The Voyage of the “Dawn Treader” gave new depth to the world of Narnia. When I read it to my five- and six-year-old sons, we felt like part of the crew, searching for the end of the world right along with them. As we sailed further and further into the deep unknown, I kept asking my sons, “Should we keep going?”
Their answer was always a definitive, “Yes!”
With C.S. Lewis as our captain, I knew we were heading somewhere special. While my sons were dying to know what the end of the world would be like, I was happily absorbed in the “sights” along the way and kept questioning them about the nature of the journey itself. I’ll share some of our discussion highlights in the reflection that follows my summary of the story.
THE STORY
The Voyage of the “Dawn Treader” begins about a year in our time after the adventure in Prince Caspian, and we find Edmund and Lucy staying with their cousin, Eustace Scrubb, son of Aunt Alberta and Uncle Harold. Lucy and Edmund are not particularly happy about this. Susan got to travel to America with their parents because “she was the pretty one,” and Peter was studying for a big exam with help from Professor Kirke. Edmund and Lucy don’t feel merely left out; they feel stuck. Eustace is painfully irritating and constantly trying to get them into trouble. The reasons for his sour temperament are many, but they mostly have to do with a progressive upbringing that has indoctrinated him in “all the wrong books.”
Just as Edmund and Lucy are enjoying a little time alone talking about Narnia, Eustace breaks in on them and starts making fun of them in a superior sort of way that he hardly deserves. Though he knows all sorts of information, it is readily obvious he doesn’t know much of anything actually worth knowing. In the midst of their quarrel, the three children get sucked into a painting of a ship that is hanging on the wall. Lucy and Edmund are thrilled because they immediately realize Narnia magic has hold of them, but Eustace is terrified.
They find themselves struggling to swim in a great ocean beside the very ship they had seen in the picture. With a little help from the crew, they climb on board and recognize Prince Caspian. He has embarked on an expedition to the end of the world where he hopes to find Aslan’s Country. Along the way, he hopes to recover seven lords, once loyal to his father, who had set off on a similar adventure during the false reign of Caspian’s evil Uncle Miraz.
Eustace, in utter disbelief, acts extremely ungrateful to crew for saving him and begins an incessant rant about wanting to go to the English consulate. That, of course, is impossible, so he settles into a cabin below deck and sulks for days and days.
And so begins a story that is more like a series of quests than the other Chronicles. We’ll take them each in order, though it makes for a longer summary than some of the others in this blog series.
The Dawn Treader’s first stop in on the Lone Islands, an archipelago Edmund and Lucy had traveled to during their reign in Narnia and that had been under Narnia’s domain since the days of the White Witch. Caspian, Edmund, Lucy, Eustace, and a danger-loving, talking mouse named Reepicheep decide to paddle a boat to shore ahead of the Dawn Treader and disembark on the far side of the main port. They end up being taken prisoners by a slave trader named Pug. Luckily, a kind man named Lord Bern, who turns out to be one of the seven lords whom Caspian had set out in search of, facilitates their release. From there, Caspian storms the palace and sets things right, leaving Lord Bern to remain as his vassal in charge of the Lone Islands.
They continue Eastward into the unknown for the next several days, and the story begins to focus on Eustace. More bitter than ever about his predicament, he refuses to leave his cabin and journals about his miseries, albeit from a very shallow perspective. When they finally sight land, he wants to get away from everyone in order to avoid helping—the ship needs to be repaired and the supplies replenished. Eustace ends up taking a nap far from the crew and wakes up in the presence of a dragon. Luckily, the dragon dies before his very eyes. But a storm hits, and he seeks shelter in the dragon’s cave. He is amazed to find it full of treasure and puts on a golden bracelet, which had belonged to another of the seven lords—Lord Octesian. He drifts back to sleep only to awaken as a dragon himself.
His miserable existence has gotten that much worse, but he manages to find the crew and convey in his dragon way that he is Eustace. In his new form, Eustace begins to see the world differently and even makes friends with Reepicheep, whom he had previously deplored. Aslan eventually peels off all Eustace’s dragon skin to reveal his human form once more. The crew leaves the island, now dubbed Dragon Island, and presumes the dead dragon was in fact Lord Octesian.
