On C.S. Lewis

The Silver Chair concludes with a beautiful and touching completion of the Quest and reunion with Aslan. Closing themes include the following: (1) Joy and order are hardwired into Narnia (The Great Snow Dance of Narnia that Jill encounters when she climbs out through the hole from the Underworld is a glorious and ordered and precise dance of exceeding joy in which the creatures revel); (2) Being in the Will of Aslan confers Goodness and authority (Seeking after Aslan and purposing to do his Will changes those who follow him and changes them forever in every aspect of their being); (3) Evil never sleeps and has its own unique strategy for every age (The Witch, masquerading as the Lady of the Green Kirtle, lures Prince Rilian into her thrall after having killed his mother years before, just as the White Witch centuries before in Narnia purposed to bring Evil into Aslan's newly formed creation); (4) Aslan is with us in our deepest sorrows and will bring us Home (As the elderly King Caspian's ship comes to Cair Paravel, there is great joy that the aged king will finally get to see his long-lost son, Prince Rilian, again. After they embrace, just as Caspian raises his hand to bless Rilian, Caspian dies. The exuberant joy turns to terrible sorrow at his passing, and as Jill and Eustace are overcome with grief they are brought into the presence of Aslan); (5) Aslan’s blood gives us resurrection life (Aslan's blood plus the living water enables eternal life with Him in Aslan's country); and (6) Aslan cares about injustice and the wrongs we suffer (Rather than end the story with life in Aslan's Country, Lewis has more to say to us about God and his concern for justice in this world as well, shown as Aslan helps the children right some wrongs at Experiment House).

Having defeated the Queen, the characters are now trapped in Underland. In these chapters, more themes emerge: (1) Evil seeks to destroy everything within its sway (We live in an age that wants equally to deny the existence of Evil or to appease or compromise with it, but Evil will not compromise); (2) When you are following Aslan, He will sometimes assure you of his presence in miraculous ways (The touching scene in which Rilian's old black shield miraculously transforms into gleaming silver with a bold red likeness of Aslan at its center is a beautiful example of how God sometimes works to miraculously show us His presence when we are seeking to follow Him); (3) Focus on Aslan leads to repentance and true identity (In an extremely poignant scene, Rilian leads the children and Puddleglum in worship, which as they draw close to Aslan convicts them of their sin, causes them to confess to one another, and to remove their masks as they worship Him); and (4) Freedom from slavery leads to speech, joy, and desire for one’s homeland (Lewis beautifully depicts how slavery, whether it be to a sorceress, an addiction, or a false worldview, robs us of speech and joy and displaces us from our homeland).

The story reaches a dramatic climax in the Queen's castle, and Puddleglum gives a memorable speech. Themes in this chapter include: (1) Enchantment leads to slavery (That which enchants us can so alter our perceptions that we lose ourselves and our values to the object of our desires), (2) What is Reality—Plato’s Allegory of the Cave--redux (The Witch presents one narrative of Reality, while the Prince, Jill, Eustace, and Puddleglum argue for another and better narrative); (3) Pain can clarify Truth (The suffocating enchantment is breached by Puddleglum's heroic act of putting his foot into the fire, and with newfound clarity Puddleglum gives his rousing speech about Truth, through which Lewis expresses the ontological argument derived from Anselm and Descartes about a Reality bigger and better than what we can imagine); and (4) Evil wants to destroy and will brook no compromise (When Evil does not get its way, it will immediately seek to kill and destroy).