Prince Caspian

The first three chapters use vivid imagery and descriptive language to reintroduce readers to Narnia. Lewis paints a picture of the densely forested island, writing, “The trees were as thick as ever, but the stream had made itself a deep course between high mossy banks […]” (113). The garden is “full of grass and daisies, and ivy, and grey walls” and strikes the children as a “bright, secret, quiet place, and rather sad” (151). Lewis offers a detailed description of the ruins of Cair Paravel, writing that the children passed through “a little side door into a maze of stony humps and hollows which must once have been passages and smaller rooms but was now all nettles and wild roses” (181).

Such passages serve a couple of purposes. For one, the emphasis on Narnia’s natural features—its trees, waters, flowers, etc.—lays the groundwork for the novel’s consideration of Spirituality and Humanity’s Relationship to Nature. Closely related to this is the children’s intuitive connection to Narnia and the magic that undergirds it. Lucy, for example, experiences a “queer feeling” when she and her siblings stumble across Cair Paravel, sensing her former connection to the place. By the time the Pevensies find their gifts from Father Christmas, they are once again so fully immersed in Narnia that their lives there seem much more real than their lives on Earth. Susan refers to how they had “blundered back into that other place—England, I mean” (306), suggesting that they feel more at home in Narnia than they did in England—so much so that she hardly remembers the name of the country she came from.

Other details similarly support the children’s profound connection to Narnia. Firstly, the children are transported back to Narnia without even trying, suggesting that they have some unfulfilled destiny there dictated by a greater power. They also find and use their old gifts from Father Christmas, all of which are still in good working condition after hundreds of years. For instance, when Peter finds his sword, “He [is] afraid at first that it might be rusty and stick to the sheath. But it [is] not so. With one swift motion he [draws] it and [holds] it up, shining in the torchlight” (317). These descriptions hint that the gifts still hold some magic that will help the children on their next adventure. The recovery of the gifts also helps the children settle back into their Narnian identities in preparation for the trials to come. When Peter raises his sword, “There [is] a new tone in his voice, and the others all [feel] that he [is] really Peter the High King again” (317). When Susan plucks the string on her bow, “that one small noise [brings] back the old days to the children’s minds more than anything that had happened yet” (306).

Even before they realize where they are, the Pevensie children are cooperative with each other, working together to solve problems. They are presented as a close family unit with many shared memories and values. They help each other safely traverse the island, locate food and water, and find their old gifts. When they encounter the two soldiers on the beach, they seamlessly work together to scare away the soldiers without even discussing how to respond. Peter and Edmund stand out as particularly perceptive. Peter is the first to point out that the children have been transported to Narnia, and specifically to their old castle, saying, “We are in the ruins of Cair Paravel itself” (206). Edmund correctly guesses that Narnia’s time passes differently than time on Earth, and he persuades his siblings that they are experiencing Narnia in a different era, asking his siblings, “Why shouldn’t hundreds of years have gone past in Narnia while only one year has passed for us in England?” (347).