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.