The Silver Chair | Chapter 16: The Healing of Harms

One day behind, oops... Will get back on track this weekend again. :)

Chapter Summary:

Jill wakes up the next morning. Glimfeather the owl greets her and then leaves. A Faun comes in and says that Eustace and Puddleglum should get up too--Centaurs will be letting Jill and Eustace ride on their back (a huge honor) to Cair Paravel. They learn also that Prince Rilian has gone ahead of them to meet King Caspian there. They all eat breakfast. Eustace and Jill say a heartfelt goodbye to Puddleglum.

Centaurs take Eustace and Jill to Cair Paravel. They arrive to see the ship bearing King Caspian just arriving. A celebration is beginning when a Lord comes off of the ship and whispers to Prince Rilian and the dwarf Trumpkin. Then, King Caspian, clearly on his deathbed, is bourne down from the ship. King Caspian greets and blesses Prince Rilian, and lays his head down and dies. 

The crowd slowly realizes what has occurred. Eustace and Jill wish they were back home. Just then, Aslan comes up behind them and tells them that he is there to bring them home. 

The scene dissolves before them, and suddenly Aslan, Eustace, and Jill are standing in Aslan's Country, on the mountain where their journey began. In the stream is the dead King Caspian. Aslan, Eustace, and Jill cry. Aslan tells Eustace to go grab a thorn and then drive the thorne into his paw. Eustace does so, and the blood from Aslan's paw drips onto the stream over King Caspian's body. King Caspian slowly starts to look younger, and eventually he stands up and greets Eustace. 

Eustace is afraid at first, knowing that Caspian has died. Aslan reassures Eustace. Then, Caspian asks if he can have a glimpse of the world from which Eustace and Jill came from. Aslan says that he can. 

Aslan, Caspian, Eustace, and Jill go back to the door where Eustace and Jill came into Narnia. Caspian, Eustace, and Jill, dressed in their Narnian armor, run down the hill through the bushes at the bullies that had been bothering Jill. The bullies see Aslan's backside and the three warriors charging at them, and they flee. Aslan and Caspian return to their own world, and Aslan closes the door to Narnia. Eustace and Jill change clothes and do on with their lives as friends. Meanwhile in Narnia, Prince Rilian mourns his father and then becomes a great King of Narnia, and the land was at peace during his reign.

Reflection:

As with most final chapters in the Narnia series, there is a great deal of options for discussion. I think what's most significant and impactful in this chapter is how C.S. Lewis deals with Prince Caspian's death. There have been a few times that C.S. Lewis has addressed death in the Narnia novels, but it's usually only touched on lightly, and in the form of great battles. Many more people are saved than those who die, as a whole. But King Caspian was old, and it was his time.

And here's where the allegory kicks into high gear. Clearly, Aslan's Country is Narnia's version of heaven. There's a lot that happens here. There's the moment where Eustace pierces Aslan's paw and his blood transforms Caspian into his younger self again. Sort of some Eucharist imagery going on in that moment, of course. But my favorite moment is this one, in which Eustace is hesitating to greet Caspian, because he very clearly has died. When Eustace hesitates, here's what Aslan says:

"Yes ... He has died. Most people have, you know. Even I have. There are very few who haven't" (p. 451). 

These words are so simple, and yet so comforting I think. I think. At least, it is comforting to Eustace, and I think it might be comforting to a child reading this novel. But then again, I am not sure. It is one thing for a novel to address death casually as a moment in battle, in which the death is only a vague sort of plot device. What this chapter does is much, much more. Here, we deal intimately with death and even touch on what comes afterwards. We know it's a good place where Aslan has brought them; after all, Eustace and Jill want to stay much more than they want to return to their own world. Aslan feels what they are thinking and tells them that they won't be staying, but that the next time they come there, they will be coming to stay. Not too subtle on that one, Aslan. But Eustace and Jill don't seem to notice. 

But most important of all about this chapter and how it deals with death is that it is only a preparation for what is coming. If this chapter deals with death in an intimate way, it is completely dwarfed by the content of The Last Battle. And so we move on to the last of the Narnian stories, where we will learn what comes of our protagonists and Narnia itself. The answer, I am afraid, is not altogether sunshine and roses. Onward.