The Work
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was published by Geoffrey Bles on October 16, 1950. It is the second book in the Chronicles of Narnia (though published first) and the most widely read. The seven-volume series has sold over 100 million copies worldwide, and this first published volume accounts for the majority of those sales. It has been translated into forty-seven languages. It was adapted as a BBC television serial in 1988 and as a theatrical film by Walden Media/Disney in 2005 (grossing $745 million worldwide).
Lewis originally wrote the book for his goddaughter Lucy Barfield, whose name appears in the dedication. The four Pevensie children - Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy - are evacuated from London during the Blitz and sent to the country house of Professor Digory Kirke. Lucy discovers a wardrobe that is a portal to the magical world of Narnia, currently in a hundred-year winter under the rule of the White Witch. The lion Aslan, the true king of Narnia, appears and gives his life for the traitor Edmund before rising from the dead and defeating the Witch.
Lewis insisted in his later writings that he did not begin with allegory - he did not sit down with the plan 'I will write an allegorical story about Christ' - but began with images: a faun in a snowy forest, a lion, a witch. The Christian dimensions emerged as the story developed. Nevertheless, the parallels between Aslan's death and resurrection and the Passion narrative are so precise that they constitute a structural allegory regardless of compositional method.
Biblical Engagement
Isaiah 53:5-6 ('But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all') provides the theological framework for Aslan's substitutionary death. Edmund has betrayed his siblings to the White Witch and, under the 'Deep Magic from the dawn of time,' his life is forfeit to the Witch. Aslan negotiates with the Witch in secret and offers his own life in Edmund's place.
The Passover theology of Exodus 12 - the substitution of the lamb for the firstborn - is directly operative. Aslan is shaved, mocked, and killed on the Stone Table in a scene that closely parallels the Passion narrative (Matthew 27:27-50), including the shaving and mockery that recalls Matthew 27:29 and Mark 15:20. The Stone Table (the law of the Deep Magic) cracks at Aslan's resurrection, a direct parallel to the tearing of the temple veil (Matthew 27:51) and the rolling away of the stone from the tomb (Matthew 28:2).
John 11:25 ('I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live') is the theological foundation of the resurrection scene. Lewis described the 'Deeper Magic from before the Dawn of Time' - the magic that the Witch did not know - as the resurrection logic: 'When a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor's stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backwards.' This is Lewis's narrative rendering of Romans 5:8 ('But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us') and Hebrews 9:22 ('without shedding of blood is no remission').
The resurrection scene directly parallels the Easter narrative of the Gospels. Lucy and Susan watch at the Stone Table, as the women watched at the cross (John 19:25). They discover the Table cracked and Aslan absent, as the women discovered the empty tomb (Mark 16:1-8). Aslan appears to them and they touch him, as Thomas touches the risen Christ (John 20:27). He is 'more joyful' and 'more alive' than he was before his death, as the resurrection appearances describe a transformed body.
Romans 5:8 ('God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us') is the Pauline statement of the grace-logic that Aslan enacts. Edmund deserved death by his own choice; Aslan dies in his place; Edmund is restored to full relationship with his family. The transformation of Edmund - from self-serving traitor to noble king - is the narrative form of Paul's doctrine of justification: the sinner is declared righteous not by his own merit but by the substitutionary death of the innocent.
Hebrew 9:22 ('without shedding of blood is no remission') underlies the Deep Magic's logic. Lewis was making a serious theological argument, accessible to children, about why the Atonement requires death: the moral order of the universe (the Deep Magic) is not arbitrary but reflects something about the nature of evil and the cost of its repair.
Author and Context
Clive Staples Lewis (1898-1963) was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and educated at Oxford, where he became a Fellow and Tutor in English Literature at Magdalen College (1925-1954). His early career was as a literary scholar and atheist. His conversion to theism and then to Christianity - completed in 1931 and described in his autobiography Surprised by Joy (1955) - was one of the most intellectually serious religious conversions of the twentieth century. His colleague J.R.R. Tolkien played a role in the conversion, arguing to Lewis that the story of Christ was a myth that was also true.
