(no subject)
Jan. 17th, 2008 05:37 pmWhat he said: "Lipstick on my Scholar", Andrew Rilstone on why[1] C. S. Lewis didn't send Susan Pevensie to hell
Do read all of it, and the comments (where some people disagree). It's quite long, but makes the case better, more humerously and more comrehensively than I can. (In fact, all of his essays are very interesting.)
My impression, although I might not make the case as clearly as he does, I'll attempt to be more bullet-pointed, is:
* Rilstone says nylon tights and lipstick were relatively new and "she likes lipstick and tights" doesn't mean "she wants to look nice and attract men", it means "she wants silly, expensive, new-fangled consumer goods in order to conform with what the fashion industry says is pretty this season."
* Several quotes make it clear that she's too interested in nylons and lipstick, or only interested in nylons and lipstick, the problem isn't that she's interested in them at all.
* As an Adult in Narnia she is a famous beauty and courted by kings. That's not in a sexual way, either because of Lewis's preferences or because it's a children's book, but while chasing after Rabadash was a mistake, it's not suggested she shouldn't have been interested in him at all, so Lewis isn't against her growing up at all.
* Susan doesn't die because she's not on the train. She missed out on a shortcut to heaven this time, but don't know what will happen -- presumably/hopefully she will mature later
* And she chose to ignore her Narnia experiences, and not come, she wasn't forbidden from doing so by Aslan/God
* Lucy says she's too grown up, but Poly corrects her and says she wishes she *would* grow up, she's stuck at one of the most stupid stages of her life.
* Even if she doesn't find her way to heaven, the extent she does to hell depends on what Lewis believes, and how he chose to incorporate that in Narnia, which is hard to know. Are the skeptic dwarves in hell? The animals who lose their intellgience and speech? Are they all dropped into fire later? Or not? Rilstone talks about this a bit, there's a lot more to be said if you're a Lewis scholar, which I'm not.
* Rilstone says to Lewis what's good about the real world, and Narnia, is the way they reflect the higher worlds, and Aslan's country/heaven above. And Susan's sin is loving the world for itself, ignoring that higher purpose.
* He suggests Lewis likely needed one of the children to be left out, and it couldn't really be any of the others. In fact, wasn't Susan previously one of the most sensible previously?
* However, he and several people in the comments point out that Lewis was rather old fasioned, and probably didn't approve of sex being important, and maybe (as people say about Tolkien) wasn't very in touch with women either. So it's possible that his choice that the way Susan became too trvially involved in the world was sexual, does indicate some prejudice on his part. But I don't think that invalidates what happened in the books.
[1] Or to me more exact, that.
Do read all of it, and the comments (where some people disagree). It's quite long, but makes the case better, more humerously and more comrehensively than I can. (In fact, all of his essays are very interesting.)
My impression, although I might not make the case as clearly as he does, I'll attempt to be more bullet-pointed, is:
* Rilstone says nylon tights and lipstick were relatively new and "she likes lipstick and tights" doesn't mean "she wants to look nice and attract men", it means "she wants silly, expensive, new-fangled consumer goods in order to conform with what the fashion industry says is pretty this season."
* Several quotes make it clear that she's too interested in nylons and lipstick, or only interested in nylons and lipstick, the problem isn't that she's interested in them at all.
* As an Adult in Narnia she is a famous beauty and courted by kings. That's not in a sexual way, either because of Lewis's preferences or because it's a children's book, but while chasing after Rabadash was a mistake, it's not suggested she shouldn't have been interested in him at all, so Lewis isn't against her growing up at all.
* Susan doesn't die because she's not on the train. She missed out on a shortcut to heaven this time, but don't know what will happen -- presumably/hopefully she will mature later
* And she chose to ignore her Narnia experiences, and not come, she wasn't forbidden from doing so by Aslan/God
* Lucy says she's too grown up, but Poly corrects her and says she wishes she *would* grow up, she's stuck at one of the most stupid stages of her life.
* Even if she doesn't find her way to heaven, the extent she does to hell depends on what Lewis believes, and how he chose to incorporate that in Narnia, which is hard to know. Are the skeptic dwarves in hell? The animals who lose their intellgience and speech? Are they all dropped into fire later? Or not? Rilstone talks about this a bit, there's a lot more to be said if you're a Lewis scholar, which I'm not.
* Rilstone says to Lewis what's good about the real world, and Narnia, is the way they reflect the higher worlds, and Aslan's country/heaven above. And Susan's sin is loving the world for itself, ignoring that higher purpose.
* He suggests Lewis likely needed one of the children to be left out, and it couldn't really be any of the others. In fact, wasn't Susan previously one of the most sensible previously?
* However, he and several people in the comments point out that Lewis was rather old fasioned, and probably didn't approve of sex being important, and maybe (as people say about Tolkien) wasn't very in touch with women either. So it's possible that his choice that the way Susan became too trvially involved in the world was sexual, does indicate some prejudice on his part. But I don't think that invalidates what happened in the books.
[1] Or to me more exact, that.