C.S. Lewis and the apocalypse. The Eschatological Dimension of The Last Battle

C.S. Lewis and the apocalypse. TheEschatological Dimension of The Last Battle

Magdalena Zegarlińska

AbstractIn The Last Battle (1956), C. S. Lewis echoes John Donne’squestion, ‘What if this present were the world’s lastnight?’1 and presents his own vision of the Narnianapocalypse and life after death. He profoundly analysescharacters’ attitudes, motives for behaviour, andreactions when facing danger and death. Hence, thenovel is very current; it covers the fears of eachgeneration of humanity. The mood in which this novel –the final volume of The Chronicles of Narnia – commences isexplicitly apocalyptic: ‘In the last days of Narnia’.2Throughout the whole story, the motif of the end of theworld recurs in words uttered by Jewel the Unicorn andrepeated later on by Roonwit the Centaur: ‘This is theend of all things’3 and ‘all worlds draw to an end;except Aslan’s own country’.4 According to Paul F. Ford,this story is an ideal example of an ‘eschatologicalperspective,’ defined as the study of eschata inChristian theology – the awareness of one's life endingwith four final things: death, judgement, hell andheaven.5 This paper discusses Lewis’s vision of theapocalypse and compares it to its Biblical predecessorin the Book of Revelation. Is the end of Narnia only aprojection of a Christian creed? Or does Lewissupplement it with his own ideas? It also comparesLewis’s vision with other cinematic interpretations ofthe apocalypse.

Keywords: Apocalypse, death, eschatology, Lewis, Bible,Aslan, Narnia, Revelation, Last Battle.

C.S. Lewis’s The Last Battle

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1. IntroductionVarious visions of the apocalypse have excited the

minds of people throught the centuries, as mycolleagues, among others, Cynthia Finlayson and IanBarber have remarked in their papers comprising thisvolume. In The Last Battle, the final volume of The Chronicles ofNarnia, C.S. Lewis reflects upon such existential issuesas death, faith, loyalty, the importance of properconduct and finally the characters’ attitudes towardsthe approaching apocalypse, which are motifscustomarily employed in the apocalyptic literature andfilm. Lewis’s story, as Madeleine L’Engle suggests, canbe understood on various levels, from the literal (astory for children), through the moral (a tale withmoral at the end), allegorical (intertextualreferences), to the anagogical (that reveals ‘thereligious or mystical sense’ of the text), which arelevels ‘to be found in all true fantasy’.6 Such acomplexity of Lewis’s saga makes it suitable forreaders of all ages. ‘The Narnia stories do instruct,’argues L’Engle, ‘probably as an adult, I am far moreaware of the teaching in the Chronicles than I would havebeen if I had read them as a child,’ she observes.7 Fordadds that Lewis used allegories and beast fableelements in order to ‘let his characters reveal in thestories he told the emotions he could not directlyshare’.8 Also, as Ford observes, ‘Lewis wants people toexperience the meaning of the Christian facts first, tohave their own feelings spontaneously, and then tobecome aware that this meaning is fact,’ hence thecomplexity of the composition of the Chronicles.9 In his

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vision Lewis has clearly employed a plethora ofreferences to The Book of Revelation, delivered insuch a way that it is suitable for his young readers.The following paper aims to compare both texts andpresent the eschatological dimension of the Narniansaga.

2. Before the ApocalypseAs I have presented in my BA dissertation entitled

“The Intertextuality of C.S. Lewis’ The Last Battle,”Lewis’s saga is deeply rooted in Christian traditionand contains multifarious intertextual references tothe Bible. This assumption is confirmed by Chad Walshin his foreword to The Image of Man in C.S. Lewis thus: ‘I foundin Lewis an uncompromising exponent of no-nonsensetheology, expressed with a rigour of mind and a

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?John Donne, “Holy Sonnet XIII”. Viewed on Luminarium, 10 April 2013. <http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/donne/sonnet13.php>2C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle (Glasgow: William Collins,1987), 7.3Lewis, The Last Battle, 86.4Ibid., 88.5 Paul F. Ford, Companion to Narnia: A Complete Guide to the

Magical World of C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia. Rev.ed. (San Francisco: Harper Collins Publishers, 2005),196.

6Madeleine L’Engle, Foreword. Companion to Narnia. By Paul. F. Ford. (San Francisco: Harper Collins Publishers, 2005), xvi.7Ibid., xviii. 8Ford, Companion to Narnia, 9.9Ibid., 13.

