Before reading The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis with my five- and six-year-old sons, I spent some time reviewing the storyline. Though I had read it more than once as an adult, I was still searching for something new about Susan. As you’ll see from the story summary below, her path does not follow that of her siblings or any of the other friends of Narnia. She is “left out,” so to speak, of their glorious ending, and I was worried about how to handle that with my sons.
In my hunt to learn more, I was somewhat dismayed to find so much criticism of C.S. Lewis for his treatment of Susan. Perhaps the most pointed (and dramatic) was a short story called The Problem of Susan by Neil Gaiman, in which the author imagines her as a grown-up with all sorts of psychological problems.
“They’re all missing the point!” I thought.
So what is the point? Well, far be it from me to know exactly what C.S. Lewis had in mind, but I do think his faithful readers know he was a careful teacher, profoundly concerned with the interior life of his readers. As I’ll explain in the reflection, I think Susan was Lewis’s last and, perhaps, most important lesson.
THE STORY
The Last Battle is the only book in the series that starts off in Narnia. It begins with two talking animals: a donkey named Puzzle and an ape named Shift. They find a lion’s skin floating in a river, and Shift convinces Puzzle to put it on and pretend to be Aslan. Puzzle, who is very simple-minded and eager to please his bully of a friend, goes along with the ruse, and word gets around Narnia that Aslan is back.
King Tirian hears this news as well and hopes it to be true. But when a tree spirit stumbles into his presence and reports that her kind is being chopped down in Aslan’s Name by Calormene soldiers and then falls down dead herself, King Tirian is beside himself with anger. He sends Roonwitm a loyal centaur, to gather his army and sets off himself with the unicorn Jewel to confront the tree murderers.
When the King and Jewel arrive, they fall into a fit of passion at the sight of a Calormene soldier beating a talking horse and end up killing him. A troop of more Calormenes arrive on the scene immediately thereafter and arrest King Tirian in Aslan’s Name. Full of remorse, King Tirian and Jewel willingly accept Aslan’s punishment.
Only it’s not Aslan who punishes them; it’s Shift. King Tirian is bound to a tree, and Jewel is tied to the back of a stable in which the fake Aslan spends his time awaiting a nightly appearance before the gullible Narnians.
The appointed hour arrives, and Puzzle comes out in the lion’s skin and pretends to be Aslan. A great bonfire is ablaze, and King Tirian sees the donkey for what he is—an imposter. He implores Aslan, the True Aslan, to come to his aid and calls upon the children who helped Narnia throughout its history. Next, he has a vision of a gathering of people dressed very differently than himself, and one of them, a teenage boy who calls himself Peter the High King, demands to know what has happened to Narnia. But the vision vanishes, and King Tirian is left alone, sad and forlorn.
In addition to Peter, the gathering includes Edmund, Lucy, Eustace, Jill, a grown-up Digory (aka Professor Kirke), and a grown-up Polly (aka Aunt Polly). Susan’s conspicuous absence is eventually explained as being because she is “no longer a friend of Narnia.” The group had gotten together at the initiative of Aunt Polly so they could talk about their adventures in Narnia.
When they see King Tirian, they want to help him, but they don’t know how to get back to Narnia to do so. After all, only Eustace and Jill are presumably young enough to go. So they come up with an idea to retrieve the magic rings Professor Kirke and Aunt Polly had used as children. Peter and Edmund carry out the plan, which involves sneaking into Professor Kirke’s old backyard, and travel by train to bring back the rings. The remainder of the group, meanwhile, waits for them at the train station, but something happens that sends Eustace and Jill flying into Narnia. Though many days have passed in their time, they arrive in Narnia only moments after King Tirian had his vision.
After untying the King and feeding him a small meal, the trio sets off to arm themselves at a nearby garrison and disguise themselves as Calormenes. Newly fortified, they sneak back to the stable on a reconnaissance mission. Jill goes rogue, enters the stable, and takes Puzzle prisoner. Although King Tirian is angry with her disobedience, he is glad to have Puzzle. Now they can show Narnia that he is a fake. They go back to the garrison to await a more advantageous hour to expose the enemy.
Along the way, they rescue a group of Dwarfs forcibly bound for Calormen. The Dwarfs turn down the friendship of the King and say the Dwarfs are “for the Dwarfs.” They don’t want anybody’s allegiance, not even Aslan’s, and they walk away caring only for themselves. King Tirian had not anticipated such a response, and he begins to lose hope. Thankfully, one Dwarf comes back and joins their cause.
They soon learn from a hawk named Farsight that Roonwit and his entire army have been killed by the Calormenes. No one is left to help them. They must choose to give up or fight on, and King Tirian says he will take the adventure Aslan has in store. He offers for Eustace and Jill to leave, saying they don’t need to die for Narnia, but the children refuse to leave. Besides, they don’t even know if they can get back since they had not used the rings in the first place.
