The Voyage of the Dawn Treader | Chapter 4: What Caspian Did There

Chapter Summary:

The next morning, Lord Bern tells Caspian to prepare all of his people in full armor--with as much pomp and circumstance as possible. Then, the whole company sails to Narrowhaven on the island of Doorn. Lord Bern has called ahead a few favors, so they are greeted by cheers and shouts for the King of Narnia. Soon enough, the entire town of Narrowhaven is cheering.

The small but glamorous company goes to Gumpas's (the Governor's) castle, where they are denied entry. They enter anyway, and find everything in disarray--the soldiers who are supposed to be guarding the castle are lounging around and dressed improperly.

They enter the castle and find Gumpas, who declines to see them. Lord Bern and Drinian promptly flip Gumpas's desk and lifts him from his throne. Caspian firmly tells Gumpas that this was not the welcome he was expecting as the King of Narnia. Caspian mentions to Gumpas that the Lone Islands have not paid their taxes to Narnia for about 150 years. Caspian also asks Gumpas why he has allowed slave trade to occur, contrary to Narnian policies. Gumpas replies that it is for economical reasons. Caspian says that it must stop, and Gumpas refuses. Caspian promptly relieves Gumpas from his position, and replaces him immediately with Lord Bern, who becomes the Duke of the Lone Islands.

The company then travel to the slave market, where Pug (the leader of the slave traders who captured Caspian the day before) is in the middle of selling his twenty-third slave. Caspian stops the trade, tells the crowd that all of the slaves are free, and that Pug will return all of his daily earned income to the slave buyers. Caspian seeks out, and finds, Reepicheep, Edmund, Lucy, and finally Eustace (who Pug was not even able to give away for free). Eustace, as usual, is sulking. 

Preparations are then made for the Dawn Treader to sail onward to the East. Caspian speaks with sailors to help them prepare for the journey. Twenty-eight days of provisions are made for the journey, which Edmund notes gives them only two weeks for their quest. Bern says that all he knows is that the other six Lords sailed east, and he never heard from them again.

Reflection:

C.S. Lewis gets back on track with this chapter, finally showing us the realized potential of King Caspian, who to this point has acted not much different than your average TCON human character. Here we see a King who exerts his power, and does it to create substantial good for a part of his kingdom. Here is King Caspian the Tenth at his finest. The following brief conversation occurs when Caspian orders Pug to refund all of the money that he has earned by selling slaves that day to the respective buyers:

"'Does your good Majesty mean to beggar me?' whined Pug. 

'You have lived on broken hearts all your life,' said Caspian, 'and if you are beggared, it is better to be a beggar than a slave'" (p. 312). 

What an excellent statement. Caspian knows better than to grant sympathy to the man who has made his ends meet by separating families and loved ones from each other. And what he is saying in this statement, of course, is "no matter how much I am depriving you, I am not depriving you nearly as much as you have deprived countless others." Caspian knows that what he is delivering is justice, even if in the smallest sense. 

Speaking of Caspian delivering justice, this is exactly what he does when he removed Gumpas from his Governorship as well. Reading through the summary it is probably not obvious, but the way the chapter is written, it is clear that the Lone Islands are plagued with governmental corruption and red tape that begins and ends at the Governor himself. Things that he wants to be changed are changed, and things that he doesn't want changed are, well, tabled until the next session. 

When Caspian calls our Gumpas on failing to pay taxes to Narnia and enabling the slave trade, Gumpas refuses to solve either issue, at which point Caspian quickly relieves the Governor of his duties. 

Perhaps the only thing a little unsettling about this chapter is how very "what goes around, comes around" it appears. While that's all well and good, this seems to be a rather consistent theme throughout TCON--that life delivers what individuals deserve. Of course, this is certainly not the case in real life. Horrible people live amazing lives and wonderful people live terrible lives. People in the TCON series tend to get what's coming to them though, for better or for worse. I'm just not sure about what lesson this is teaching our young readers.