After narrowly escaping a sea serpent, their next stop is on another unchartered island. Caspian, Edmund, Lucy, Eustace, and Reepicheep set off by themselves to explore it and discover Narnian armor by a water bank. They rightly guess it was one of the seven lords, but they have no idea at first what could have happened to him. Next, they discover a life-size statue of a human made of gold at the bottom of a pool. When they try to fish it out, they realize that the water itself can turn things into gold. The statue must have been a person.
No sooner do they realize how dangerous the water is, than they also realize how valuable it is. Caspian and Edmund fight over who has the right to the pool, but then Aslan appears and they come to their senses. Reepicheep aptly names the island Deathwater, and the crew leaves with all haste.
On the next island, they encounter invisible creatures. According to their Chief Voice, a terrible magician has made them ugly, and, since they couldn’t stand the sight of themselves, they found another of his spells and make themselves invisible. The creatures no longer want to be invisible but are now too scared to seek out the magic book because they have not seen the magician in all that time. They worry he is also invisible and could sneak up on them at any minute.
The Chief Voice threatens to kill Caspian’s crew if Lucy doesn’t find the spell for them. She accepts the task and, after a strange dinner with the invisible creatures, makes her way through the magician’s house and into his study. She finds the magic book and becomes absorbed with several spells. She nearly recites one that would make her the most beautiful woman in the world—even more beautiful than Susan—but a small picture of Aslan suddenly appears in the book. His image helps her overcome that temptation and most of the others, and she eventually finds the one to make things visible again. When she does, she sees Aslan in the room with her. He was there all along, but He, too, had been invisible.
Next, she meets the magician, who turns out to be a kind man in the service of Aslan. They look upon the once invisible creatures and see that they are funny looking monopods. Lucy does not think they are ugly at all! Happy at last, the creatures, which are called Dufflepuds, bid Caspian’s crew a fond farewell.
Their voyage takes them next to the Dark Island, which haunts the crew with their worst nightmares. They stay only long enough to rescue a man who had been stranded on the island and terrorized by its darkness for years upon years. His name is Lord Rhoop, and he is another of the seven lords. Sadly, he is but a shell of his former self.
The next stop is an island on which they find an exquisite banquet set before three sleeping men, whom Caspian determines to be the last of the seven lords. Their names are Lords Revilian, Argoz, and Mavramorn. A beautiful maiden appears and explains that the three men had arrived there seven years prior and gotten into a fight about whether to continue their voyage or return home. One of them grabbed a knife, which was the very Knife of Stone the White Witch had once used to kill Aslan, and thus the three men fell asleep.
After the maiden tells this story, her father, a retired star named Ramandu who bears the shape of a human, tells Caspian’s crew that the only way to wake the sleepers is for someone to offer his life in their stead by going to the End of the World and never coming back. Reepicheek is quick to accept this adventure, and Caspian arranges to have Lord Rhoop rest in a peaceful slumber beside his former comrades and so find healing from his nightmares.
The ship travels further East, and the world around them changes. The Sun grows bigger and brighter, and they are able to see far into the distance. The water also becomes clearer, and Reepicheek discovers that it tastes delicious. The crew begins drinking it to sustain them. It has a magical property that fills them so completely they neither thirst nor hunger for anything else. Eventually, the ship is unable to go farther because the ocean is covered with flowers like lilies.
Caspian, Edmund, Lucy, Eustace, and Reepicheek form a smaller party and continue first by boat and eventually on foot. They finally come to the “end” which is marked by a wall of water. There, they must bid farewell to Reepicheek, and they watch him paddle up the wall of water and out of sight. The brave mouse has a smile on his face and knows that he has arrived in Aslan’s Country at last.
Moments later, they see a Lamb and join Him in a simple meal. Then, the Lamb turns into a Lion, and they recognize Him as Aslan. Aslan explains that He has many forms, and He appeared to them as a Lamb just then so they might better recognize Him in their own world, to which they must now return. Aslan tells Lucy and Edmund that they will not be able to return to Narnia again. Like Peter and Susan, they have grown too old. But He comforts them with the knowledge that He will still be with them and lead them into His country. He opens a door in the sky, and Edmund, Lucy, and Eustace walk through and find themselves back in the bedroom from which they had originally departed.
