The Silver Chair

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Title The Silver Chair

Cover of first edition (hardcover)
Author	C. S. Lewis
Illustrator	Pauline Baynes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Series	The Chronicles of Narnia
Genre(s)	Fantasy novel
Publisher	Geoffrey Bles
Released	1953
Media type	Print (Hardcover & Paperback)
Pages	202 pp
ISBN	NA
Preceded by	The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Followed by	The Horse and His Boy

The Silver Chair is part of The Chronicles of Narnia, a series of seven fantasy novels written by C.S. Lewis. It was the fourth book published and is the sixth book chronologically. It is the first book, and one of two books in the series, in which the Pevensie children do not appear (the other being The Magician's Nephew).

The book is dedicated to Nicholas Hardie, the son of Lewis' fellow Inkling Colin Hardie.

Contents 1 Plot summary 2 Commentary 3 Film, TV or theatrical adaptations 4 External links 5 See also

[edit] Plot summary

The story begins with Eustace Scrubb, who was introduced in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and his classmate Jill Pole, who are unhappy at their school, Experiment House, which is essentially run by upper class bullies. While trying to escape from the bullies, they ask for Aslan`s help and blunder through a temporary interdimensional gate into Aslan's Country. Aslan explains to Jill that she and Eustace are charged with the quest to find the Narnian Prince Rilian, who had disappeared some years prior. Rilian is the son of King Caspian X (formerly Prince Caspian), who is now an old man. Rilian was captivated by the evil spells of an enchantress named The Lady of the Green Kirtle— said to be one of the same breed of Northern Witches as the White Witch in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe—and, if he is still alive, needs to be brought back to inherit the throne. Aslan gives Jill four hints, or "Signs", to guide her and Eustace on their quest: of these Signs, the fourth and final is that at a key moment they will be commanded to do something in Aslan's name, and they must obey this command. Aslan then magically transports the children into Narnia. Once there, they are aided by Master Glimfeather and a Parliament of his fellow talking owls (a pun on Chaucer's Parlement of Foules, but also a nod towards the use of the word "parliament" as a collective noun for owls, as "exaltation" is for larks). As Jill and Eustace journey toward the far north of Narnia, they acquire a companion and guide, a gloomy but stalwart Marsh-wiggle, appropriately named Puddleglum.

Journeying into the harsh northland, the three cross the River Shribble, which marks the boundary between Narnia proper and the lands of the giants. The first giants they encounter do not notice them (fortunately), but are playing: they are throwing huge boulders at a rock-cairn near the trio. Escaping from these giants, they continue north until being stopped short by a deep and sinister canyon. The sole route across this barrier is an enormous and sinister bridge, many times larger in scale than anything a human being might normally use. The three principal characters continue to be in the Narnian universe, but by crossing this bridge their quest enters a new phase.

Not long after crossing this bridge, the members of the quest start to receive advice that conflicts with the "Signs" which Aslan had charged Jill to follow. Hungry and suffering from exposure, they are encouraged by The Lady of the Green Kirtle to proceed northward to Harfang, a castle of what are described as "Gentle Giants." In the process of crawling towards this goal, the trio ignore a clue that Aslan has given them. Reaching Harfang, Jill, Eustace and Puddleglum are given a warm welcome by the giants, who are in active preparation for Harfang's "Autumn Feast." Refreshed by a sleep in shelter, but discouraged by their failure to follow Aslan's Signs, they begin to discuss what to do next. The conversation is interrupted when a glance at the giant's cookbook presents evidence of what the humans' actual use at the "Autumn Feast" will be. In a desperate attempt to escape from the "Gentle Giants", Scrubb, Pole, and Puddleglum escape from the castle, force themselves into a small nearby hole and find themselves falling down a steep slope. They continue to fall, bouncing and rolling periodically, until reaching the bottom of this slope: they are now completely helpless, since even if it was climbable, they are all bruised and bloodied, with no light to guide them.

After coming to rest at the bottom of the slope, Puddleglum, Eustace, and Jill are taken captive by gnomes; they have reached the Underland. They are placed on a boat and rowed for uncounted days across a "Sunless Sea" until finally reaching the city of the gnomes, where reigns the enchantress the Lady of the Green Kirtle and a young man being raised by the Lady as a protege. A series of rapid events bring the Narnia trio and the unknown youth together, alone. The young man, who is not given a name, treats the travelers pleasantly but does not seem to be right in the head; he himself explains that he suffers from nightly psychotic episodes. During these episodes he must, by the Lady's orders, be bound to a silver chair; if he is released, he will immediately be transformed into a green serpent, deadly to all nearby. The threesome determine to witness the youth in his torment, which they sense could be a key to their quest.

