Disney’s Frozen is supposed to be loosely based on Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen, but, sorry to mix metaphors, “loose” is a pretty big “stretch” in this case. Aside from some overlap with their symbolic use of coldness, there is not much else in common between them. Both are good stories in their own right, though, so why try to connect them in the first place?
The only explanation I can come up with is that Disney values being able to trace its movies back to the original fairy tales, full of history and tradition and that extra something special they have. After all, what better way to produce an instant classic than to hang on the coattails of a true classic? Nevertheless, “classic” is no more than a stamp on Frozen because it is so far removed from the original.
So what, then, is so wrong
with The Snow Queen by modern
standards that Disney had to discard essentially the whole thing? Let’s first
look at the plot and then try to figure this out.
PLOT ANALYSIS
Exposition – Background
The Snow Queen begins
with a story behind the story, one that has many similarities to the fall of
man in salvation history and serves as the premise: A mischievous sprite seeks
to create discord in the world, so he makes an evil mirror that can distort the
appearance of Goodness, Beauty, and Truth. Some of his sprite buddies get their
hands on the mirror and shatter it into a million pieces that spread across the
world, each separately retaining the power of the whole.
Inciting Incident –
The Problem
One of those pieces falls in the
eye of a good little boy named Kay, and another takes hold in his heart. The
glass, which symbolically represents sin, turns him cold to the warmth of love
and friendship and makes him a stranger in his own garden. He no longer sees
the flowers as God made them but as the evil sprite wants them to be seen.
Rising Action – The
Build-up
And so Kay grows apart from his best friend and playmate, a little girl named Gerda, and starts getting into a lot of trouble.
The Snow Queen by Elena Ringo
A wicked Snow Queen, presumably born out of the mirror somehow, eventually lures him away to her palace where he turns black with cold. So blinded is he by the glass in his eye, though, that he does not even feel the coldness that grips him. He spends his days as a prisoner, listlessly playing with blocks of ice and arranging them into all sorts of different patterns. He hopes in his own numb way to form them into a magical word that will set him free, a word the Snow Queen wants to keep hidden from him
Meanwhile, Gerda sets out to find Kay. She gets carried from
one place to another, each offering her a different path for her own life. She
turns down the comforts of a never-ending childhood, the splendors of life in a
royal court, and the thrills of banditry all in favor of finding Kay. The
further she travels, the colder it gets and the more difficult her journey
becomes. Yet, the warmth of Gerda’s goodness and her frequent prayers protect
her from danger, even when she ends up barefoot in the snow.
Climax – The Breaking
Point
At long last, Gerda arrives at the palace of the Snow Queen
and sees Kay playing with the ice blocks, but he is completely unaware of her
presence. Gerda goes to him and sheds “burning tears” that melt the lump of ice
in his heart. She then sings a song from their childhood:
“The rose in the valley is blooming so sweet, The Child Jesus is there the children to greet.”
The song awakens his conscience, and Kay weeps so much that the glass rolls out of his eye. Next, the ice blocks form themselves into the magical word that can set him free—eternity.
Falling Action – The
Unraveling
Kay and Gerda then travel back over the lands from whence
they came, seeing everything anew with unblemished eyesight. Flowers and
verdure awaken in their path as they find their way home.
Resolution – Happily
Ever After
They return both changed in age and wisdom. Kay and Gerda have grown up, not just literally but also spiritually, for they have learned to see the world as God does, to embrace Goodness, Beauty, and Truth with childlike simplicity.
In connection to salvation history, the story has come full circle. Kay and Gerda have gotten their innocence back by overcoming the sin in the world. As such, they have been figuratively readmitted into the eternal garden that is Heaven.
THE DISNEY EFFECT
It’s little wonder Disney changed the story so much given all the Christian messages. Some fairy tales, like Cinderella, only have Christian undertones, but The Snow Queen is much more overt. While it might be nice for a major filmmaker like Disney to keep those intact, it’s not surprising they don’t since their audience has all sorts of religious affiliations. More viewers equals more sales.
What does surprise me is that Disney made Frozen so exclusively about girls. Sure, I understand the “girl power” idea, but I actually think transforming Kay into the far-off character of Elsa (the older sister) weakens that message. After all, Gerda saves Kay, not the other way around. Hans Christian Andersen had already turned the knight in shining armor archetype on its head.
What’s more, Gerda does it out of the purest love there is—sacrificial love. We can infer that she and Kay will live happily ever after as husband and wife, but Hans Christian Andersen leaves out any hint of romance. His really is a story for kids because it celebrates childhood as the goal of life, not marriage or some other grown-up ideal. After all, Kay and Gerda learn that they must be like children to enter into the Kingdom of God.