A deep stillness sweeps across the land, and they suddenly see a terrible creature with the upper body of an ugly bird and the legs of a man. It’s Tash, the god of the Calormenes. His presence in Narnia is unprecedented and portends evil. Nevertheless, King Tirian’s small band ventures forth at the appointed hour in order to expose Puzzle as a fake and thereby convince the Narnians to stop listening to Shift and the Calormenes. Perhaps with their awakening, Narnia stands a chance.
Once again, they hope in vain. Two evil co-conspirators, a talking cat named Ginger and a Calormene soldier named Rishda, have effectively removed Shift from power, making him their puppet. Ginger and Rishda are much cleverer than Shift and, indeed, more nefarious in their intentions. They correctly understand the danger of Puzzle’s absence and decide to out him as a fraud themselves. So, they have Shift “warn” the crowd that a donkey is dressed in a lion’s skin pretending to be Aslan.
Though the Narnians are still fearful of Shift, they muster the courage to challenge him and ask for an audience with Aslan, who, allegedly is just inside the stable. Shift then makes a shocking revelation. He says there is no such thing as Aslan; there is only a god named Tashlan, a god who is both Aslan and Tash at the same time. This is the lie of all lies, but the Narnians don’t know what to think. Shift revels in their confusion and dares the Narnians to go into the stable one at a time and see Tashlan themselves. Really, a Calormene soldier is waiting inside to kill the Narnians as they enter.
Knowing the Narnians are scared to go in, Ginger goes in first as an example. He, however, has nothing to fear because the Calormene soldier knows not to kill him. But a strange thing happens. Ginger screeches loudly and runs out of the stable unable to talk. He’s been turned into a “dumb” cat. Next, a Calormene named Emeth goes in. A moment later he comes out, stumbles, and falls down dead.
From his hiding place, King Tirian sees that the man is not Emeth after all; some great mystery is at play inside the stable, but there is no time to wait and uncover it. The king reveals himself and calls upon the Narnians to fight with him against the Calormenes. Talking dogs and talking horses and a great many other talking animals join his side in what will be Narnia’s last battle. The tide seems to turn in their favor, but the Dwarfs stubbornly fight against everybody, still insisting that they’re only for themselves. They don’t want either side to win, so they pick off Narnians and Calormenes alike with their bows. Victory slips from their grasp.
Jewel fights bravely but is killed. Eustace holds on a little longer, but he gets backed into the dreaded stable, and Jill and King Tirian are forced inside last of all.
But the stable is unlike a stable on the inside. It’s another world entirely with lush green grass, a beautiful blue sky, and a crowd of humans crowned in royalty. It’s the friends of Narnia dressed in regal attire: the High King Peter, King Edmund, Queen Lucy, Lord Digory, and Lady Polly. Even Eustace and Jill appear as king and queen. Magically, they have all passed into Aslan’s Country. Jill and Eustace passed through the battle, but the others passed through a train crash. It turns out, that was the terrible jerk they felt at the train station.
A crowd of Dwarfs is also among them, but they cannot see the royals or any of the splendor that surrounds them. They see only the blackness of a dank stable.
Aslan appears, opens the stable door, and ends the world just outside of it with a tremendous roar just as He had once started it with a tremendous song. Spirits come flooding through the door as darkness washes over Narnia. When nothing is left, Aslan shuts the door and beckons everyone to follow Him further in and higher up. A great race follows in which the children alternately run and stop to talk to friends they had thought lost. They see Roonwit and Jewel and a repentant Puzzle. They see Emeth, who explains that another Calormene had tried to kill him when he walked into the stable but that he had bested him. It was the “bad” Calormene who came out and died. The reason Emeth had gone inside the stable in the first place was that he had begun to doubt his leader. He had served Tash faithfully all his life, and it didn’t make sense to him that Tash could be the same as Aslan. Given the chance to confront his god face to face, he wanted to know the Truth. Aslan rewards Emeth for his honor and service and says that every good thing he had done, though it was in Tash’s name, was really done for Aslan because Tash is unable to accept good works.
As the friends of Narnia climb further in and higher up, they realize the land looks like Narnia, only more like Narnia. It turns out, the Narnia they had known before was merely a shadow of the more beautiful Narnia in Aslan’s Country. They eventually come to the garden in which Digory had picked the apple for Aslan in The Magician’s Nephew. They eat of the tree and have more happy reunions with the likes of Mr. Tumnus and other old friends. They even find their own parents there! As it turns out, they had been on the train, too, and now they are all together in Aslan’s Country, a world without end.
REFLECTION
So ends The Chronicles of Narnia, but we are left to wonder what becomes of Susan. In a letter to a boy named Martin dated January 22, 1957, C.S. Lewis explained, “The books don’t tell us what happened to Susan. She is left alive in this world at the end, having by then turned into a rather silly, conceited young woman. But there is plenty of time for her to mend, and perhaps she will get to Aslan’s Country in the end—in her own way. I think that whatever she had seen in Narnia she could (if she was the sort that wanted to) persuade herself, as she grew up, that it was ‘all nonsense.’”