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graciousness of style, plus a soaring imagination’.10Similarly, Paul F. Ford in his Companion to Narniaacclaims Lewis for ‘the successful attempt toremythologize the Christian creed’11 and adds that ‘thestory has a life on its own and it moves easily throughthe eschatological themes of death, judgment, hell andheaven. It is not only the fitting conclusion to theChronicles: Given Lewis’s Christian faith, it is theironly possible conclusion’.12 Thus, the following chapterwill not only present Lewis’s vision of the Apocalypse,but it will also contrast it with its Biblicalpredecessor.

The Chronicles of Narnia present the history of Narniafrom its genesis in The Magician’s Nephew (1955) to itsfinal day (or ‘the second beginning,’ as Ford termsit13) in The Last Battle (1956).14 The series begins with adetailed description of the creation of the world,proceeds with the account of the most significantevents in Narnian history, and finishes with the finalbattle with Calormen,15 that Ford calls ‘the finalstruggle between the forces of “good” (Tirian’s “army”)with the forces of evil (Rishda’s Calormene cohort)16,and the subsequent world’s destruction. The Armageddonin The Last Battle is preceded by a series of meaningfulevents and signs which correspond to the onesforeshadowing the Biblical apocalypse. Narnia, aprosperous country peacefully ruled by king Tirian, isinvaded by Calormene soldiers as a result of amalicious plot devised by an ape called Shift, ‘the10Chad Walsh, Foreword. The Image of Man in C. S. Lewis. ByWilliam L. White. (New York: Abingdon Press, 1969), 7.11Ford, Companion to Narnia, 353.12Ford, The C. S. Lewis Reader’s Encyclopedia (Grand Rapids:Zondervan, 1998), 232-233.

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most despicable animal of all’.17 In Aslan's absence,the primate becomes a false prophet calling itself ‘themouthpiece of Aslan’.18 In The Lion’s name, he performsa number of foul deeds, including selling Narnian woodsto Calormen, and forcing Narnians to become Calormeneslaves (in Calormen there are no talking beasts andanimals are treated as a workforce). He uses a donkeyin lion’s skin to impersonate the Great Lion in orderto convince his compatriots that Aslan19 has indeedreturned and made a pact with Tisroc, the Calormeneruler. The Narnians, though obediently following thesupposed Aslan’s orders, are clearly disillusioned:‘Would it not be better to be dead than to have thishorrible fear that Aslan has come and is not like theAslan we believed in and longed for?,’20 they cry. Themotif of a false prophet, the Antichrist, was takendirectly from the Book of Revelation: ‘And the beast wastaken, and with him the false prophet that wroughtmiracles before him, with which he deceived them thathad received the mark of the beast and them thatworshipped his image’.21 In Narnia the masses alsobecome deceived and worship the false Aslan, though heturns out to be very different from what they expectedhim to be. Even king Tirian himself believes in Aslan’sreturn, especially when he is warned by Roonwit thecentaur that the end of Narnia is near. Incredible asit seems, given Narnia’s peaceful existence for anumber of centuries, the apocalypse is inevitableaccording to the prophecy written in the stars.Therefore, wishing to remain faithful to Aslan, cruelas he appears to be, the king surrenders and becomesimprisoned by Shift, for ‘he cannot escape hiscountry’s overwhelming atmosphere of decadence andchaos’.22 Only after being rescued by Jill and Eustace,

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‘the friends of Narnia,’ does he realise that he isobliged to rescue his subjects from the false prophet’srule, which becomes the subject of the final battle.

The dominant atmosphere, prior to the apocalypse, isthe one of fear, doubt and despair, because of ‘thedistance the characters feel from the events in whichAslan took an immediate part during and soon after theGolden Age’.23 Due to his absence ‘only fragments of anentire faith-picture are remembered, the most prominentbeing the “Aslan is not a tame lion”’ which, in turn,enables the villains to ‘perpetrate their fraud andtake advantage of the distance sensed by the othercharacters’.24 Ford argues that ‘this dying world ismarked by the absence of Aslan (and the doubt by manyNarnians that he ever existed), and the consequentabsence of faith, hope, and longing’.25 Indeed, faithand loyalty are challenged and a question of Aslan’strue identity arises. His name is transformed by Rishdainto Tashlan (by mixing it with the Calormene God Tash)to convince the Narnians that both are only differentnotions signifying the same divine being, which is anallusion to the philosophy of Universalism.26 Tash,Aslan’s adversary, a hideous devilish creature of anappearance of a bird-like daemon who has ‘a vulture’shead, four arms, and twenty fingers that end in cruel,curving talons,’27 is dismissed by King Peter fromAslan’s world to ‘his own place,’28 presumably Hell.Narnians are torn between loyalty towards their Kingand the false Aslan, some of them choosing to supportthe latter in the final battle. (It is worth notinghere that in the Chronicles ‘each animal acts according toits stereotype,’ since ‘Lewis uses animals ashieroglyphs or “pictures” of certain humanattributes’).29 Ford adds that in The Last Battle ‘eachcharacter can be defined with respect to this crisis