Another big difference with Frozen is that it is set against the backdrop of royalty whereas
Kay and Gerda are common folk. Once again, I get it. Princess themes sell lots
of movies.
But in my view, Gerda could hold her own with the best of
the fairy tale princesses and the princes,
even without a crown. That’s the beauty of The
Snow Queen. Its heroine is a real-life character who overcomes the dangers
in the every-day world. Gerda could be any little child, girl or boy, rich or
poor, who brings the warmth of love to others.
CONCLUSION
Hans Christian Andersen may have liked Frozen, but it’s doubtful he would have found much in common with his own story. In either case, Disney breathed new life into The Snow Queen for a new generation of children, including my students.
They always enjoy comparing the versions and learn much about the differences in our world today and that in which Andersen lived. By examining the cold and ice imagery, they also come to a better understanding of the dangers of sin.
As I frequently tell my students, the more one sins the more he becomes desensitized to sin. That’s a pretty difficult concept for them to understand on its own, but it makes perfect sense when they hear a story about a little boy who gets glass in his eye and eventually becomes a prisoner of the Snow Queen without even realizing it.
Now, that’s something kids can imagine and understand and
even relate to.
Alas! Some stories do not end quite how we would like them to. One of the starkest examples of this in my classroom is Hans Christian Andersen’s The Mermaid. Unlike in the Disney version, his little mermaid does not live happily ever after with the prince. She dies. Or rather, she gets turned into seafoam.
Is being seafoam any better than death? my students inevitably wonder.
Well, that really depends on what being seafoam means in the world of the story. If it’s just another form of death, then it really makes no difference in the end. If, as is the case in the story, it opens the door to some kind of new life for the little mermaid, then being seafoam is clearly much better than death.
The catch, though, is that Hans Christian Andersen never tells us exactly what the little mermaid’s new, foamy life will consist of. He leaves that for us to imagine.
That’s where the fun part comes in for the aspiring storyteller!
With a little prompting, my students come up with beautiful sequels, usually having the little mermaid gain an immortal soul and thereby live the kind of happily ever after that Hans Christian Andersen wanted his readers to aspire toward.
A sequel need not pick up from the end of a story either. If there’s something unanswered in the middle of the story, a child could run with that. Just think about all the potential storylines from The Snow Queen, another of my favorites by Hans Christian Andersen. Each of little Gerda’s adventures in her quest to save Kay includes fantastic characters and subplots that could be used to create whole new stories. The most popular of those characters with my students is always the robber girl, and I’ve gotten to enjoy many wild stories about her over the years.
Finally, just as some stories make us wonder what happens next, others make us wonder what happened before. Stories that begin in a fallen state are perfect for this. Some of my favorites for a prequel are Jack and the Beanstalk by Joseph Jacobs, Hansel and Gretel by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, and The Selfish Giant by Oscar Wilde. In each of these stories, tragedy is a premise. Jack’s dad is gone. What happened to him? Hansel and Gretel’s mother is dead. What happened to her? The giant is mean and selfish. What made him be like that?
The child who tries to answer one of those questions will have the makings of a whole new story without having to come up with everything from scratch. In the process, she will gain more insight into the original story as well. It’s a win-win for a teacher and a beautiful writing exercise for a child.
In order to write a sequel or a prequel, I recommend a child start with fairy tales, preferably an early version by one of the greats like Hans Christian Andersen, the Brothers Grimm, or Oscar Wilde. (See some of my favorites here). Once she has read it, have her narrate the story orally to ensure she has the details down and to help her establish her storyteller voice. The next step is to think through or talk through what might have preceded the story or followed after it. As soon as she has an exciting thread to work with, she should begin writing her story, following the one scene in one sitting rule.
Sequels and prequels can be written for all genres of stories, and I recommend a child experiment with lots of them. Nonetheless, there is something particularly magical about fairy tales that makes them the perfect starting point for a child. Besides understanding a few basic fairy tale conventions, there is no expectation for a child to be an expert on anything in particular. All she needs is her imagination!
First Image Credit: The Little Mermaid by Ivan Bilbin (1937)
Second Image Credit: The Selfish Giant by Walter Crane (1888)
In his essay, “On Fairy Stories,” J.R.R. Tolkien likens the collection of stories told throughout history to a soup, all simmering together in a huge pot. He says that “the Pot of Soup, the Cauldron of Story, has always been boiling, and to it have continually been added new bits, dainty and undainty.” This metaphor explains in part why there are so many versions of different fairy tales, such as Little Red Riding Hood or Cinderella. Each of the different storytellers, as Tolkien’s line of thinking goes, sampled the soup and added to it. That’s why Red’s granny sometimes dies, and Cindy’s step-sisters sometimes live.