Lewis explained his purpose in writing the Narnia books in his essay 'Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say Best What's to Be Said' (1956): 'I thought I saw how stories of this kind could steal past a certain inhibition which had paralyzed much of my own religion in childhood. Why did one find it so hard to feel as one was told one ought to feel about God or about the sufferings of Christ? I thought the chief reason was that one was told one ought to. An obligation to feel can freeze feelings. And reverence itself did harm. The whole subject was associated with lowered voices; almost as if it were something medical. But supposing that by casting all these things into an imaginary world, stripping them of their stained-glass and Sunday School associations, one could make them for the first time appear in their real potency? Could one not thus steal past those watchful dragons?'
The 'watchful dragons' Lewis refers to are the psychological defenses that prevent the Passion narrative from being felt with its full emotional force. By translating the story into a different world with different creatures, Lewis aimed to make the Resurrection as startling as it would have been to the first disciples - and to children who had heard it so often that its power had been anesthetized by familiarity.
Plot Summary with Biblical Thread
The four Pevensie children are evacuated to Professor Kirke's house in the country during the London Blitz. Lucy discovers the wardrobe and enters Narnia, meeting the faun Tumnus, who tells her the White Witch has cursed the land to 'always winter and never Christmas.' Edmund secretly contacts the Witch, who claims to offer him power and Turkish Delight in exchange for information about his siblings - an ironic parallel to Judas's thirty pieces of silver (Matthew 26:15).
The four children are finally all in Narnia and meet Aslan, whose very name fills them with awe. Aslan and the Witch privately negotiate; he surrenders himself. That night, while Lucy and Susan secretly accompany him to the Stone Table, Aslan is shaved, mocked, bound, and killed by the Witch - the Passion sequence. At dawn, the Stone Table cracks; Aslan rises, 'more joyful' than before. He breathes on the statues the Witch has turned to stone - a clear parallel to John 20:22, where the risen Christ breathes on the disciples, giving them the Holy Spirit - and leads them to battle. Peter defeats the Witch in battle; the four children are crowned as kings and queens of Narnia.
Critical Reception
The book received positive reviews on publication and became an immediate bestseller. Religious critics were enthusiastic; some secular critics found the allegory heavy-handed. J.R.R. Tolkien famously disliked the Narnia books for their inconsistent mythology and what he considered undisciplined allegory. The debate between 'allegory' (Lewis's stated disavowal) and 'symbol' (Tolkien's preferred category) has continued in scholarship.
Recent scholarship has focused on the books' colonial and gendered dimensions (Susan's exclusion from Narnia at the series' end), their relationship to Lewis's broader theological project (Mere Christianity, The Problem of Pain), and their extraordinary cultural reach. Michael Ward's Planet Narnia (2008) argues that the seven books are secretly organized around the seven medieval planets.
Theological Significance
The book's theological significance is its demonstration that narrative is uniquely suited to make abstract doctrines emotionally real. Lewis's substitutionary atonement is not a doctrine stated but a story experienced: readers who have grieved at Aslan's death and exulted at his resurrection have understood the Passion with an emotional directness that many sermons fail to achieve. This is the pedagogical theology that underlies Lewis's entire apologetic project.
Legacy
The book has become the primary gateway to Christian faith for many readers in the English-speaking world. Dozens of conversion narratives cite it as formative. Its influence on subsequent Christian fantasy - from Tolkien's reassessment to the entire genre of Christian speculative fiction - is foundational. The film adaptations brought it to new global audiences in the 2000s.
Reading Alongside Scripture
Readers should study Isaiah 53 (the Suffering Servant), Exodus 12 (the Passover, the substitution of the lamb), Mark 14-16 (the Passion and Resurrection narrative), Romans 5:6-11 (Christ dying for sinners), Hebrews 9:22-28 (the necessity of blood for remission), John 20:19-29 (the Resurrection appearances), and John 1:29 (the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world).
Further Reading
- Paul F. Ford, Companion to Narnia (1980, revised 2005) - the comprehensive reference guide to the characters, themes, and biblical allusions of the series. - Michael Ward, Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C.S. Lewis (2008) - an important revisionary reading of the series' hidden structure. - Lewis, Mere Christianity (1952) - the theological companion to the Narnia books, articulating the doctrines of atonement and resurrection that the stories embody in narrative form.