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[of faith],’ i.e. ‘Shift is the archetypical conniver,Puzzle the archetypical dupe […], Roonwit30 contradictsthe hope of Jewel and Tirian that Aslan has returned’.31

Others still, namely the renegade dwarfs, present anatheist attitude swearing that ‘the dwarfs are for thedwarfs’.32 Their lack of belief becomes punished in theend; they are not able to see Aslan’s country evenafter entering it. All they can perceive is the filth

13Ford, Companion to Narnia,1. 14It is worth noting here that the chronological order of particular volumes is not the same as the order in which they were published. The publication order was asfollows: 1. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950), 2. Prince Caspian (1951), 3. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952), 4. The Silver Chair (1953), 5. The Horse and His Boy (1954), 6. The Magician’s Nephew (1955), 7. The Last Battle (1956). The reading or chronological order is (according to the numbers of volumes) the following: 6, 1, 5, 2, 3, 4, 7. 15Ford comments on the etymology of the name as follows:‘Lewis probably fashioned the name “Calormen” from the Latin calor, meaning “heat, warmth,” and the English men; thus Calormenes are “men from a warm land”. Indeedthe culture is modelled on the desert cultures of the Near and Middle East.’ (Ford, Companion to Narnia, 127).16Ford, Companion to Narnia, 283. 17Ibid., 47. 18Lewis, The Last Battle, 30.19Ford claims that the word ‘aslan’ in Turkish means ‘lion’ and ‘As’ is a Scandinavian notion for ‘god’. (Ford, Companion to Narnia, 100).20Ibid., 29.21The Holy Bible: King James Version. The Book of Revelation(New York: American Bible Society: 1999), 19:20.22Ford, Companion to Narnia, 431.

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and odour of a stable, which will remain theirpermanent dwelling when the world outside is gone.33 Thestable becomes their Platonic cave; shadows become realobjects and eternal incarceration their lot: ‘They havechosen cunning instead of belief. Their prison is onlyin their own minds, yet they are so afraid of beingtaken in that they cannot be taken out,’34 says Aslan.It is important to note that neither Shift nor aCalormene leader Rishda believe in their Gods or fearthem. As Farsight observes, Rishda ‘has called on godshe does not believe in’.35 They use God’s name tocontrol the masses with no fear of punishment forblasphemy. ‘And this fool of an Ape, who didn’t believein Tash, will get more than he bargained for! He calledfor Tash: Tash has come. [...] People shouldn’t callfor demons unless they really mean what they say,’36remarks one of the dwarfs.

The crisis of faith leads to an even greaterconfusion thereby leaving the Narnians withoutspiritual guidance and comfort that is usually obtainedfrom religion. The Book of Revelation also predictsthat the Doomsday will be foreshadowed by the fall ofreligion and the reverence of false prophets instead:

If any man worship the beast and his image,and receive his mark in his forehead, or inhis hand. The same shall drink of the wineof the wrath of God, which is poured outwithout mixture into the cup of hisindignation; and he shall be tormented withfire and brimstone in the presence of theholy angels, and in the presence of theLamb: And the smoke of their tormentascendeth up for ever and ever: and they

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have no rest day nor night, who worship thebeast and his image, and whosoeverreceiveth the mark of his name.37

Another signal of an impending doom is theomnipresent despondency and questioning of allauthorities. King Tirian, despite his righteousness andintegrity, becomes disparaged, as he is slandered andfalsely accused of treason by Shift and Rishda. Insteadof preparing for battle in his royal castle, he isforced to hide in the woods and secretly assemble histroops. St. John’s Apocalypse contains a parallelimage: ‘And the kings of the earth, and the princes,and the chief captains, and the rich, and the strong,and every bondman and freeman, hid themselves in thecaves and in the rocks of the mountains’.38 With thesubversion of authorities and utter disillusionmentwith religion, the Narnians no longer feel secure,which results in general chaos and confusion parallelto the one described in the Bible. At this point thesituation is so hopeless that Narnia’s end appears tobe inevitable which is an exact realisation of theeschatological theme. In such case evil is able to takeover Narnia and ‘its presence is evidenced by thedepression and gloom that hang over that world like apoisonous cloud’.39

The natural phenomenon, and the next sign, whichprecedes both the Biblical and Narnian apocalypse is anearthquake. The earth shakes for the first time whenShift conceives his plot of turning Puzzle into Aslan’simpostor. The tremors recur when Shift and Rishda arepunished for their misdemeanour and thrown into thestable,40 later when Aslan unsuccessfully tries toconvert the dwarfs,41 and finally when he growls at