I would like to use this metaphor for the first habit needed to become a good storyteller. Simply put, one needs to fill-up on the cauldron and taste as many stories as possible.Let’s see how this lines up with our two premier storytellers: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien.
When I read Lewis’s Letters to Children, I eagerly underlined every book recommendation he made and soon realized I would never be able to get through them all—and those were just the ones he put down for kids! I had the same daunting realization when I read his fuller collection of letters, most of which were addressed to his brother, father, and scholarly peers, never mind culling through all the citations in his essays. Perhaps the most telling source of information on Lewis’s reading is Surprised by Joy. There he references countless stories that shaped his early life. Taken as a whole and much simplified, I think of his reading as fitting into the following categories: epics, narrative poetry, myths (especially Norse ones), romances (think Jane Austen), fairy tales, legends, fables, and Bible stories (though approached later in life).
Clearly, Lewis consumed the “cauldron of story” so fully that he was able to draw from it (however intentionally or unintentionally we will never know) in his own storytelling. Consider, for a moment, The Chronicles of Narnia. Aslan, a talking lion, is a direct representation of Christ (the Lion of Judah), yet he would fit just as easily into any one of Aesop’s fables. His great villain, Jadis (aka the White Witch), could stand up to the wickedest witch any fairy tale could dish up. What’s more, her physical characteristics line up very closely with Hans Christian Anderson’s Snow Queen. Then there are the children in his stories, all of whom have been disenfranchised in some way, much like many a famous child in the world of faerie (Hansel and Gretel, to name just two). Of course, there are overlaps with mythology as well, as seen through his many fauns and centaurs and talking animals. It’s no wonder that Lewis was a master storyteller. He hadn’t just filled up on the soup; he stuffed himself full of it over and over again.
Likewise, Tolkien had a voracious appetite for the “cauldron of story.” In the aforementioned essay, he indicates a preference for the taste of “faerie” above all else. But by his own account, that was not a dominant taste in his early life and only awakened as he got older. Nevertheless, the number of fairy tales he mentions in his essay is great. He gives the impression of having read all twelve of Andrew Lang’s fairy book collections, in addition to a good many more by the Brothers Grimm and innumerable others. He also makes casual references to countless myths and fables before closing out his essay with nuanced connections between the world of “faerie” and the Bible. He had eaten so much of the “soup” that it was oozing out of him not only in his essay, but in all his stories as well.
For example, Tolkien uses countless elements commonly found in these core materials in The Lord of the Rings, though with such a distinct flavor of his own that his recipe is wholly original. His elves are certainly not of the shoemaker type, and his dwarfs would hardly encase a dead maiden in a glass coffin (unless she had a precious stone inside of her). Tolkien’s hobbits and orcs feel altogether unique, even if one senses that some flavor, long forgotten, was conjured from the pot in their creation. Then there are human characters like Aragorn whose heroism has vague echoes of the likes of Beowulf and King Arthur but with a style all his own. There is no doubt that Tolkien filled up on the “cauldron of story” over and over again, and ultimately added many of his own “dainty bits” to it.
From Lewis and Tolkien we learn that filling up on the “cauldron of story” is an irreplaceable habit for becoming a good storyteller. Make plenty of room for epics, narrative poetry, the Bible, legends, myths, fairy tales, and fables as they provide the stock of most stories. If you eat enough of it, your own pot will soon begin to simmer.
First Image Credit: Boy Eating Soup (Enfant mangeant sa soupe), by Francois Bonvin (1861)
Second Image Credit: Soup, by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1865)
There is something about reading fairy
tales that is quintessentially classical. After all, classical
education considers the great stories of Western culture one of its core
foundations. So if at the end of a school day I have read a fairy tale with my
students, I am usually pleased. But, if that’s where it ends, I am all the more
disappointed.
Rich as they are for the moral imagination, I try to draw as much from them as possible. Here is a breakdown of some of my favorite extension activities to do with students.
DISCOURSE
Socratic Discussion
A classical mainstay, Socratic discussion is at the heart of
my approach to studying fairy tales. We discuss the stories in small groups and
as a whole class, often rearranging the desks and chairs so we form one large
circle or several smaller ones. This discursive format helps students break
down the plot and unpack its core symbols.
I guide the discussions but play a limited role in order to
encourage active engagement from the students. Plus, it lets them tease out the
ideas that they find most
interesting. In this way, students feel a greater sense of ownership in the
discussions and make more personal contributions.
Disputation
This is a really fun one that serves as a natural outgrowth of Socratic discussion. Disputation involves debating key aspects of the story, typically those that pose moral dilemmas. For example, in reading Cat and Mouse in Partnership, we might debate whether the mouse should have formed a partnership with the cat. Or when reading Cinderella, we might debate whether or not it is a good story for little kids.
