THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE | KAIROS GLOBAL | MAY 2024

Author: Benita Elissa Benny

An inherently Christian fantasy film based on CS Lewis' classic within the series, Chronicles of Narnia, the Academy Award-winning 2005 film directed by Andrew Adamson, is Christian life personified.

Four Pevensie siblings, Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy live in a countryside cottage in Britain during World War II. While playing hide-and-seek, Lucy discovers a wooden wardrobe and enters it, to discover a hidden magical world. This eerie world is covered in snow. Lucy meets a faun named Mr Tumnus, who informs Lucy that she is in Narnia and the White Witch had cursed the land to eternally experience winter, but Christmas never came. He also tells her that the White Witch wants any human who wanders into the land to be brought to her. Unable to hand her over, he sends her back to the human world, where no time had passed.

Next, Edmund enters Narnia only to meet the White Witch. He informs her of Tumnus, who is captured. The witch offers to make him ruler of Narnia if he brings his siblings.

Later, while escaping their housekeeper after breaking a window, the four children enter Narnia. They realise that Tumnus has been captured and talk to the beaver couple, who inform them that Aslan, the ruler and creator of the land, seeks to come back to power, and he needs the help of two sons of Adam, and two daughters of Eve to fulfil the prophecy.

Meanwhile, Edmund is captured by the witch, who turns Tumnus into stone.

The children meet Father Christmas, who gives them magical tools to help them in their quest. With the help of these tools and with Aslan's help, who is revealed to be a lion, they rescue Edmund.

The White Witch comes to Aslan to claim Edmund as her own. But Aslan offers to sacrifice himself instead. He is led to the Stone Table one night, mocked, defeated and killed with a sword by the witch. Lucy and Susan witness this and are heartbroken for Aslan's sake.

The witch sends her army to defeat Aslan's forces led by Peter and a fight ensues all night. By a magic that surpasses the witch's, Aslan is resurrected in the morning and joins his army to kill the witch and destroy her forces. The children then ascend the throne to become rulers of Narnia.

Although the movie follows the lines of a typical fantasy story, it is an allegory of Christianity. Aslan is the personification of God in that he is the creator and ruler of Narnia. He offers himself up instead of Edmund and is even resurrected the next day he's killed; closely resembling Jesus’ death and resurrection. After the incident, he instructs everyone never to talk about Edmund's mistake and forgives him wholeheartedly. How humans always need God's help to crush Satan is beautifully depicted in this film. 

Author CS Lewis explained the allegory of the novels in his statement, ‘Let us suppose that there were a land like Narnia and that the Son of God, as he became a man in our world, became a lion there, and then imagine what would happen.’ It is a wonderful movie that depicts in an interesting manner, the love, forgiveness and sacrifice of our loving Father.

Benita Elissa Benny is pursuing her Bachelor’s in English from Rajagiri College of Management and Applied Sciences. She lives in Ernakulam, India, with her parents, sister and brother.