The Magician’s Nephew by C.S Lewis ㅡInfluences and Characters Analyzing
Reading Reflection Series — 1
C.S Lewis was a well-known British writer in heroic tales and children’s literature. Amongst his works, The Magician’s Nephew and The Last Battle, which is the first and the last of his legendary series; The Chronicle of Narnia are always taken a special place in my heart.
In The Magician’s Nephew, the author narrates the adventure of two children who were magically transported into another world where an evil rules by magic rings, and they ended up witnessing the beginning of Narnia. As a reader, I found life-long lessons such as the differences between good and evil, morality, and human flaws through each of the main characters; Jadis, Uncle Andrew, Aslan, and Digory.
The two villains are the most memorable characters in The Magician’s Nephew, and it could be taken as an endless conversation between the readers to discuss them.
JADIS
Jadis, the Queen of Charn, is the core villain who has courage, charisma and is full of evil herself. Her appearance and the action of how she helped two children in the first place when the whole castle was in ruins made Digory and including readers misbelief that she is kind and wise (The Magician’s Nephew, 70–71). Not taking as long, her villain personality started standing out, and the readers can realize how much she craved for authority when she narrated the whole story that she destroyed the Charn City. Jadis led the wars against her sister for a throne to rule the kingdom and cast with the strong spell to end the war which will lead all living things including herself to be frozen for more than a thousand years. Not enough with that, she even followed the earth with the children and messed around in the town because of her greed for authority. Besides Queen Jadis, there is one left villain the readers can’t take out in a different way; the magician, Andrew.
The Magician, ANDREW
The magician Andrew is the uncle of Digory and is also one of the main characters of the novel. Unlike Jadis, the appearance of Uncle Andrew obviously presented the readers as a villain himself. According to the author, Uncle Andrew is a very tall and thin middle-aged man with a long face, sharply pointed nose, and grey hair which is opposite to his normal self (pg. 21). Because of his greed, his appearance turned to be ugly after opening the Pandora-like box from the Atlantic which was given by his grandma with the optimism of gaining magic from her. In addition, he transported the children with the rings that he created magically to seek another world rather than going himself for being a coward. The actions and mistakes that he made out of his deliriousness can make readers empathize with how he turned into a greedy and selfish person. However he overpowered other people using his magic by force, he became a slave of Jadis, was treated as a lower creature and did not experience the beauty of Narnia, and even did not recognize the god-like Aslan.
ASLAN
Aslan, the Great Lion, is the founder of Narnia, the creator of all the creatures, and the great king itself. At the end of Chapter 8, the character of Aslan was introduced by singing in an empty land, and the land of Narnia and all creatures started appearing along with his song. Furthermore, the readers can notice the authority and morality that Aslan holds at the moment it stands out in the middle of all creatures and orders them to wake up, speak, and think(pg. 121–138). Aslan is not only a respectful leader but also who has an upright and high-minded personality because Aslan forgave the evil-like magician Andrew by letting him sleep and forget about all of the things that he faced through and even forgave the sin of the Digory (The Magician’s Nephew, 203–209).
DIGORY
Aside from the spiritual, temporal, and supernatural characters such as Aslan, Jadis, and the magician Andrew, Digory who is the nephew of Uncle Andrew is the ordinary human being character that readers can relate to. Through reading, I assume that this character is imprecise, adventurous, and investigative. First of all, Digory and Polly arrived at Charn City due to his curiosity and adventurous self, and he awakened the Queen Jadis by striking the bell without précising the magic spell in Chapter 4 (pg-53–64). The unforgettable moment of Digory is when Aslan requested him in Chapter 12 to get an apple from the tree of knowledge to protect Narnia from the Witch (pg. 170), but he nearly betrayed Aslan by not giving an apple because of the influence of Jadis (pg.192–193). Nevertheless, Digory gave an apple to Aslan and ended up saving Narnia. After confessing his sin in front of the Lion, he got forgiveness from Aslan as a second chance and even was given an apple to cure his mother (pg. 208–209).
The Magician’s Nephew is an essential book for everybody who would like to read the whole series of the Chronicle of Narnia since it is the first book of this series. Through the reading, I felt that I witnessed as well as the birth of Narnia together with Digory and Polly who were the first guests of Narnia. Plus, I learned the differences between good and evil from the interactions of Jadis and Uncle Andrew with Digory and the noble actions of Aslan. Moreover, the author gave readers the message of human flaws and the possibility to fix our mistakes again to be good through the character of Digory. With those kinds of valuable messages and well-written by the author, The Magician’s Nephew became on the list of my most worth-reading books of all time.
“A children’s story that can be only enjoyed by children is not a good children’s story in the slightest” -C.S. Lewis.
Behind the scene is fun . . .