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Emeth’s42 question as to whether he and Tash are thesame being.43 Thus, earth’s shaking is the manifestationof Aslan’s anger, just as in the Bible it is God’spunishment sent onto the Earth. Biblical references tothe earthquake can be found in the Gospel of Mark: ‘Fornation shall rise against nation, and kingdom againstkingdom: and there shall be earthquakes in diversplaces, and there shall be famines and troubles: theseare the beginnings of sorrows.’44 In the Book ofRevelation the earthquake occurs a number of times, atfirst when the sixth and then when the seventh seal isbroken: ‘And I saw when he opened the sixth seal, andthere was a great earthquake; and the sun became blackas sackcloth of hair,’45 ‘And the angel took the censer,and filled it with fire of the altar, and cast it intothe earth; And there followed thunders, and voices, and

23Ibid., 87.24Ibid., 87.25Ibid., 196. 26Lewis, The Last Battle, 97.27Ford, Companion to Narnia, 422-3. 28Lewis, The Last Battle, 125.29Ford, Companion to Narnia, 47. 30‘In Old Norse, roonwit means “he who knows how to read the sacred language,” which confirms his position of a prophet who has the ability to read the stars. (Ford, Companion to Narnia, 378).31Ibid., 88.32Ibid., 100.33Ibid., 138.34Ibid., 140.35Lewis, The Last Battle, 110. 36Ford, Companion to Narnia, 80-81.37The Book of Revelation, 14:9-13.

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lightnings, and an earthquake’.46 In both cases itaccompanies the subsequent stages of the world’sdestruction.

3. The ApocalypseThe apocalypse is presented in the novel as a

continuous, powerful process, the reversal of the actof creation described in chronologically the firstvolume of The Chronicles of Narnia entitled The Magician’s Nephew(1955). On Narnia’s first day Aslan created, out of thevoid, the sun, stars, mountains, plants and eventuallyanimals, with his song of life. Some of them, onAslan’s command, became rational talking beasts whowere given the land into their possession. In The LastBattle, this sequence of events is reversed and graduallythe whole world draws to its demise beginning with anepic battle between the Narnians and the Calormenes,and ending in eternal darkness once more dawning onNarnia. During the battle most of Tirian’s subjects areeither killed or captured by enemy forces, and the kinghimself is driven into the dreaded stable where Shiftused to hide his false Aslan. Ford observes that theking’s death is not shown literally ‘in its physicalmanifestation’ but rather presented as entering thestable, since Lewis intended to ‘show that death is atransition and not something to be feared’.47 Inside ofthe stable, to Tirian’s surprise, instead of a smallconfined space he finds an enormous land where heencounters his friends, even the ones he considered tobe dead, including those who were killed in the battle– Roonwit, Jewel and Farsight. Once they are safe inAslan’s country, the Lion comes to the door and

38Ibid., 6:15.39Ford, Companion to Narnia, 206.

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exclaims: ‘Now it is time! Time! Time!’ so loudly thatthe whole earth shakes, thereby commencing thedestruction of the world.48 It is at this point that theactual apocalypse begins. At Aslan’s command FatherTime raises from his sleep and blows a giant hornemitting the sound which is ‘high and terrible, yet ofa strange deadly beauty’.49 On hearing the call, stars(here being ethereal shiny human-like creatures:‘glittering people, all with long hair like burningsilver and spears like white-hot metal’50) begin fallingfrom the sky. ‘The sky became full of shooting stars[…] dozens, and then scores, and then hundreds, till itwas like silver rain’.51 As the process continued ‘thestarless patch began to grow, spreading further andfurther from the centre of the sky [...] The spreadingblackness was not a cloud at all: it was simplyemptiness. The black part of the sky was the part inwhich there were no stars left. All the stars werefalling: aslant had called them home’.52 This scene,which echoes a Biblical one from the Gospel of Mark:‘And the stars of heaven shall fall, and the powersthat are in heaven shall be shaken,’53 proves that Aslanis a master of the whole earth and heaven, able tocreate and destroy it with only one word. Once stars40Lewis, The Last Battle, 124.41Ibid., 139.42‘Emeth is the Hebrew word for “faithful, true,” and this is a deliberate reference by Lewis, for he was well aware of the meaning’. (Ford, Companion to Narnia, 193). 43Ibid., 154.44The Holy Bible: King James Version. Mark 13:8. 45The Book of Revelation, 6:12.46Ibid., 8:5.

