Four characters to watch
Character #1--Eustace. Jesus explained to his followers that He came to seek and to save those who are lost. And like Edmund early in the first story, Eustace is a young boy who is definitely on the wrong path. In fact when we meet him, Eustace has been on the wrong path for so long that he can see no other--in his eyes, he does no wrong. Edmund refers to his cousin as a "record stinker" and this is putting Eustace's spiritual condition mildly.
Friends? Lewis tells us he has none. Happiness? Eustace knows only one kind: bossing and bullying others, provided they are either smaller or weaker than he is or too good to fight back. But even while Eustace is this record stinker, Aslan loves him and will not abandon him to a life which leads to misery in the short term and to destruction in the end. Through a magical painting which comes to life at just the right moment, much as the wardrobe did, Eustace is brought kicking and complaining into Narnia.
In The Problem of Pain, Lewis points out that when the Gospel was first preached, "It brought news of possible healing to men that knew they were mortally ill." But now, Lewis notes, all this has changed. Today before the good news of Christ's healing power can be accepted, people must first be convinced of the bad news of their spiritual state. In the film Amazing Grace, though his mind is fading with age John Newton declares he knows two things very clearly: "I'm a great sinner, and Christ is a great Savior." Modern man--and Eustace is very modern--must be made aware of the first truth before he can know the second.
Lewis suggests that God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts to us in our pains. Pain, Lewis writes, is God's "megaphone to rouse a deaf world." After Eustace is captured by slave traders on Felimath, no one will buy him. But Eustace is deaf to the message this episode has for him, as he has been deaf all his life to any indication he is not the wonderful person he thinks he is.
Through grace, Eustace is finally made painfully aware of the dragonish life he has been leading. With Aslan's help he comes to see himself as he really is and where he will end up. Filled with horror and disgust, Eustace is able to make minor, superficial improvements, but is unable to change himself in any complete or lasting way, is unable to free himself from the chains of deep-down selfishness, cruelty, and pride which shackle him.
Eustace Clarence Scrubb shares more than a pretentious-sounding name and somewhat similar initials with his creator Clive Staple Lewis. In a letter that Lewis wrote about his own spiritual awakening, he confessed: "I have found out ludicrous and terrible things about my own character ... There seems to be no end to it. Depth under depth of self love and self admiration."
Finally Aslan tells Eustace, "You will have to let me undress you." And let is a key word, for Aslan will not force his salvation on anyone. Eustace consents and through another painful ordeal is made new and set on the right path.
Following his encounter with Aslan, Eustace is not perfect but is headed in the right direction and so becomes an illustration of how Christians are to grow and mature after their own turn around. Lewis writes: "It would be nice, and fairly true, to say that 'from that time forth Eustace was a different boy.' To be strictly accurate, he began to be a different boy. He had relapses. There were still many days when he could be very tiresome. But most of those I shall not notice. The cure had begun."
John Newton says, "I once was blind but now I see. Didn't I write that?" When Wilberforce agrees, Newton declares, "Now at last it's true." Eustace, too, is initially blind to his dreadful spiritual condition. But after The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Eustace, like Newton, can proclaim, "I once was lost but now am found." Through Eustace--one of the most memorable and most loved characters in the Chronicles--Lewis powerfully communicates the bad news about our sinful state and the good news of God's grace and his cure for us.
Character #2--Reepicheep. Towards the end of Prince Caspian Aslan told Reepicheep, "I have sometimes wondered, friend, whether you do not think too much about your honor." In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Lewis adds to his portrait of the valiant mouse as Reepicheep tells Edmund and Lucy of a prophecy spoken at his birth: "Where sky and water meet, where the waves grow sweet, doubt not, Reepicheep, to find all you seek." But what is it that Reepicheep really seeks? Is it honor or something greater?
Though his situation is not as dire as Eustace's, Reepicheep--an experienced follower of Aslan--will have his own struggle to face. As the crew sails closer and closer to the place where sky and water meet, Reepicheep must decide whether his honor is what is really important or something deeper, something which honor is merely a pointer to. The fact that he flings away his sword and allows Lucy to caress him--something his honor would never have permitted--indicates he finally realizes what he really has been seeking all his life.
In Prince Caspian, Reepicheep told Peter, "My life is ever at your command, but my honor is my own." At the end of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the valiant mouse comes to a point where he no longer holds his honor back as something which must be his and not offered up in service and sacrifice. In Prince Caspian, Reepicheep held that a tail was "the honor and glory" of a mouse. In his final scene in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Reepicheep finds a higher honor and a greater glory.
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SOURCE: Samaritan's Purse
Devin Brown is a Professor of English at Asbury University and the author of Inside Narnia (2005), Inside Prince Caspian (2008), and Inside the Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010). He is also a member of the advisory board for and a contributor to The C. S. Lewis Bible (2010).
