Through the Wardrobe Page 12
Part of the issue is the form Lewis chose for his Narnia stories—a form he terms a fairy tale. As he says in his book of essays Of Other Worlds: “I fell in love with the Form itself: its brevity, its severe restraints on description, its flexible traditionalism, its inflexible hostility to analysis, digression, reflections, and ‘gas.’ ” Lewis wanted readers to respond to his writing with their guts, not their minds. He often chose characters and settings that felt familiar in order to let the readers fill in the blanks with their own associations. The details and descriptions of the Muslim-inspired Calormenes—flowing robes, scimitars, and all—are intended to evoke an emotional response in the reader. For readers in the 1950s, Calormene society would have seemed strange and foreign—any reader familiar with the Arabian Nights would have thought of the Calormenes as mysterious, exotic, and perhaps even magical—and that alone was enough to make the reader uneasy and underline the sense of danger that our heroes are in. (Today’s readers are likely to find the Calormenes additionally threatening, since our media is full of stories about Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism.) This was clearly done very deliberately. In his essay “On Stories,” Lewis makes the distinction between readers who enjoy stories for plot, and those for whom the experience is heightened by these sorts of atmospheric details. It is mood that Lewis is after:If to love Story is to love excitement then I ought to be the greatest lover of excitement alive. But the fact is that what is said to be the most “exciting” novel in the world, The Three Musketeers, makes no appeal to me at all. The total lack of atmosphere repels me.
Lewis chose to fill The Horse and His Boy with atmosphere. Yet he wished to accomplish this without lengthy descriptions that would distract the reader from the excitement of the advancing story. Lewis’s choice of the fairy tale form to do this is both a strength and a weakness. It is a strength in that his brief descriptions of the Calormenes and their country are powerfully effective—for Lewis’s anticipated readership the descriptions were exotic, and in the new post-September 11 era they are both exotic and frightening. But the choice of the fairy tale form is a weakness in that sometimes these descriptions are so brief that they cross the line into stereotypes. In order to be effective they call upon the reader’s worst assumptions about the “otherness” of Islamic people. Calormene society is meant to seem very different from the reader’s world and from Narnia. While Lewis means readers to see Narnians as being “like us” (they even celebrate Christmas despite the fact that Jesus never existed in Narnia), the Calormenes—and by associations, Muslims—seem “not like us” in negative ways. Lewis’s contrast between Narnians and Calormenes undoubtedly resonates even more strongly with today’s readers, who are used to seeing images of radical Muslims and hearing that they are the enemies of freedom—just as Calormene culture frequently threatens the Narnian way of life.
Lewis compounds the issue by often contrasting Calormen with Narnia in an effort to show the superiority of Narnian values. For example, the Calormene culture is highly hierarchical and concerned with class (who has the highest status and the most power) and money. In the country’s capital—Tashbaan—“there is only one traffic regulation, which is that everyone who is less important has to get out of the way for everyone who is more important.” When Prince Rabadash kicks the Grand Vizier, his father, the Tisroc, tells him, “even as a costly jewel retains its value if hidden in a dung-hill, so old age and discretion are to be respected even in the vile persons of our subjects.” Clearly, the Tisroc does not feel much respect for his own people . . . even high-ranking advisors.
Narnians, on the other hand, are extremely egalitarian. The Narnian kings and queens travel with and take counsel from Talking Animals, viewing them as equal to themselves. In Narnia, honesty, bravery, and self-sacrifice matter much more than social class—it is, after all, a place where a Talking Mouse can become a great hero. When Shasta spots a band of Narnians in the city of Tashbaan, the first thing he notes is that none of them is riding in a litter—which means, of course, that there are no slaves among them. Instead, they are on foot and dressed in bright colors. “And instead of being grave and mysterious like most Calormenes, they walked with a swing and let their arms and shoulders go free, and chatted and laughed. One was whistling. You could see that they were ready to be friends with anyone who was friendly and didn’t give a fig for anyone who wasn’t.” The Narnians pluck Shasta out of the crowd and drag him along with them because they are so clueless about social class that they can’t tell the difference between a poor uneducated boy from a fishing village and their compatriot Corin, Prince of Archenland.
