The Voyage of the Dawn Treader | Chapter 7: How the Adventure Ended

Chapter Summary:

The chapter begins as Caspian points out the braclet that the dragon (Eustace) is wearing--the symbol on it belongs to Lord Octesian, one of the seven lost Lords for whom Caspian is searching. Slowly, through asking the dragon questions, Lucy, Edmund, and Caspian discover that the dragon is really Eustace, trapped in a dragon's body.

From then on (for about a week), Eustace does all he can to be helpful as a dragon. He helps fetch food for everyone to eat, flies around the island to look for natives or any danger (there are none), and even brings a large pine tree to build a new mast for the Dawn Treader. He also serves as a form of heat--during cold nights, everyone could gather around him and be warm. However--there is increasing concern about what to do with him when the Dawn Treader is ready to sail again.

After about a week on the island, Edmund wakes up one night and sees someone walking in the woods nearby. Edmund gets up to investigate, and finds a human Eustace in the woods. Eustace then tells Edmund that he wants to tell him privately about how he became human again. This is Eustace's story:

In the middle of the previous night, a lion approached Eustace and told Eustace to follow him. Eustace did so, and ended up near a large well on the top of a mountain. The lion told him to take a bath, but to undress first. Eustace then sheds three layers of his dragon skin, but it was never enough. The lion then said that he would undress Eustace. The lion tore into Eustace's scales very deep, taking off many layers of skin and scales. (Eustace describes this as both painful and satisfying.) The lion then threw Eustace into the bath, and Eustace almost immediately became human again. The painful bracelet he was wearing came off as well.

Eustace tells Edmund that he wonders whether it was all a dream, but Edmund tells Eustace that it wasn't--he had met Aslan, and Aslan had helped him change back into a human. Eustace apologizes to Edmund for being so horrible to him.

A few days later, the Dawn Treader is ready to set sail. No one wants to keep Lord Octesian's bracelet, and Caspian throws it upward, where it lands in an unreachable place on a high cliff.

Reflection:

This is an excellent chapter all around, and is a great representation of Eustace's redemption process. When Aslan visits him, the result is a great deal of pain and suffering for the final reward. That pain and suffering is manifested in the shedding of the skin and scales of the dragon-Eustace--the literal removal of the old Eustace. In some ways, you could say that Eustace is reborn as a new person. You get the picture by now--Eustace was Baptized, and there's little doubt in my mind about that allegorical connection. Like humans who are being baptized who are asked to prepare themselves spiritually for that moment, Eustace's transformation into the dragon, kind behavior as a dragon, and the final shedding of his scales are all precursors (necessary preludes) to his baptismal moment. I don't think there's anyone who would argue against this reading of this chapter!

But what a delightful chapter for Eustace all around. Even as a dragon, Eustace finds that he can be of great benefit to all those he had wronged for so long. By demonstrating that he is willing to be helpful, Eustace is preparing those around him for the transformed Eustace that is coming. Indeed, Eustace could have quite literally ensured the survival of the company of the Dawn Treader. And of course what we find most ironic as readers (though this is not in my summary) is that Reepicheep was Eustace's chief comforter throughout his time as a dragon. His greatest enemy had become his greatest ally. 

Of course, this chapter also provides us with the Edmund-as-evangelist moment, which is both a little strange and very fitting, all at the same time. Until Edmund mentions that Eustace has seen Aslan, Eustace doesn't really even know who Aslan is. Here is how Edmund describes Aslan to Eustace:

"He is the great Lion, the son of the Emperor-beyond-the-Sea, who saved me and saved Narnia. We've all seen him. Lucy seems him most often. And it may be Aslan's country we are sailing to" (p. 327).

This quote tells us many things. First, I think it's our first real confirmation that Edmund might know something about what Aslan did for him in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Remember, Susan and Lucy have a brief conversation about whether or not Edmund should be told--and they vaguely agree that he probably should be. But--this is the first confirmation (or at least hint) that tells us that he probably has been told. 

The quote also confirms to us something that we already know--that Lucy is the one who sees Aslan most often. But this begs the question--why? Is it because she is youngest? That she has the strongest belief? That she is the most pure at heart? We don't know, and I'm not sure we'll ever know.

There is much more here, but for the sake of brevity I will leave it at that for today. This chapter was a great one, and is a very neat demonstration of the culmination of Eustace's change. As the narrator tells us, from this point forward, "the cure had begun" (p. 327) for Eustace.