The Magician's Nephew

While The Chronicles of Narnia is widely considered allegorical, C. S. Lewis explicitly stated that he did not write the seven-book series as an allegory (Mikalatos, Matt. “Neither Allegory nor Lion: Aslan and the Chronicles of Narnia.” Reactor, 30 Oct. 2019). He instead considers the series a “supposal.” To Lewis, the ideas, concepts, and even people in an allegory have direct parallels to reality that permeate the entire literary work; the genre essentially transposes something factual (or taken to be factual) into symbolic form. By contrast, a supposal begins with an act of imagination—i.e., Lewis’s question, “What might Christ become like if there really were a world like Narnia, and He chose to be incarnate and die and rise again in that world as He actually has done in ours?” (Lewis, C. S. Quoted in “Neither Allegory nor Lion”). The relationship to reality is therefore both weaker and stronger than in allegory. On the one hand, the world and events of a supposal do not need to correspond exactly to those the reader knows. Parallels may exist (e.g., the Witch acting as the serpent in the Garden of Eden), but the story has its own internal logic that can deviate from that of the real world. However, the very fact that supposals don’t represent reality means that they can exist alongside it as allegories cannot. This is most evident in the depiction of Aslan, whom the novel frames not as symbolizing God in the alternate reality of Narnia, but rather as being God manifesting differently in a world of talking animals.   

Regardless of calling it an allegory or supposition, Lewis clearly wrote the books with theological intent. After Lewis’s conversion to Christianity in 1931, his numerous works dealt with questions of faith, which led to him being one of the most widely-read Christian authors. His works are still considered some of the most effective apologetic texts. The Chronicles of Narnia books exemplify this, and there are overt biblical allusions sprinkled throughout The Magician’s Nephew. Several of these involve Aslan, whose creation of Narnia frequently mirrors the Genesis account of Earth’s creation (e.g., giving the Talking Beasts dominion over the rest of Narnia as God gives humans dominion over Earth). By creating these close parallels, Lewis develops thematic arcs that embody some of the beliefs of the Christian faith, particularly in his treatment of Temptation and its Consequences.