Sometimes these contrasts seem to cross a line into racism. There is no denying that there are some extremely uncomfortable descriptions of the Calormenes in the Chronicles of Narnia—especially the ones that emphasize the skin color of the Calormenes. The Calormenes are repeatedly described as uglier than their Narnian counterparts due to their dark complexions. For example, when the Tarkaan comes to Shasta’s village and offers to buy him as a slave from his so-called father, he notes: “This boy is manifestly no son of yours, for your cheek is as dark as mine but the boy is fair and white like the accused but beautiful barbarians who inhabit the remote North.”13 Even when Lewis tries to be complimentary, he can’t help coming off as patronizing. In describing Emeth, the noble and good Calormene in The Last Battle, he writes, “He was young and tall and slender, and even rather beautiful in the dark, haughty, Calormene way.” What a qualification! Why not simply end the sentence after the word “beautiful?” Finishing it the way Lewis does implies that the white Western standard of beauty—the Narnian standard—is the universal ideal, and that Calormenes are to be held to a different standard.
Lewis wasn’t very kind when describing the Calormenes’ odors, either. He refers to their breath as smelling of garlic and onions. The great capital city of Tashbaan is positively ripe with odors: “What you would chiefly have noticed if you had been there was the smells, which came from unwashed people, unwashed dogs, scent, garlic, onions, and the piles of refuse which lay everywhere.” Even in heaven, the talking dogs of Narnia manage to sniff out Emeth as a Calormene: “Anyone can smell what that is.” Not the most flattering portrait. All this is meant to call up stereotypes about foreign cooking and exotic scents. It is interesting to note, though, that as a result of globalization, especially the exposure to other cultures’ foods, the smell of garlic and onions has a great deal more appeal now than it would have had in mid-twentieth-century England. Lewis thought of these smells as exotic and unpleasant, whereas today’s reader would find them very common.
But these unflattering descriptions are not all there is to the Calormene argument. Lewis also presents the reader with a couple of characters clearly intended to bring a personal perspective to life in Calormen: Aravis (of The Horse and His Boy) and Emeth (of The Last Battle). Both of these characters are presented as “good” Calormenes, and are often cited as evidence that the books aren’t racist at all. But what does it really mean to be a “good” Calormene?
When Aravis is first introduced in the story, Shasta and his horse Bree hear—but do not see—her riding beside them. Bree can tell right away that the rider is of a superior social class to Shasta: “That’s quality, that horse is. And it’s being ridden by a real horseman. I tell you what it is, Shasta. There’s a Tarkaan under the edge of that wood.” Aravis is, of course, not a great Tarkaan warrior at all, but rather a Tarkheena—the daughter of a lord who is descended in a straight line from the god Tash. She is running away from Calormen to escape an arranged marriage to a much older suitor. (Perhaps worst of all—in Calormene terms—this suitor wasn’t even born a Tarkaan, but is a commoner who has wormed his way into the Tisroc’s favor with “flattery and evil counsels.”) Thus she and Shasta find themselves in much the same boat—they are each fleeing Calormen on the back of a Talking Narnian Horse. And yet, Lewis makes it clear that they are not on equal footing. Aravis is cultured and educated, while Shast
a suffers from a lifetime of deprivation in a fishing village. She is proud, and constantly reminds Shasta of his lower place in society through both her words and her actions. And yet it is this very society that she claims to want to leave behind, thanks to the injustices it has heaped on her—a desire to escape that seems perfectly natural to today’s Western reader, used to hearing about unequal rights for women in some Muslim countries.
Far from being a Calormene stereotype, Aravis is the most interesting, complex character in the entire Narnian cycle (I’ll admit it, she was always my favorite). I find it noteworthy those who accuse the Narnian books of being racist and anti-girl always seem to overlook Aravis, who is much smarter than Shasta (a white male Archenlander) and always at least as brave. It is fitting that Shasta and Bree initially mistake her for a warrior. She idolizes her older brother, who died in battle, thinks feminine things are silly, and is unflinchingly fearless. Lewis too seems to admire her courage and loyalty: “She was proud and could be hard enough but she was as true as steel and would never have deserted a companion, whether she liked him or not.” When Aravis discovers that she is to be married to Ahoshta Tarkaan, her first inclination is to take her own life. She has no fear of death, preferring it to the gilded cage that she would endure as wife of the future Grand Vizier.