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are no longer illuminating the sky, the Last Judgement,which is ‘the second of four phases of eschatology,’54

begins: ‘And at last, out of the shadow of the trees,racing up the hill for dear life, by thousands and bymillions, came all kinds of creatures – Talking Beasts,Dwarfs, Satyrs, Fauns, Giants, Calormenes, men fromArchenland, Monopods, and strange unearthly things […]and all these ran up to the doorway where Aslanstood’.55 Those who look at him with love and faith areadmitted through the door, for ‘the recognition of that[Aslan’s] face with love and awe at the end of timeopens out onto an eternity of joy’.56 Those who expresshatred or disbelief are deprived of their ability tospeak (which they were given during the creation) anddisappear into the darkness.57 The scene of thejudgement closely resembles its Biblical predecessor:‘I saw, and behold, a great multitude, which no mancould number, out of every nation and of all tribes andpeoples and tongues, standing before the throne andbefore the Lamb’.58 Exactly like Christ, Aslan is animpartial judge rewarding those who remained faithfuldespite the confusion governing the world prior to hiscoming. Once the judgement is over, the entire flora isdevoured by monster lizards and dragons that die anddecompose afterwards: ‘The Dragons and Giant Lizardsnow had Narnia to themselves. They went to and frotearing up the trees by the roots and crunching them upas if they were sticks of rhubarb. Minute by minute theforests disappeared. The whole country became bare. […]The grass died’.59 When there is no life left, the searises and water inundates the remnants and bare lands.‘Soon they were only huge skeletons that lay here andthere on the dead rock, looking as if they had diedthousands of years ago. […] A widespread noise broke

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the silence. […] It was a foaming wall of water. Thesea was rising’.60 A huge, red dying Sun rises over thehorizon and colours the water bloody red. The moonrises in an unusual place:

The sun also was dying. It was three times– twenty times – as big as it ought to be,and very dark red. […] The whole waste ofshoreless waters looked like blood. Thenthe Moon came up, quite in her wrongposition, very close to the sun [...] Thesun began shooting out great flames, likewhiskers or snakes of crimson fire, towardsher. [...] She came to him, slowly atfirst, but then more and more quickly, tillat last his long flames licked round herand the two ran together and became onehuge ball like a burning coal. Great lumpsof fire came dropping out of it into thesea and clouds of steam rose up.61

Ultimately, at Aslan’s command – ‘Now make an end’62– the sun absorbs the moon and is squeezed by FatherTime. This signals the advent of eternal darkness andNarnia’s death. Everything, including time, ceases toexist and King Peter closes the door to the old worldwith a golden key in which he is reminiscent of StPeter who carries the keys to heavenly gates.63 In thisscene Lewis establishes the importance of divineprovidence and its inevitability. The world isdestroyed despite a strong belief of Aslan’sworshippers and the repentance of those who hadpreviously sinned against him. The apocalypse becomes apure manifestation of God’s will. A number of congruousimages are apparent in St John’s Apocalypse, such as

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the rain of stars, the destruction of the sky, and themoon’s death:

There was a great earthquake; and the sunbecame black as sackcloth of hair, and themoon became as blood; And the stars ofheaven fell unto the earth. Even as a figtree casteth her untimely figs, when she isshaken of a mighty wind. And the heavendeparted as a scroll; and every mountainand island were moved out of their places.64

The disappearance of lands is described in St John’sRevelation as well: ‘And every island fled away, andthe mountains were not found’.65 Instead of a horn there

47Ford, Companion to Narnia, 432. 48Lewis, The Last Battle, 140.49Ibid., 141.50Ibid., 142.51Ibid., 142.52Ibid., 142.53The Holy Bible: King James Version. Mark 13:25. 54Ford, Companion to Narnia, 272. 55Ibid., 143.56Ford, Companion to Narnia, 55.57Lewis, The Last Battle, 144.58The Book of Revelation, 7:9.59Lewis, The Last Battle, 146.60Ibid., 147. 61Ibid., 148.62Ibid., 148.63The Holy Bible: King James Version. Matthew 16:19. 64The Book of Revelation, 6:12-14.65Ibid., 16:20.

