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Comparing The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe

Decent Essays

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe: Where Christianity Comes to Life through a Fantasy Tale Have you ever dreamed of a world so much different than ours? One that is full of magic and danger and creatures beyond your wildest imagination? Discovering a whole new world found at the back of a wardrobe? Maybe if one understood how an author used his own life to write this novel, it would make more sense. As a result of expanding on some of his own life experiences, Clives Staples Lewis composed a best-selling novel in 1950 that is to be enjoyed by many generations to come. His service in World War I, views on Christianity, and memories from his early childhood all heavily influenced C.S. Lewis to write his allegorical novel, The Lion, the Witch, …show more content…

Lewis's childhood home and experiences. Born in the suburbs of Belfast, Ireland, his family lived in their country home in which they called “Little Lea” (“The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe”). This was very similar in appearance to the country home in which Lewis described in his novel. His home had long corridors, and secret nooks. Lucy, one of the children in the novel, describes the home as "a far larger house than she had ever been in before and the thought of all those long passages and rows of doors leading into empty rooms was beginning to make her feel a little creepy" (Lewis 4-5). In the attic of Lewis's home, he and his brother Warren would spend days making up stories about imaginary and magical worlds. In the novel, when Lucy first discovered Narnia through the wardrobe, her siblings thought she was just being childish and making up stories. Lewis used his imagination from when he was a boy and gave it to Lucy in the novel. In the attic in his childhood home was a black oak wardrobe, which was hand-carved by Lewis's grandfather ("The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe"). Lewis and his brother would sit in the wardrobe in the dark and tell stories. This is where his creative quality came into play. The wardrobe played a major symbolic role in the novel because that is where all the magic took

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