Prince Caspian | Chapter 10: The Return of the Lion

Chapter Summary:

The chapter opens with Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy following the River Rush toward the Great River (the merging point is the Fords of Beruna). They climb downward toward the river, and travel all day. Finally, they reach the Fords, but as they do, arrows are shot at them. The five of them crouch low and run through the forest, escaping the arrows and several close calls.

They stop in a fir wood for the evening and eat the bear meat that they had collected the day before. 

After they all fall asleep, Lucy awakens to the sound of a voice calling her name. She gets up and sees that the trees around her are nearly awake--they are doing a dance, and at times appear almost human. She continues through the moving trees until she comes to a clearing, where she finds Aslan. 

Lucy notes that Aslan is bigger, and he tells her that this is because she is bigger as well. Aslan makes it clear to her that she could certainly have followed him the day before, despite the reservations of her siblings and Trumpkin. Aslan tells Lucy that there is no way for her to know what would have happened if she had done so. Aslan tells Lucy that her objective now is to go immediately to her siblings, wake them, and tell them that they must follow her and Aslan. Aslan says that her siblings may not be able to see him immediately, but might eventually. 

Lucy, reluctantly and nervously, goes to wake each of her siblings. She tries Peter and Susan first, without luck. When she wakes Edmund, he is unable to see Aslan, who is standing nearby. Edmund says that he wishes she would stop seeing things, but that they should probably wake Peter and Susan anyway.

Reflection:

This is a very interesting chapter, in my opinion. Here, we have numerous lessons in faith. Already, in the last chapter, we see Peter, Susan, and Trumpkin reject Lucy's claim that she has seen Aslan and that he wants them to go a different direction. Not only do Peter, Susan, and Trumpkin fail in their faith in Aslan, Aslan makes it very clear that Lucy's faith wavered as well--Lucy could have easily gone to Aslan on her own, despite the protest of her siblings. In fact, this was the preferred option, and exactly what Aslan had planned. Instead, because of Lucy's decision to go along with her siblings, they have to move to Plan B.

Plan B is even more risky. Now, Lucy has to wake up her siblings in the middle of the night--after a rather difficult day of walking and running--only to tell them that the invisible Aslan is here, and that they must follow him immediately. This is a huge lesson in faith, again, for everyone. It is a lesson in faith for Lucy, who knows that "it is a terrible thing to have to wake four people, all older than yourself and all very tired, for the purpose of telling them something they probably won't believe and making them do something they certainly won't like" (p. 260). Likewise, it will surely be a lesson in faith for the others, who will have to either follow Lucy, or worse--let her go off on her own, which she is sure to do this time if her siblings reject her.

Funny enough, this is now bringing back some memories of the last time I read Prince Caspian, because if I recall how the rest of the story progresses, it will be a pretty neat demonstration of what faith (here, in Aslan) can and cannot do--and it differs from one character to another. There is indeed a good reason that only Lucy can currently see Aslan, and I suspect that the reason is that her faith in him is currently strongest--perhaps not as strong as the last time she was in Narnia, but still stronger than her siblings, and certainly stronger than Trumpkin.

It should be interesting to see what C.S. Lewis does from this point onward with the concept of faith--but it is clearly going to be very thoroughly addressed. After all, even the trees are beginning to show their faith, as they awaken to the presence of Aslan's return to their woods. We will see what the consequences are of delayed or absent faith as Lucy's siblings come to remember, to believe, in Aslan once again.