The 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.