Sometimes our debates are very formal with preparation and
regulated rounds. Other times, they are of a more impromptu style. Either way,
the students get very animated and impassioned.
CREATIVE WRITING
Plot Reinvention
Another exercise I really like is plot reinvention. First,
students have to thoroughly understand the original plot of the story, meaning
they can express the inciting incident, climax, and resolution for themselves
much as I have done in this blog series. Once they can do this, they choose an
element to change.
If, for example, the father in Godfather
Deathwere to choose God, then the whole story would change. The
student’s job would be to tell that new story. One of the great things about
this exercise is that it gives students a concrete place to start writing,
which can be very difficult with more open-ended prompts.
Character Reinvention
Character reinvention follows this same principle. What if Little Red Cap were a naughty girl? Or what if the fisherman had a tougher upper lip? Or how about making the youngest sister in Twelve Brothersa real chatter-box?
When students develop a whole new approach to a character, it
affects all of his or her motives and actions and can lead to a different, not
to mention highly entertaining, story altogether.
Working from Art
I also like projecting beautiful paintings or sketches from fairy tales and having students write just one scene based on the picture. This approach is a little more contained than the previous two, so it makes it easier for students to develop sharp, properly formatted dialogue and well-planned narration. As such, it readily doubles as a grammar lesson as well as a creative writing exercise.
Cinderella by John Everett Millais
In preparation for writing a scene for Cinderella, I might depict the painting above by John Everett Millais and prompt students with the following: Describe the moment in time depicted here. What are the character’s thoughts? Words? Actions? Draw your ideas together as a scene from the story. Be sure to include dialogue and narration.
ARTISTIC RENDERING
Reflective Journaling
There are a number of mediums one could use for reflective
journaling, but one I really like is water color. This entails students
painting something they found inspiring in a fairy tale.
After reading The Little Match
Seller, one might paint a wood stove, another a Christmas tree, or even
the little girl flying up to Heaven. Once students have painted their pictures,
they reflect in writing on what they have depicted and why. When that’s done,
they walk around and view everyone else’s journals in what we call a “museum
walk.”
All the while, we play classical music and otherwise
maintain silence. It makes for a very relaxing, thoughtful environment, not to
mention beautiful work.
Story Board
This one is borrowed from the publishing industry wherein editors lay out words on a story board and then contract illustrators to matches them with pictures. I have students do the same thing with a fairy tale.
Their story boards can be very elaborate or more of a quick
sketch, true to the story or reinvented using one of the models above. Either
way, students fine-tune their understanding of the plot and have the
opportunity to do so in an artistic, visual way.
Act Them Out
Most of my students like acting out the fairy tales best of all. I give them liberty to keep or change whatever they want in the plots. For that matter, they can even combine plots as long as it makes sense. Their job is to write the script, memorize it, and present it in a formal production. Ideally, we invite other classes in the school to come and watch.
CONCLUSION
These types of exercises cause students to think deeply about the fairy tales. This is extremely valuable from an educational standpoint, not least because it helps students to really understand the stories and develop their own insights.
It is perhaps even more valuable from a moral standpoint because the lessons can serve as a guide for life’s real-world difficulties. When, for example, they are discerning the nature of a friendship, they can draw from Cat and Mouse in Partnership. They can look to The Mermaidor The Snow Queenwhen trying to understand the true meaning of love. Perhaps they will think about The Emperor’s New Clotheswhen they eventually come to critique politics. Or maybe, they will take heart from The Little Match Sellerin the face of personal suffering, which no doubts awaits everyone at some point or another.
Whatever the case may be, by extending the fairy tales with additional exercises, students come to embody them in a way that will enrich their lives forever. At least that’s my hope.
When I read The Chronicles of Narnia as a child, I started with The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe instead of The Magician’s Nephew. That was partly because I had seen the 1979 animated movie of it directed by Bill Melendez and already loved the story. It was also partly because there was another set of The Chronicles in my house that listed The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe as the first book.
So why the discrepancy? Which book is really first?
As I came to learn, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was published first, followed by Prince Caspian, The Voyage of the “Dawn Treader,” The Silver Chair, The Horse and His Boy, The Magician’s Nephew, and The Last Battle.
In a letter to a boy named Laurence dated April 23, 1965, C.S. Lewis explained, “The series was not planned beforehand…When I wrote The Lion, [the Witch, and the Wardrobe] I did not know I was going to write any more. Then I wrote P.[rince] Caspian as a sequel and still didn’t think there would be any more, and when I had done The Voyage [of the “Dawn Treader”] I felt quite sure it would be the last. But I found I was wrong.” Lewis went on to explain that it didn’t really matter what order the series was read in. Nevertheless, he eventually told his publisher to re-order the books so they would be chronological according to Narnian time.
