Fantasy Reading Response- The Lion, the witch, and the wardrobe

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

In the book The Lion,the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis the big idea of the story was power. The theme of the story is power is wonderful but dangerous. Another big idea of the story was sacrificing. Also another theme of the story is sacrificing yourself helps people. Power is wonderful but dangerous is one of the themes because the White Witch has a lot of power but she is evil which is not good so she can tell the people who work for her bad things to do. Which is not good because if that happens killing or arresting might come in. Sacrificing yourself helps is another theme because Alsan sacrificed himself to save Edmund who was under the power of the White Witch. So he went out and made a deal with the witch so then he was killed. So Edmund came but to normal not on a spell because Aslan was dead. But Aslan came back alive because if the witch killed him he could live another life, so he did.   

The story setting was in Narnia which you could come from through a wardrobe.This is important because it’s under dark magic of the white witch and everybody who works for her were all the trouble will happen.  The land was in eternal winter but skipping christmas because that’s how the white witch made Narnia forever until Aslan came. So Narnia was a magical land and the White Witch (Queen of Narnia) her wand could turn creatures or people into stones so no one would want to mess around with her. The land was also very dark and cold because it is under the mean terrible white witch’s magic which is also dark and cold. The dark and cold is important to the setting because it is normally mean, evil, and maybe not that nice, so the dark and cold has symbolism which can change through the story when Aslan spring comes back. It could mean that spring is warmth,nice, and very good.  

An example of an archetypal character was when the villain, Queen of Narnia, put a spell on Edmund by letting him eat turkish delight which wants more turkish delight and becomes selfish. That is the villain because putting people on the spell isn’t very nice to do but that is what villains do. Another example of an archetypal character was Peter the hero because he killed the Queen’s of Narnia’s wolf that was really powerful so that everybody could get through safely. That is what heroes do they sacrifice themselves to help others. Hero’s are always trying to help people and that is what Peter is doing.

Symbolism was present in this story with Dark vs. Light, because the Dark represents the Queen of Narnia and the Light represents Aslan. Many times it’s Light overcomes the Dark. So Aslan (light) has won over the Queen of Narnia(Dark). This happens a lot in fairy tales probably because evil even though it seems that they will win they probably won’t because sometimes there so evil that they are mad at themselves and then the good guys kill the bad. With light it’s different it’s what they do. They make good choices what makes them a good person and when that happens they have good inside them and since evil is so bad it makes them angry which fills them up with a tiny amount so light overcomes evil.     

My character faced many internal and external conflicts in the story, examples of these were that the Queen of Narnia and her internal conflict was she was very mean and nasty in her heart. A drop from her bottle it appeared and gave it to Edmund which is very mean to do because the drop from the bottle is probably bad magic because the Queen of Narnia is evil.  A external conflict for the queen is  she doesn’t seem mean at all because she said to Edmund “ You look cold, come sit on my sled” which seems very nice but really she’s very very evil/mean.  

Elements of fantasy in this story were the wand that can make animals/humans to stone and the forever winter with no christmas  that the Queen of Narnia made were the fantasy elements. This is fantasy because in real life you could never turn people to stone by a wand or winter forever and no christmas. “The dark magic is so deep that’s why Santa can never come and do christmas,” that is what Aslan said to the four children (Peter,Susan,Lucy, and Edmund).

Connections I made with other books I have read are The Magician’s Elephant because both Peter ,Edmund, and Susan and the older girl from The Magician’s Elephant  in the orphanage all of the didn’t believe in Adele and Lucy. Peter,Edmund, and Susan didn’t believe that the wardrobe took her to a magical land and the older girl of the same orphanage of Adele didn’t believe that when she said she dreamt that an elephant would come and take her home. The older girl actually laughed. Also Lucy and Adele keep the answers even though they laughed because Lucy said I am not lying Peter but if you think that fine. Adele said nothing but in her mind she knew that one day the elephant would come and get he.  

 

This book had a similar theme because The Magician’s Elephant had power in it too because the Magician had to power of magic to make a elephant appear that is wonderful but, the elephant crash in the opera house and broke Madam Luvan’s legs.So that’s of course dangerous. That’s a similar theme for the Magician’s elephant Power is wonderful but dangerous.