In quarantine I’ve returned to nostalgic books that comfort and console — including C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which has new resonance during the pandemic.
Lewis’ classic young adult novel is an example of portal fantasy, a subgenre in which protagonists are transported from their reality to a new and magical realm instantaneously. It’s a concept that’s particularly appealing now, when the reality of the pandemic feels intolerable and interminable.
C.S. Lewis understood how scary reality can be, particularly for children. After all, in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the Pevensie children aren’t at the professor’s house for a vacation — they’re refugees from London, sent to the countryside to survive the Blitz.
In the Pevensies’ new home, adults are most notable for their absence. The professor is essentially a cipher, and the children’s parents are necessarily remote. The kids are left to fend for themselves in, as Peter calls it, “the sort of house where no one is going to mind what we do.”
Adult politics have displaced the Pevensies, but when it comes to actual, meaningful contact with adults, they have very little.
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This adult absence resonated with me in a new way during the pandemic. In covid, I’ve vacillated between believing ‘oh, the real adults will solve all this’ and recognizing that the ‘adults’ in power in America do not care what happens to me. I can only imagine that confusion is more acute for children, who are witnessing the callousness of our adult leaders, while also suddenly cut off from their teachers, their grandparents, and other beloved adults.
Like the Pevensies, Americans of all ages are contending with the absence of adults. We’re also trapped in a twilight time where our immediate companions have to be our entire world. But we don’t have a wardrobe through which to escape quarantine, unless you count Zoom.
The Pevensies break out of their limbo by piling on fur coats and following the draft in the closet. In Narnia, they find surrogate adults that are immediately available, and devoted to protecting the Daughters of Eve and Sons of Adam. Although they appear in the form of beavers and lions, these adults let the kids just be kids again.
Aslan repeatedly refers to the Pevensies as ‘children,’ and sacrifices his life to save even the most fallible Pevensie (sorry, Edmund). Lewis’ omnipotent narrative voice tells young readers that certain details have been omitted from the tales of Narnia to make them age-appropriate.
Far from being condescending, this aspect of the fantasy world the children have found is comforting: in Narnia, adults do their job.
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- Photo Credit: Walt Disney
And while in Narnia, the Pevensies grow into adults themselves. As kings and queens, they have more agency and control than they ever did in England, a welcome change for children of the Blitz who grew up in a world that was entirely out of their control.
That fantasy also has an undeniable appeal now, both for today’s children, and for adults. I can barely control a six-foot radius around myself. Managing an entire kingdom — including Santa Claus himself — is an empowering fantasy when you can’t even stop people from standing too close in the checkout line.
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It’s possible to take the Pevensies’ adventures at face-value. But it makes as much sense to consider Narnia as a collective fantasy born of what the children needed the most during the Blitz: a chance to escape their boredom; reassurance from adults; and some control over their chaotic lives.
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- Photo Credit: Walt Disney Pictures
It’s always bothered me that time in Narnia doesn’t impact time in the ‘real’ world. After all, the Pevensies live complex, rich adult lives in Narnia that effectively do not matter as soon as they cross back over the wardrobe threshold. It seems unnerving and unfair that their entire Narnia lives are erased in an instant, and they’re reduced to children again.
But if I think of Narnia as a product of the Pevensies’ imagination and their subconscious needs, this abrupt change starts to be appealing. After all, a big part of me wishes time in quarantine functioned like time in Narnia, and that once things ‘go back to normal’ I’d get all these days back.
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It’s a pandemic cliche at this point to comment on how time has lost its meaning, or on how it seems to be slipping away from us. It’s hard to believe I've been isolated for five months; but at the same time, too much time has passed for me to ever easily return to the ‘old world.’
Remember when we happily crammed into buses and planes and celebrated in living rooms of people all breathing the same air and touching the same surfaces? Remember when we used to blow all over birthday cakes before serving them to our guests? I don’t know if we’ll ever return to that world.
The Pevensie children probably experienced a similar disorientation several months into their new existence in Narnia. But when they returned to the professor’s house, they resumed their ‘real’ lives without lost time.
Pandemic kids won’t be so lucky. Neither will pandemic adults. But Narnia still offers a consolation.
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is a story about children who fulfill their most urgent psychic needs, even while trapped in a home and cut off from the people they care the most about.
Like the Pevensies, we’ll have to rely on the therapeutic power of imagination to sustain us during the months (if not years) of social-distancing that lie ahead. We might not have a wardrobe to transport us to Narnia. But unlike the Pevensies, we do have Zoom, Wi-Fi, and the works of C.S. Lewis to help us envision a better world, just next door from the one we’re currently trapped in.
Featured stills from "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" via Walt Disney Pictures and Photoshop.