But her mare, Hwin, persuades her to run away to Narnia instead. And so Aravis concocts a complex escape plan that ensures her several days’ worth of travel before anyone will even begin looking for her. Shasta, by contrast, doesn’t come up with a plan at all, but rather leaves all of the heavy thinking to his Horse, Bree. But her cleverness is, at times, tempered with cruelty and selfishness—as part of her plan, Aravis drugs a maid, knowing full well that the maid will be beaten for allowing Aravis to leave the household alone.
Aravis bucks nearly every Calormene tradition possible. She spurns money and jewels in favor of honor, rejects the feminine ideal, and refuses to obey her parents when they try to force her into marriage. When she runs into her dim-witted friend Lasaraleen in Tashbaan, Lasaraleen is aghast at Aravis’s plans. Lasaraleen is a true product of Calormene values, and she doesn’t understand why Aravis wouldn’t want to marry Ahosta Tarkaan—especially now that he has just been made Grand Vizier. For Lasaraleen, the concept of marrying for love—or even mutual respect—is completely alien. The only proper motivation for marriage (as for all things in Calormene culture) is financial and social gain: “But, darling, only think! Three palaces, and one of them that beautiful one down on the lake at Ilkeen. Positively ropes of pearls, I’m told. Baths of asses’ milk. And you’d see such a lot of me.” Similarly, Lasaraleen is outraged and horrified by the idea that Aravis is traveling with a “peasant boy.” In contrast, Shasta rises in Aravis’s esteem in this moment, as she realizes that she has more in common with him than with Lasaraleen. Aravis understands that going to Narnia will mean sacrificing her high rank in society, but this doesn’t matter to her. Once again, there is her honor—rather than her status—to think of: “I’ll be a nobody, just like him, when we get to Narnia. And anyway, I promised.”
Another honorable Calormene appears at the end of the Narnian cycle. In The Last Battle, Emeth (also a brave and noble Tarkaan) is the only Calormene in the story who is both devout and brave enough to desire to meet his god, Tash, face to face. When the evil ape, Shift, proclaims that anyone can go into the stable to meet “Tashlan,” Emeth alone among Calormenes and Narnians announces that he intends to enter the stable and meet Tash. Knowing the scimitars that wait inside, his Calormene captain tries to talk him out of it, but Emeth is undeterred. And so, he goes inside, and—although he manages to kill the guard placed there—meets his death. Soon after, the entire world is destroyed, and Aslan separates the good from the evil. The good go to Aslan’s country, and the evil disappear into a shadow and are never seen again. Emeth is, unsurprisingly, among the good. From this, Lewis defenders have concluded that the book is making a point about universal salvation for those of pure heart.
But are Aravis and Emeth really proof that Lewis wanted to express respect for those of other cultures?
In Reading with the Heart Peter J. Schakel points out that Aravis “becomes queen of Archenland when she marries the fair-skinned hero.” But the fact that Aravis marries Shasta at the end of the book is actually a double-edged sword. An interracial marriage, by itself, would seem to suggest that Lewis is making a point about good people of different cultures finding common ground. And yet Aravis has from the very beginning of the book rejected everything about her own culture. So what the book really manages to suggest is that the only good Calormene is one who prefers Narnia to Calormen—one who wants to become a Narnian.
Similarly, Gregg Easterbrook makes the following point about Emeth: Emeth (“Truth” in Hebrew) then finds himself in heaven, being praised by Aslan, and asks why he has been permitted to enter when in life he worshipped a rival faith. Aslan tells Emeth that the specifics of religion do not matter; virtue is what’s important, and paradise awaits anyone of good will.