Reading them now to my five- and six-year-old sons, I like how Lewis changed it. It makes it a little easier to follow the storyline, which is helpful for young ones. It also elevates characters like Digory in a series that had originally seemed to me mostly about Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy Pevensie. For my sons, Digory took the lead, but the Pevensies suffered none for it in their adoration.
Wherever you start, there is something central about The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Like in the story of Salvation History, Christ’s Passion, Death, and Resurrection define everything that comes before and after it. That’s also the case with Aslan’s sacrifice on the Stone Table. Read on to learn the full story. In the reflection, I’ll talk about the role Faith and Reason play therein.
THE STORY
The story begins in a large house set in the English countryside during World War II. The house belongs to none other than Digory, who is now grownup and goes by the name of Professor Kirke. He has agreed to let four children from London stay with him to avoid the air raids there. Beginning with the oldest, their names are Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy Pevensie.
They are a playful, good-natured group of children who accept their lot in stride—all but Edmund, that is. Though he goes exploring and plays games with the others, he is very sour and never seems to miss an opportunity to complain or tease.
Against this backdrop, Lucy hides in an obscure wooden wardrobe one rainy day during a game of hide-and-go-seek. She pushes her way deeper and deeper into the wardrobe, brushing past winter coats and expecting to reach its backside. But instead, she feels her way into a wintry forest and emerges on a snowy plain, desolate save for a lamppost.
Here Lucy does a brave thing. Rather than go back and search for the wardrobe, she walks toward the light. She soon sees a strange looking creature, one with the body of a man on top and the legs of a goat on the bottom. He turns out to be a faun and introduces himself as Mr. Tumnus, invites Lucy to join him for tea at his house, and explains they are in the Kingdom of Narnia. Lucy gratefully accepts only to later find out that he had been luring her there with evil purposes. Mr. Tumnus was in the pay of a wicked queen, known as the White Witch, who is the very same Jadis that Digory and Polly let into Narnia in The Magician’s Nephew. Living in fear of a prophecy about two Sons of Adam and two Daughters of Eve overthrowing her power, she had put Mr. Tumnus (and presumably others) on the lookout should any humans enter her kingdom. As such, Mr. Tumnus had been planning on capturing Lucy. Upon getting to know her, though, he has a change of heart and confesses his evil plan. Lucy, whose goodness seems infinite, forgives him and hastily sets back for the wardrobe.
When she joins Peter, Susan, and Edmund in Professor Kirke’s house, she tells them about her adventure, but they think she is making it all up. It must have been a game! They check the wardrobe just to be sure and find the back of it intact. Lucy is terribly upset by their lack of faith in her and has no way to explain why the wardrobe no longer leads to Narnia.
A few days later, they play hide-and-go-seek again. Lucy hides in the wardrobe and excitedly follows it all the way to Mr. Tumnus’s house. When she is done visiting, she discovers her brother Edmund by the lamppost.
What Lucy does not know is that while she was having tea with Mr. Tumnus, Edmund was having Turkish delight with the White Witch. Worse still, he was giving into a terrible temptation. Intoxicated with the prospect of gaining power in her court and being better than his siblings, he had agreed to bring them to her. He does not know that she plans to do them harm, but he does have a vague idea that they will not be in her favor—certainly not like himself. And so he makes his secret pact.
What’s more, when he gets back to Professor Kirke’s house, Edmund lies about being in Narnia and says that it was all pretend. Lucy is utterly distressed at this point, and Peter and Susan wonder if the time away from their parents is making her delusional. Not knowing what else to do, they seek the counsel of Professor Kirke.
After hearing their concerns, he concludes that Lucy is probably telling the truth. His logic goes a little something like this: Lucy does not lie. She says Narnia is real. Hence, you should believe her about Narnia.
All four of the Pevensies end up in the wardrobe one day soon thereafter when they are hiding from the professor’s maid. This time, the wardrobe leads all of them into Narnia, and Susan and Peter doubt Lucy no longer. For his part, Edmund admits that he really had been there, but he still keeps quiet about meeting the White Witch.
Lucy escorts them to Mr. Tumnus’s house, but he is not there. A mysterious talking beaver known simply as Mr. Beaver leads them to his home. Along with Mrs. Beaver, they explains that Mr. Tumnus’s meeting with Lucy was found out by the White Witch, and he was arrested for treason. Lucy feels responsible, and the children agree that they should do their best to help Mr. Tumnus. Mr. and Mrs. Beaver explain that Aslan, the Great Lion, is on the move. He alone can stand against the White Witch, and they decide to seek Him out. Meanwhile, Edmund slips away to find the White Witch. His betrayal soon becomes known, but it is too late to go after him.