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are angels with trumpets whose voices cause variouscalamities to fall on the earth, yet here it is more amatter of punishment sent on people:

And the seven angels that had the seventrumpets prepared themselves to sound. Andthe first sounded, and there followed hailand fire, mingled with blood, and they werecast upon the earth: and the third part oftrees was burnt up, and all green grass wasburnt up. And the second angel sounded, andas it were a great mountain burning withfire was cast into the sea: and the thirdpart of the sea became blood; And the thirdpart of the creatures which were in thesea, and had life, died; and the third partof the ships were destroyed. And the thirdangel sounded, and there fell a great starfrom heaven, burning as it were a lamp, andit fell upon the third part of the rivers,and upon the fountains of waters.66

Lewis’s version is undoubtedly less drastic, since itwas meant to be read mainly by children, however, it isnot devoid of strong imagery: ‘The Last Battle details thegore: three Calormenes are shot by arrows, one piercedby Jewel, one by Tirian’s sword, the fox by Eustace’ssword; the bull shot in the eye and gored in the side;three dogs killed and one hobbled; and the quiet deathof the helpless Bear’.67 Nevertheless, it is enrichedwith an emotional tincture. The protagonists mourn overNarnia’s end although they are offered a place in

66Ibid., 8:6-10.67Ford, Companion to Narnia, 448.

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Aslan’s country. Lewis presents their individualattitudes towards the apocalypse and death, which rangefrom despair to humble acceptance of Aslan’s will. Thelatter attitude is best represented by Peter who says:‘Night falls on Narnia. What, Lucy! You’re not crying?With Aslan ahead and all of us here?,’ whereas LordDigory and Jill appear to be much less optimistic: ‘“Idid hope,” said Jill, “that it might go on forever. Iknew our world couldn’t, I did think Narnia might.”[...] “I saw it begin,” said Lord Digory. “I did notthink I would live to see it die”’.68 Ford suggests thatLewis presents crying as ‘both ignoble and to beavoided,’ in the case of knights and warriors; and as‘noble and not to be ashamed of,’ when it becomes ‘areaction to great beauty or tragedy’ such as Narnia’send.69

Still other characters, including Roonwit, representa stoic approach towards death, resembling classicalepic and medieval chivalric stories. ‘Noble death is atreasure which no one is too poor to buy,’70 are thelast words of the dying centaur. The children feel alittle uneasy about the prospect of dying, not beingsure whether they will disappear from their own worldas well. They do not yet know that what brought them toNarnia was a railway accident in which they were allkilled. However, in The Last Battle, it is a feeling ofnostalgia connected with Narnia’s death that ispredominant, instead of horror.

It is important to note that the Narnian apocalypseis neither commenced as a form of a punishment sentonto the Narnians, nor as an outcome of an alien

68Lewis, The Last Battle, 149.69Ford, Companion to Narnia, 151. 70Ibid., 88.

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invasion (however, if we consider the Calormenes to bealiens, it can partially be true). Rather, it is amatter of divine providence; a natural phase in theNarnian history, and the realisation of Aslan’s will.

4. After the ApocalypseOnce Narnia is gone, Aslan’s eternal country, the

land called ‘The Real Narnia,’ the Platonic ‘overworldof self-subsisting ideas’71 unveils itself to Aslan’sworshippers on the other side of the stable door (whichis a metaphor of death).72 It mirrors Biblical heaven:‘And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the firstheaven and the first earth were passed away’73 andcontains ‘incredibly high yet snow-free mountains,bathed in late-spring/ midsummer warm breezes andfreshness, alive with the sounds of running water,waterfalls, and birdsong against “a background ofimmense silence,” and covered with orchards of autumn-ripe fruit, forests of mighty trees, and flower-deckedmeadows’.74 What is left outside, the dying Narnia, iscalled by Aslan ‘The Shadowlands’.75 This, again, is anallusion to Plato’s cave allegory. The Narnia theprotagonists knew before ceases to exist, but it isonly shadows that are gone, not the genuine countryitself.76 Ford notices that Aslan’s land possesses aquality once described by St. Thomas Aquinas: ‘Were oneable to go “further up and further in” – into the verymind and being of God – one would find not an utterly

71Ford, Companion to Narnia, 339.72Ibid., 158. 73The Book of Revelation, 21:1.74Ford, Companion to Narnia, 94. 75Lewis, The Last Battle, 171.76Ford, Companion to Narnia, 340.

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new reality but something strangely familiar, something“like” the world one had always known before, onlysupremely better,’77 which is exactly the property ofAslan’s country. Following Plato and St. Augustine, inhis preface to The Pilgrim’s Regress: An Allegorical Apology forChristianity, Reason and Romanticism (1958), Lewis defines thenotion of ‘ascent of the soul’ as ‘a restless piercingdesire for the unlimited source of all reality andperfection’ experienced by the human heart and inspiredby God’s creation.78 For this reason, in Aslan’s countryJewel the Unicorn expresses his unlimited happiness: ‘Ihave come home at last! This is the land I have beenlooking for all my life, though I never knew it tillnow’.79 By entering Aslan’s realm, the protagonistsfulfil the ‘Platonic quest for reality’;80 their soulsmake a full circle coming back to the eternal realitywhere they were created and are supposed to continuetheir journey to ultimate perfection.