This quote, which is included in Letters to Children, sheds light on C.S. Lewis’s thinking about Susan. Let’s look at three of his points and see what lessons unfold.
“Silly and Conceited”
It’s sad to hear Susan described this way, especially when we think about her having once been a Queen of Narnia. Nonetheless, we remember how in The Horse and His Boy she allowed herself to be courted by the Prince of Calormen, a deceptive man who coveted her beauty above anything else. We remember, also, how she did not want to see Aslan when he first appeared to guide the children to Aslan’s How in Prince Caspian, suggesting she was trying to shut Him out of her life. So, too, do we remember how she was sent to America at the beginning of The Voyage of the “Dawn Treader” because she was considered “the pretty one.” Presumably, being seen and admired in a foreign country was within her limited “skill-set,” making her (and her parents) seem rather shallow.
Poor Susan! Through a mixture of nurturing and her own willful decisions, she grows “silly and conceited.” In other words, she is too consumed with her own ego to have any room left for Aslan.
“She Grew Up”
In another of C.S. Lewis’s letters to children, he expressed that he did not think age mattered all that much. He felt people could be old and young at the same time in their being. His view is much like the idea of an old person being young at heart or a young person having an old soul, but we need to take these popular images a little further.
To be young at heart in the Lewis sense of the phrase doesn’t mean that one loves toys beyond the normal age. We would call that childish. Instead, being young at heart means being child-like in spirit, or having a simplicity of mind that allows one to see the obvious. (Think of The Emperor’s New Suit.) Susan “grows up” in spirit because she pretends that Narnia was just a game of make-believe. She was there. She saw it for herself. Yet, she closes her heart to it in the end because Narnia does not fit into the “reality” she prefers, a reality, we might add, that feeds rather than checks her ego. In short, Susan decides Narnia is all nonsense and thereby rejects the Truth Aslan had directed her toward.
“Time for Her to Mend”
C.S. Lewis probably brought much consolation to Martin with these words. Thankfully, all is not lost for Susan. While Narnia is closed to her because Aslan ended that world, she can still get to Aslan’s Country in “her own way.”
And the ways are many—if she chooses to look for them! Aslan mostly appeared to the children in the form of the Lion, but he also appeared at times in other forms. At the end of The Voyage of “The Dawn Treader,” He appeared as a Lamb because He wanted the children to be able to recognize Him better in their own world as the Lamb of God, who is Christ. Susan was not present in that scene, of course, but the point remains that Aslan, as the Logos Incarnate, is bigger than Narnia. He transcends all of creation. As such, He can be found wherever one looks. The problem, then, for Susan is whether or not she wants to find Him.
The Lesson
Now we arrive at the lesson. Much like an anti-fairy tale in which the ending is somewhat of a warning, I think C.S. Lewis used Susan’s character to tell his readers that “happily ever after” is found through Christ alone. The choice is ours whether to follow the path of Susan or the path of the friends of Narnia. Aslan, though a King Himself, does not treat His people as slaves, nor does He force His Will upon them. His way is to invite. Although Susan has not accepted Aslan’s invitation at the end of the series, His invitation remains for the extent of her mortal life.
In a letter to a young girl named Pauline Bannister dated February 19, 1960, C.S. Lewis indicated that since Susan was still alive in this world, her story was not yet over. Nevertheless, he said, “I could not write that story myself. Not that I have no hope of Susan’s ever getting to Aslan’s Country; but because I have a feeling that the story of her journey would be longer and more like a grown-up novel than I wanted to write. But I may be mistaken. Why not try it yourself?”
I hope Pauline took his suggestion and wrote something beautiful. My sons and I have. In our version, Susan gets married and has children, and they teach her to be child-like again. Together, they find their way to Aslan’s Country in an all new adventure complete with an ivory horn and plenty of archery. It’s a simple storyline but a True one. We find the Logos Incarnate most readily when we become like children, full of wonder and longing for Truth.
FINAL THOUGHTS
C.S. Lewis wrote so well to people of all ages, not simply because he was full of wisdom but because he could make it so plain. Now many weeks after having finished The Chronicles of Narnia, my sons and I are still making references to the characters and their adventures, not merely to relive the fun but to explain other things that come up.
“It’s just like when Digory looked at Aslan face to face for the first time,” one of us will say. Or, “Doesn’t that remind you of when no one believed Lucy?” The connections to the everyday adventure of raising children in the Faith are endless.
What’s more, I read this blog series to my sons in draft form, and they provided unexpected fact checking. They remembered with pristine accuracy what happened in individual scenes, while I sometimes lumped details together. I was amazed. They saw themselves as guardians, so to speak, of the storyline. Happily, they are simultaneously becoming guardians of the Truth it represents.
I think C.S. Lewis would have liked that.