Instead, the party continues on in search of Aslan. Along the way, they meet Father Christmas. His presence is the first of many signs that the White Witch’s power is declining. Father Christmas gives the children gifts for their fight against the White Witch. To Peter, he gives a sword; to Susan, a bow with arrows and a horn; to Lucy, a dagger and a diamond vial filled with a healing potion. Soon the snow begins to melt, and Spring sets in just as they meet Aslan Himself.
Meanwhile, Edmund meets the White Witch. Her castle is nothing like what he had expected. It is dreary and scary and full of very life-like stone statues of various creatures, including a lion that he rudely draws on. The White Witch is mad at him for not bringing his siblings and treats him much differently than during their first encounter. Edmund realizes that she has no intention of making him important in her court. She won’t even give him more Turkish delight. Instead, she takes him prisoner and plans to use him in the battle with Aslan. They set forth in the Witch’s sleigh but must disembark when there is no snow left to slide upon.
By the time they join the battle, the Witch’s side has already suffered their first loss. Peter, armed with the sword given him by Father Christmas, killed the Witch’s top wolf. Many others on her side fell at the hands of the Narnians. Knowing defeat in a straight battle is inevitable, the White Witch uses Edmund as a hostage. She will release him in exchange for Aslan. The bargain is struck, though none of the children know it. All they know is that Aslan has saved Edmund.
Later that night, Susan and Lucy see Aslan walking away from their camp, and they decide to follow Him. He discovers their presence right away and invites them to join Him. He is filled with a deep sadness, and the company of the girls brings Him comfort. When He nears the Witch’s camp, He makes them leave, but the girls look on from a distance. What they see horrifies them. Aslan is mocked and shaved and tied down to a stone table. A snap of His jaw could have ended it all, but Aslan restrains Himself, ultimately letting the White Witch stab Him dead. The jeering crowd eventually breaks up, but Lucy and Susan can’t bear to leave their Beloved Lion. They approach Him with tears in their eyes and do what they can to restore His dignity. Mice come along and chew away the ropes that tied Him.
Then, a wonder happens! Aslan rises with the Sun in a single mighty bound. As it turns out, He is stronger than the Witch, stronger than Death itself. He explains to the jubilant Lucy and Susan that His new life comes from having sacrificed Himself. The Witch had not known the true extent of His powers.
After playing with Aslan and celebrating His resurrection, the girls ride on the Lion’s back in a glorious race across the countryside to the White Witch’s castle. He breathes on all the stone statues there, including the lion Edmund had defaced and Mr. Tumnus and all sorts of other wonderful creatures, and they awaken back to life in their natural form. Now with their numbers increased, Aslan races to join Peter and Edmund and the rest of the Narnian army. Almost instantly upon their arrival, Aslan swallows up the Witch, and her side is defeated at last.
According to Peter, Edmund was the great hero of the battle. He disarmed the White Witch of her wand, thereby preventing her from turning the entire army to stone before Aslan’s reinforcements. In the process, however, Edmund was greatly wounded. Aslan instructs Lucy to give her brother some of the healing potion, which sets him right again. She then gives it out to the other wounded Narnians.
The children are made Kings and Queens of Narnia, with Peter having the special title of High King. They grow up in a matter of pages, leaving us to wonder about all the great things they did, until one day they begin a royal hunt. They chase a white stag far into their kingdom and stop all of sudden when they see a lamppost. Their memories are fuzzy. Somehow, they know they have seen it before, but they can’t quite place how or when. The stag looks at them and darts into the woods, beckoning them on. King Peter, King Edmund, Queen Susan, and Queen Lucy sense they are at a crossroads and feel uncertain what they should do.
King Edmund encourages them to take the adventure that presents itself, meaning they should follow the stag. They do, and find themselves suddenly back in the wardrobe, young children again, barely minutes after they had left Professor Kirke’s house in the first place. They tell him about their adventure, and the wise old man believes every word of it.
REFLECTION
There are so many directions a parent or teacher could take The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, but much of the discussion I had with my sons revolved around the intersection of Faith and Reason. Both are important for a Christian: Faith moves the heart toward God, while Reason moves the mind toward Him.
Ideally, we would all have an equal share of both, but that is simply not the case for most of us. C.S. Lewis seemed to know this. He presents this disparity through his characters. My sons and I looked at Lucy as the embodiment of Faith and Professor Kirke as the embodiment of Reason.
Lucy Pevensie
Believing in Narnia comes easily for our young heroine. Lucy goes there, after all. She sees it for herself. How could she not believe in it?