Aslan’s country is the land of love and grace wheredeath and fear are ultimately defeated.81 A similarmotif can be found in the New Testament: ‘There is nofear in love; but perfect love casts out fear’.82Everyone becomes young, strong and healthy and ‘thevery young mature only to the flower of their manhoodor womanhood,’ which, as Ford argues, is the age of

77Ibid., 340.78Lewis, C.S. The Pilgrim’s Regress: An Allegorical Apology forChristianity, Reason and Romanticism (Grand Rapids: EerdmansPublishing Co.,1958), 7.79Lewis, The Last Battle, 161.80Ford, Companion to Narnia, 341.81Lewis, The Last Battle, 162-163.821 John, 4:18.

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thirty three, since ‘according to Christian theologythat was the age to which Jesus attained in his earthlylife’.83 Aslan’s country becomes the universal heavenfor all believers, even a Calormene Emeth finds hisplace by the Lion’s side. His greatest desire was tomeet Tash whom he eagerly served. Aslan explains to himthat all good done to other creatures is performed inthe name of Aslan and thus all evil is dedicated toTash even if one thinks the opposite.84 During thejourney ‘further up and further in’ Lucy notices that‘the real Tashbaan, i.e. the Calormene capital city,can also be found in Aslan’s country, which mightsuggest that ‘something in Calormene culture is goodenough to allow it to survive into eternity’.85 Thus,Aslan’s world welcomes all good-hearted creatures, beit beasts or humans, regardless of their religion, aslong as they were upright and faithful, which is notexactly the case in world’s biggest religions wherepagans are not admitted unless they convert.

5. Lewis’s apocalypse contrasted with other visionsWere one to compare the apocalypse as seen by Lewis

with other popular visions, one would certainly findnumerous similarities concerning the process of theworld’s destruction, including the earthquakes, fires,massive deaths, and the dawn of darkness. Thoseelements are to be observed in Roland Emmerich’s 2012(2009) and The Day After Tomorrow (2004), as well as inByron Haskin’s The War of the Worlds (1954) and its remake bySteven Spielberg from 2005 based on H.G.. Wells’sfamous apocalyptic novel. However, what makes Narnia’s

83Ford, Companion to Narnia, 42. 84Lewis, The Last Battle, 154.85Ford, Companion to Narnia, 128.

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end different, are the reasons that led to it. In theabove-mentioned works the apocalypse was usually shownas the punishment for people’s misconduct or theoutcome of their excessive exploitation of the earth.In Emmerich’s films the divine factor is completelyexcluded and the apocalypse is a natural process whichresults from global warming and the earth’s pollution.The globe, however, is not entirely destructed, but thelands are covered with water and all human creationsare destroyed. In The Day After Tomorrow the new ice agebegins north of the equator, thereby destroying half ofthe world’s population. Those who manage to run away tothe South survive. In 2012 the apocalypse is morecomplete, since all the lands are flooded and humansare rescued on arks, which is an obvious reference tothe story of the Biblical Great Flood. Taking the rangeof the destruction into consideration, it is the lattervision that is more similar to Lewis’s. Nevertheless,in neither of them is the sun destroyed and all lifeextinct. In other films, e.g. in The War of the Worlds,Emmerich’s Independence Day (1996) and Tim Burton’s MarsAttacks (1996), the apocalypse was caused by alien forcesinvading our planet, presumably to annihilate the humanrace and colonize the Earth. As was stated earlier inthis chapter, Narnian apocalypse is the realization ofdivine providence and could not be avoided, unlike inEmmerich’s films. A similar motif was discussed by MiloSweedler in his analysis of Lars von Trier’s Melancholia,where the apocalypse is a matter of the Earth’scollision with another planet and, obviously, could notbe prevented. What makes Lewis’s vision similar to someof the above-mentioned movies, however, is the motif ofan alien invasion which causes the apocalypse to begin,but, unlike the Earth, Narnia loses the final battleand becomes utterly destroyed. In this respect Lewis’s

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novel differs from a number of post-apocalyptic filmsin which, despite the global disaster and the death ofthe majority of human population, there are always somepeople who survive and attempt to rebuild the humancivilisation. Among those the most notable are KevinCostner’s The Postman (1997) and Waterworld (1995); GeorgeMiller’s Mad Max (1979); Albert Hughes’ The Book of Eli(2010); James Cameron’s Terminator (1984); and RidleyScott’s The Blade Runner (1982). All these films presentvarious visions of life after the apocalypse (usuallycaused by a global nuclear war), and human adaptabilityto new circumstances. Since the world in Narnia is goneand nothing remains, including the lands and the sun,it is not possible to rebuild anything and the deadworld remains behind the closed door. Instead, the mainprotagonists are reunited in Aslan’s country, in theafterlife, which is their reward for being faithful andgood-hearted. Although everyone is obviously dead,Lewis presents it in such a way that there is a happyending of the story. Such an ending, makes theapocalypse complete, since it truly is the end of allthings, unlike in the films mentioned above wherehumanity somehow survives.