Caspian returns to his crew, marries Ramandu’s daughter, and lives out his days as King. As we’ll see in the next story in The Chronicles of Narnia, his adventures are not quite done.
REFLECTION
C.S. Lewis used lots of spatial imagery in The Voyage of the “Dawn Treader” to reveal the infinite nature of Aslan, which is to say God. After I pointed out the imagery to my sons the first few times, they started recognizing it on their own and trying to explain it to me. Though they are little, Lewis’s beautiful images made it relatively simple for them to understand that Aslan’s ways are further and deeper and higher than ours.
Distance
The first motif, distance, was fairly easy to visualize as the “Dawn Treader” traveled farther and farther away from Narnia into the unknown. (The map at the beginning of our edition of the book was especially helpful.) As an adult who had read the story before, I still found myself feeling a little nervous every time the ship would shove off from an island. Like the crew, my sons and I continually wondered how much farther it would take to reach the end of the world. After some particularly difficult adventures along their voyage, we questioned if they had not already gone far enough. Prince Caspian was particularly sensitive to this feeling among his crew and offered them points of return. But thanks to his leadership and the inspiring valor of Reepicheep, they refused to stop short of their destination.
Behind this motif of distance is both the reality of God’s infinite nature and our calling to pursue it without end. This brings us to another question: Did Prince Caspian and his crew reach the end of the world?
The answer, though simple in literal terms is more complex figuratively. Lucy, Edmund, Eustace, Prince Caspian, and Reepicheep did reach the end of Narnia, but as we know from reading The Magician’s Nephew, Narnia is one world among many. Moreover, as we’ll learn from reading The Last Battle, Narnia is only a reflection of Aslan’s Country, which is a world without limits, like Heaven. So in that sense, none of them—not even Reepicheep—reach the end of the True World. Instead, they are merely continuing their journey further and further toward (or into, in the case of Reepeicheep) Aslan’s Country.
Depth
The second motif is depth. It captured our imagination most in relation to Eustace’s dragon-days. As we know, he was brought up so poorly that he knew nothing of dragons, let alone their very existence. That is a little ridiculous on face value, but it is meant to be symbolic.
Since dragons symbolize evil, what Eustace really knows nothing about is evil. Literally, his ignorance of dragons is what lets him get “caught” by one. But figuratively, his ignorance of evil is what makes him so rotten all the time. He had always been like a dragon on the inside, so his physical transformation was merely the final expression of his true character. Luckily, it was also his chance to discover just how real evil is and how it had crept into his very being.
That’s where Aslan comes in. He alone was capable of peeling away all the layers of badness that had built up on Eustace because He alone could see into the depth of Eustace’s heart. Aslan purified Eustace by restoring him to his innermost self, the boy he was made to be at his birth.
Height
Our final motif of height centers on Reepicheep, who reportedly was one of C.S. Lewis’s favorite characters. Small in stature, he is nonetheless larger than life. He was the bravest and most adventurous of the crew. While everyone else was scared to be left behind at the end of the world, he readily volunteered, knowing it to be his destiny.
In his final moments, we saw him paddling up a wall of water that marked the outermost limit of the Narnian world. Not only was that an awesome image for my sons and me to visualize, but it also lifted our thoughts toward the resurrection of the body. Reepicheep literally went up to Aslan’s Country, showing that his steadfast loyalty to the Lion, most especially in the face of danger, was worth it. Better still, he went up with a smile, making himself a model for the small crew who stood by as witnesses. All of them—even Eustace—want to follow after Reepicheep because his destiny is so spectacular.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Reading The Voyage of the “Dawn Treader” was an incredible adventure in itself. It allowed my sons and me to contemplate the Eternal in a way that inspired wonder and awe without the worry and fear that might otherwise accompany it.
Likewise, C.S. Lewis affirmed yet again that God will always be there to help us through the trials of the world and lead us to Heaven if we accept Him as our Captain. With this beautiful understanding in mind, we eagerly looked forward to starting his next book, The Silver Chair.