But then again, it’s her Faithful disposition that makes her able to go to Narnia in the first place. This is not immediately clear in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, but reading the full series (especially Prince Caspian) shows that believing sometimes precedes seeing. Lucy has the gift of Faith, and that opens a new world to her even when it is closed to others.
At times, however, Lucy’s disposition borders on gullibility. This is most obvious when she accepts Mr. Tumnus’s invitation for tea. No matter how many times I’ve read the story, this part still makes me uneasy. He’s a stranger! Why does she trust him? Worse yet, she shouldn’t have trusted him because he was going to turn her over to the White Witch. Mr. Tumnus was a bad guy…that is until he saw Lucy’s goodness and had his own change of heart.
Therein lies another point about Faith. It sees things hidden; it even sees the invisible. Lucy’s belief in Mr. Tumnus’s goodness brought out the goodness in him. He really was a good sort of faun, but he had lost his way. Through Lucy, he found it again.
One caveat—I am not saying that believing in something makes it true. A lie is a lie no matter how much someone believes it. What I am saying is that a person of Faith can see the Truth of something more clearly and draw it out into the open.
That’s precisely what Lucy does for her siblings, too. She insists Narnia is a real place, even though she suffers greatly for it. She could have easily abandoned her idea, but she doesn’t. She sticks to it and patiently waits for the Truth to prevail. And it does, of course. Her siblings eventually get into Narnia themselves and apologize for not believing Lucy.
Better still, believing their sister was the first step toward believing in Aslan, the Logos Incarnate as a Lion. It’s no wonder Lucy holds a special place in Aslan’s heart. She was His first evangelist.
Professor Kirke
Just as Lucy is the embodiment of Faith, Professor Kirke—named for C.S. Lewis’s childhood tutor Professor W. T. Kirkpatrick—is the embodiment Reason. We see this in his scholarly disposition and even more pointedly in his conversations with the children.
When Peter and Susan are worried that Lucy is either lying about Narnia or has perhaps gone crazy, he surprisingly dismisses their concerns. Here you might be thinking that Professor Kirke readily believes Lucy because he had been to Narnia as a child. His belief, then, is not really about Reason, you might say. True, he has that advantage, but he still very much uses Reason to prove to Peter and Susan that Narnia is real. The basis of his argument goes something like this:
Is Lucy known to be truthful? Yes.
Is Edmund known to be truthful? No.
Therefore, you should believe Lucy, not Edmund.
Okay, what if she is telling the truth in her own way, but she doesn’t really know what is true or not because she has gone mad. In other words, is Lucy crazy? No, nothing about her being suggests that.
Okay, still, there are some oddities about her story. Lucy says she was gone for hours in Narnia, but it was really just seconds that she was in the wardrobe. That doesn’t make sense. Of course it doesn’t, which is precisely why she wouldn’t have made it up! The time difference between Narnia and London is too complicated a thing for a little girl to imagine. And if she had, she would have been more likely to have hidden for a while before announcing her return from Narnia.
And there you have it. Lucy must be telling the truth, and Narnia must be real.
When Peter and Susan leave Professor Kirke, they feel terribly out of sorts. The conclusion they are left with defies common sense—or at least what Peter and Susan believe to be common sense. Other worlds don’t exist. Everybody knows that.
But the Professor has done his job. By challenging the children with Reason, they are no longer able to simply dismiss Lucy and her Narnia. They have to face the conclusion that it might be real because they can’t prove otherwise. And—it’s my view—this intrusion of Reason into their minds is what allows them to walk through the wardrobe and experience Narnia for themselves.
After the children return from Narnia at the end of the book, the good professor kindly listens to their adventure, which now has much more at stake than questioning whether or not another world called Narnia exists. Also in question is whether talking animals and fauns and witches really exist. Even if they can prove that, they must also prove that one of the talking animals—Aslan—died and came back to life. That’s a lot for someone to believe without seeing!
Nevertheless, Professor Kirke accepts the children’s story with sincere belief and meets their surprise with his oft-repeated refrain, “What do schools teach children these days?” The implication, of course, is that schools are not teaching children how to use Reason properly. If they did, they would not be at all surprised by the conclusions that follow from it.
And what is the central conclusion of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe? It is this: God Incarnate has conquered sin and death. Though we may go astray and fall under the spell of White Witches from time to time, He will give His life to bring us back.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Let’s close with some final thoughts about Edmund. He did not seem to have a disposition toward Faith, nor did he have Professor Kirke instructing him in the art of Reason. So how did he get into Narnia (before Susan and Peter we might add), and why did Aslan save him of all people?
The answer my sons and I came up with is that Aslan, the Master of both Faith and Reason, simply brought him there out of Love. We likened Edmund to that of a Saul turned St. Paul. Unable to come to Aslan on his own, Aslan brought Edmund to Himself.