As Pole, Scrubb, and Puddleglum witness the young man tied to his chair, his "ravings" seem to indicate desperate health within an enchanted captivity, rather than psychosis. Finally, after launching a battery of dire threats, the youth begs his companions to release him in the name of Aslan. After a short debate, they decide to do so. The climax of the quest has been reached: the young man reveals himself to be the vanished Prince Rilian, kept underground by the Lady of the Green Kirtle for sinister purposes. Rilian draws his sword and hacks the silver chair to pieces, but the lady returns and tries to bewitch them all into forgetting who they are and where they are from. Puddleglum heroically puts himself into the magical fire she has created, creating a smell of burnt marshwiggle and breaking her spell. Rilian kills the enchantress, and leads the travelers in their escape from the Underworld. The gnomes, who were also magically enslaved by the Lady and are now freed by her death, disclose that they have been kidnapped from their home in the very center of the earth, a magical land named Bism. In gratitude for their freedom, they guide the party to a route upward, out of the Underworld, before returning to their native land below. The travelers thus return to Narnia and Rilian returns to Cair Paravel. Eustace and Jill watch as King Caspian returns home and meets his long-lost son just before dying.

Aslan then appears and congratulates Eustace and Jill on achieving their goal, then returns them to his country where they arrive at the stream where Jill first met Aslan. The body of King Caspian appears in the stream and Aslan instructs Eustace to drive a thorn into his paw. Eustace obeys, and Aslan's blood flows over the dead King, who is then revived and re-appears as the young Caspian. Aslan explains that when Jill and Eustace return to their own world, Caspian will go with them briefly, to help set things right there. At the portal between the worlds, Aslan roars, and part of the wall surrounding Experiment House collapses. Caspian, Eustace and Jill cross the wall and give the school bullies, who have gathered at the wall to seek out the two children (keep in mind that time stands still in our world whilst the characters are in Narnia), a well-deserved thrashing. The beaten bullies run back towards the school in terror, having also seen Aslan. In the confusion Eustace and Jill sneak back into the school building and change into their school clothes while Aslan and Caspian return to Aslan's country.

The headmistress at Experiment House reports the "collapsed wall, convicts and lion" to the police but when the police arrive there is no sign of any of this. The headmistress is eventually replaced, the bullies are expelled, and Experiment House becomes a good school. Meanwhile, back in Narnia, Prince Rilian succeeds his late father Caspian and is dubbed King Rilian the Disenchanted.

[edit] Commentary

Some readers of the novel believe it is implied that the Lady of the Green Kirtle—the enchantress of the Underworld—is the White Witch from The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe and The Magician's Nephew herself, who plagued Narnia for decades in the past. In some versions she was referred to as the Emerald Witch, and the correspondence in names may have given rise to this idea. In some quarters heated debate exists on this matter, with some arguing that the White Witch is dead and others arguing in favor of her return in the form of the Lady of the Green Kirtle.

Support for the latter view is given by the Emerald Witch herself, who "explains" the significance of the words "Under Me" written in the ruins of the Giant City of Harfang. According to the Prince, under her spell at the time, she claims that the word were originally part of a longer couplet which read: "Though under earth, and throneless now I be, While I lived all earth was under me." According to the Lady this was meant to be the epitaph for a departed giant. Lewis's true intentions remain a mystery, one of the great mysteries of Narnia. It should however be remarked that there are few points of similarity between the Lady and Jadis, either in appearance or in modus operandi. The two witches are referred to as "these Northern witches" and as belonging to "the same crew", but this may mean no more than power-mad witches in general.

It is suggested, for example by A. N. Wilson, that the White Witch represents, among other things, modern philosophy in general, with its freezing effect on the religious and mythical imagination being embodied in her "Great Winter". If so, the Lady of the Green Kirtle presumably represents the Freudian world view, with its tendency to explain away all strongly held beliefs as infantile neuroses. Underland would then be the world of the unconscious, and the Silver Chair itself would be the psychoanalyst's couch. (The same two enemies appear as the characters of "old Mr Enlightenment" and "Sigismund Enlightenment" in The Pilgrim's Regress.)

[edit] Film, TV or theatrical adaptations

• The BBC produced a TV miniseries of The Silver Chair in 1990 (see The Chronicles of Narnia (TV miniseries)).
• Walt Disney Pictures and Walden Media are likely to make The Chronicles of Narnia: The Silver Chair for a release in 2009 to 2011.

[edit] External links

• The Silver Chair at Narnia Fans
• The Silver Chair publication history at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database

[edit] See also