is
the two characters Aslan and the green witch. This is because they both seem
very powerful and would not need help from people to achieve their goals. In
this novel Aslan needed help from Jill and Eustace and the green needed help
from Prince Rilian. The story could have been made a little more exiting if
these two characters had some sort of limitations on their power. I really like
the idea of children trying to save the day in this novel. I think this is a
real positive as children will not always make the smart choice and will get
themselves into knew and exiting situations. I really enjoyed reading The Silver
Chair and found that I kept on wanting to read more and finished the novel
rather quickly. I found this book very enjoyable because the idea having a knew
world was very exiting having things such as talking animals, giants, and
witches. Having different types of creatures interacting with humans and seeing
the different landscapes of Narnia. The main characters were likable and you
wanted to make sure they found Prince Rilian. I feel that even though this novel
is fiction and because it is so well written it almost feels that the story is
true. I thought the Silver Chair was a great novel and would recommend you read
it sometime.