I tried to help my children see that he is not really a Judas-figure, which is what I had thought of him as a child. He’s a little boy who needs direction. Though he was lacking in Faith and Reason, he got the greatest gift of all—Aslan’s life in exchange for his own.
(Here is another of my six-year-old son’s sentence diagrams, which I instructed him through during our reading of The Chronicles of Narnia. For more on a classical approach to learning grammar, visit my series here.)
Source: Dorest, Lyle W. and Marjorie Lamp, eds. C.S. Lewis’ Letters to Children, Mead. Scribner: New York, 1996.
I once asked my seventh grade class what a fairy tale was, and one student said, “It’s a story that begins with Tinker Bell waving her wand over the Disney Castle.” She was joking, of course, but her words were illuminating.
Many children today associate fairy tales with the magical world of Disney and know little of the literary let alone the historical background behind them. That’s because Disney has a type of cultural monopoly over fairy tales that allows them to dictate storylines (and insert social politics) according to their commercial business preferences.
Some of their changes are small—just have Cinderella’s dad die so he doesn’t seem like such a deadbeat. No big deal to lose one measly character. Some of the changes are big—let Ariel live happily ever after with Prince Eric. Turning the little mermaid into seafoam as punishment for disobeying her father doesn’t exactly make for a box office hit. Other changes are complete transformations. How exactly is Frozen supposed to be based on The Snow-Queen?
I get it. It’s all about the bottom line. And frankly, Disney’s versions are just as authentic as the so-called “originals.” After all, fairy tales come from a long tradition of oral storytelling which allows the teller to add, subtract, stretch, and reinvent as desired. Even Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm did that.
(Yup! They didn’t “write” the tales that now bare their name. They actually traveled from town to town collecting and recording stories that were already being told.)
Defining Fairy Tales
So what holds a fairy tale together? What do they all have in common?
When I first started teaching fairy tales, I tried to find a definition to share with my students that would answer those precise questions. Most definitions talked about good conquering evil. That certainly rings true, but Disney’s version of “good” is totally different than, say, Hans Christian Andersen’s.
Let’s return to The Mermaid for a moment, which inspired Disney’s The Little Mermaid. The “goodness” of obedience was swapped out for a modern “goodness” of independence. Throw cultural differences into the mix, and you’re left with an even more ambiguous understanding of what constitutes “good.”
What’s more, most stories boil down to some kind of good versus evil paradigm, so there needs to be something further that sets fairy tales apart from other genres. This is where my student’s playful comment about Tinker Bell comes in handy because it captures the dreamy side of fairy tales and the promise of “happily ever after.” No doubt Disney’s branding with the “magical kingdom” depicts the essence of this.
Putting it all together, I eventually came up with the following definition: a fairy tale is a fanciful, make-believe story that reveals a particular set of values about society and pivots around the rewards of virtue overcoming vice.
Lake Scene with Fairies and Swans by Robert Caney
I like this definition because it allows for differences across time and place (e.g., values which are changeable) while still maintaining a set of universal principals (e.g., virtues which are unchanging). While fairy tales originated in the Middle Ages and are generally set in that time period, they are not constrained by it. Likewise, they are not limited to Western culture.
Just think of the many versions of Cinderella told all over the world. Yeh-Shen, which is a Chinese version, was one of my favorites when I was little. Like the Disney version and the Brothers Grimm version before that, it has the basic “rags to riches” storyline. A major difference, however, is that a magical fish grants Yeh-Shen’s wish to go to the ball. This reflects significant cultural differences in China wherein fish are symbols of good fortune. Nevertheless, the reasons the fish rewards Yeh-Shen are consistent with those of Disney’s Fairy Godmother and the Grimms’ magical tree: Cinderella is being rewarded for her virtues.
Fairy tales are told to bestow lessons and to offer the promise of reward if those lessons are followed. The “happily ever after” motif was a particularly powerful one in the Middle Ages where the vast majority of the population was plagued with hardship. They taught young children that if you live a life of virtue, then you will be rewarded. Of course, that reward was not really expected to be found in an earthly palace but rather in a heavenly one.
Continuing the Tradition
There are countless reasons to study the “original” fairy tales today. They’re enjoyable, for one, but they’re also a lens into the hopes and fears of the common people of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Given how dominated historical accounts of the time were by the affairs of royalty and nobility, fairy tales offer a type of anthropology into the lives of everybody else.
But that’s still not all. Fairy tales give us pause to reflect on our own lives. They remind us that though the world is a scary place wrought with danger, we should take heart. Virtue will prevail, if not in life then in death. As G.K. Chesterton put it,
“Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.”
