《纳尼亚传奇》主题思想寻找真我之旅(2)

菜单

4.3 Benevolence shall Prevail 14

5 Conclusion 17

Bibliography 20

1 Introduction

The Chronicles of Narnia consists of seven fantasy novels, written by C. S. Lewis, is regarded as a long lasting children literature and it is also the author’s most famous work. It is so popular that it has sold more than 100 million copies in 47 languages. It has been adapted for several times as well, complete or in part, for film, stage and so on.

The author of The Chronicles of Narnia, Clive Staples Lewis, was born on November 29, 1898 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. He liked reading and fantasizing in the attic since little. Thanks to his parents’ great abundance of books, Lewis read plenty, and he preferred the worlds in books to the real world, which laid a good foundation of the born of his fantastic novels. He had a comfortable childhood, but unfortunately, his mother, Flora Augusta Hamilton Lewis, died when he was nine. So he was sent away to a boarding school with his elder brother Warren. They immersed themselves in a game of “Animal Land and India”. Lewis was obsessed with talking animals and the idea of a fantasy land populated with talking animals certainly grew in his mind. At first, Lewis was an atheist and skeptic. However, with the influence of Tolkien, Lewis became a Christian and became a loyal servant of God in 1931, later, he became a famous theologian and Christian apologist, famous for his fictional work, especially The Screwtape Letters, The Chronicles of Narnia, and The Space Trilogy, and for his non-fiction Christian apologetics, such as Mere Christianity, Miracles, and The Problem of Pain. As what Wang Siwen said, “A great soul often needs going through painful ideological struggle.” (2012:51)

Lewis and his fellow novelist J. R. R. Tolkien, the author of The Lord of the Rings, were close friends. In the 1930s, Lewis and Tolkien always chatted in a bistro near Oxford University, sharing fantastic thoughts with each other, and they made an appointment to write fantastic novels together. So the born of The Chronicles of Narnia is under the background of the World War II. During the World War II, flames of war raging everywhere, international position and cultural impact of the United Kingdom declined. Faced with ridiculousness of the World War II, Lewis conceived works focused on human survival and eternal happiness and he finally created the fairyland—Narnia. Although the Narnia world seemed as a fantasy, essentially, it was pervaded with his dissatisfaction论文网

and evasion against the UK and the real world at that time. At that time, four children were sent to his home to take refuge. To Lewis’s surprise, they had never read books which were full of imagination before. So Lewis decided to write stories for them by himself. According to Seung Chun Lee, “Lewis’ fantasy novels for children were primarily his attempt to allow them to experience the mythic quality of good stories, i.e., to savour a more ultimate reality and pine truth through the myriad fantastic images and supernatural imagination.” (2015:15) Then the beginning of The Chronicles of Narnia was created. While Lewis was creating, the children asked an adorable question: Is there anything behind that ancient wardrobe? He remembered in his childhood, he and his brother always hid in grandpa’s wardrobe, sitting inside and telling stories in turn. Finally, the first part, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, of The Chronicles of Narnia was born. The novel got popular soon, so with the unprecedented love from the readers, Lewis created a series of chronicles of the Narnia world gradually.