Well . . . that’s sort of what Aslan says. Actually, when Emeth tells Aslan that he spent his life in service to Tash, Aslan replies that every honorable deed done in Tash’s name was, in fact, done for Aslan. This is not because the two deities are the same, but rather, because they are opposites, “For I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him.” This sounds so good that one is tempted to overlook the fact that it doesn’t really make much sense. Emeth was raised to worship and serve Tash. So where did he get his understanding of honor if not from the culture that raised him—a culture that worships Tash? What Aslan is really claiming here is that one cannot be a true product of Calormene religion and culture without being horribly corrupted by it. If you are not corrupt, it is because—deep in your heart—you were really Narnian all along.
It’s interesting to note that “Aslan’s country” encompasses not just Narnia, but further-off places as well, including Tashbaan and even England. One has to wonder about Aslan’s Tashbaan—it must be a very empty place. After all, Emeth is so unique in heaven that the Narnian dogs sniff him out immediately. One does not get the sense that many Calormenes passed Aslan’s test for entry to heaven.
I have been a fan of C. S. Lewis—and particularly of the Narnia books—for years. And yet I think it is important to read his books carefully and think about what they say in a serious way. Unlike Philip Pullman, I’m not ready to write off the entire series as “ugly and poisonous.” It would be useless to do so, anyway; the series is simply too popular and too widely read to disregard. But hopefully we can find a way to challenge the books’ assumptions through careful, thoughtful reading, and use them as another way to help us confront our fears and assumptions about Islamic culture. Like much of Lewis’s work, the many layers and textures in the Chronicles of Narnia offer an opportunity to see our own world in new, more enlightened ways, both ones Lewis intended, and ones he did not.
Lisa Papademetriou is the author of many novels, including The Wizard, the Witch, and Two Girls from Jersey (a parody with references to many classic fantasy books such as the Chronicles of Narnia); Sixth-Grade Glommers, Norks, and Me; Chasing Normal; and How to Be a Girly-Girl in Just Ten Days. Her Disney Fairies book, Rani in the Mermaid Lagoon, was a New York Times bestseller. To find out more about Lisa, check out her website: www.lisapapa.com.
A small girl enters a strange, haunted land where witches once roamed, the inhabitants speak a different tongue, and a weird, wolf-skin coat hangs in a massive wardrobe. . . . Another visit to Narnia? Not quite. For now, as a grown woman, Sophie Masson bewails the loss of two enchanted lands—the one she knew in her real life and the one she came to love through the pen of C. S. Lewis.
Going to Narnia
SOPHIE MASSON
My parents are French, though they worked in many different countries, and when I was a child, we used to go back to France
for a long holiday every couple of years, leaving our usual life in Australia behind. We left a world of city bustle and busy roads, English at school, and a suburban Sydney block for a very different one: a beautiful, haunted village house deep in the green southwestern French countryside, not far from an ancient wood which had the reputation of being enchanted. These worlds, and our experiences in them, couldn’t have been more different. In Sydney we weren’t allowed to venture outside the front gate on our own—our parents being terrified of cars, of strangers, of misadventures of all sorts—while in Empeaux, the quiet village where we lived in France, they relaxed, and we could roam free. We explored up and down the house and ranged over the huge park-like gardens, hung around in the village with the other kids, and took our bikes on long adventures to the woods, the river, or the next village.
Our house in Sydney wasn’t very old, though it was older than many in Australia, and we knew every inch of it. Our house in France, with its cellars, attics, passageways, big rooms full of gorgeous old furniture, and resident ghost, seemed an inexhaustible source of wonders and adventures. More than two hundred years old, its outbuildings dated from the Middle Ages, as did the bricked-up well (where, it was reputed, centuries ago a witch had been thrown) and the giant elm tree outside my parents’ bedroom window, where owls hooted spookily at night. The house might have had a ghost, but it was also a friendly house—a good-fairy house. Everyone who’d ever lived there loved it and hated to leave it—even the ghost, I expect! Once, when we were in residence there, we got a visit from a lovely old gentleman who used to live there as a child, and who told us it was the only house he saw now in his dreams.