6. Conclusion

Various visions of the apocalypse present it as acomplex process inevitably leading to the destructionof the world and the majority of its population.Moreover, they show human behaviour when confrontedwith death, and voice human fears connected with thefinal things. This awareness of the upcoming end iswhat may be defined an eschatological perspective, andit dominates Lewis’s novel from its first words. Whatis significant, however, is that Lewis does not imaginethe apocalypse as the end but rather as a change, a new

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beginning, and the first step in the pursuit of eternaljoy:

But for them it was only the beginning ofthe real story. All their life in thisworld and all their adventures in Narniahad only been the cover and the title page:now at last they were beginning Chapter Oneof the Great Story which no one on earthhas read: which goes on forever: in whichevery chapter is better than the onebefore.86

Instead of simply bringing his created world to an end,Lewis enriched his story with an extra theologicaldimension. Like the Bible, it is supposed to transmitthe message that a proper conduct will guarantee us aplace in heaven, though it is unable to prevent theapocalypse. It is also worth observing that the meaningof the apocalypse in the novel extends beyond the ‘massdestruction,’ as Allan Weiss called it in his paper,but comprises the meaning of ‘revelation,’ as it is thenew ‘Real Narnia’ and eternal joy in Aslan’s countrythat are revealed to his faithful worshippers.Nevertheless, the main emphasis is on the adventures ofparticular characters, already well familiar to thereaders of the saga, which presents a more individualapproach to the themes of death and apocalypse.Although maintained within the conventions ofchildren’s literature, The Last Battle provides a seriousand complex picture of the Armageddon, which deserves athorough consideration. As Jadwiga Węgrodzka states,‘the inherent complexity of communicative situation

86Ibid., 172.

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should be a warning against dismissing children’sliterature per se as unworthy of critical attention’.87And Lewis ‘took children seriously,’88 since ‘that isthe proper meeting between man and child as independentpersonalities,’ as he claims in ‘On Three Ways ofWriting for Children’.89 The solemnity and reverence ofLewis’s vision, as well as a plethora of intertextualallusions, illustrate that The Last Battle deserves to have

87Węgrodzka, Jadwiga. Patterns of Enchantment: E. Nesbitand the Traditions of Children’s Literature(Sopot: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Gdańskiego, 2007), 20.88 Ford, Companion to Narnia, 4.89 Lewis, Of Other Worlds, Walter Hopper, ed. (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1966), 34.

Bibliography

Donne, John. “Holy Sonnet XIII”. Viewed on Luminarium,10 April, 2013.<http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/donne/sonnet13.php>.

Ford, Paul F. Companion to Narnia: A Complete Guide to the MagicalWorld of C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia. Rev. ed. SanFrancisco: Harper Collins Publishers, 2005.

L’Engle, Madeleine, Foreword. Companion to Narnia: A CompleteGuide to the Magical World of C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles ofNarnia. Rev. ed. By Paul. F. Ford. San Francisco: HarperCollins Publishers, 2005.

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an established position within the canon of apocalypticliterature.

Notes

Lewis, C.S. The Pilgrim’s Regress: An Allegorical Apology forChristianity, Reason and Romanticism. Grand Rapids: EerdmansPublishing Co., 1958.

–––, The Last Battle. Glasgow: William Collins, 1987.

–––, Of Other Worlds, Walter Hopper, ed. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1966.

The Holy Bible: King James Version. New York: American BibleSociety, 1999.

Schultz, Jeffrey D. and John West, Jr., eds. The C. S. LewisReader’s Encyclopedia. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998.

Walsh, Chad. Foreword. The Image of Man in C. S. Lewis. ByWilliam L. White. New York: Abingdon Press, 1969.

Węgrodzka, Jadwiga. Patterns of Enchantment: E. Nesbit and theTraditions of Children’s Literature. Sopot: WydawnictwoUniwersytetu Gdańskiego, 2007.

Magdalena Zegarlińska is a Ph.D. student at theUniversity of Gdansk, Poland. While interested mostlyin British Victorian and children’s literature, thesubject of her Ph.D. was film studies and the dualityas the source of Freudian “uncanny” in David Lynch’s

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films in particular.

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C.S. Lewis and the apocalypse. The Eschatological Dimension of The Last Battle

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