Background
Alberta Scrubb is Eustace’s mother and one of the adults associated with the aggressively fashionable world Lewis satirizes at the beginning of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. She and Harold do not dominate the book, but their household helps explain why Eustace begins the story so self-satisfied, joyless, and socially unbearable.
Personality
Lewis sketches Alberta with a sharp but not especially elaborate touch. She seems committed to trends, correct opinions, and a modern tone that mistakes shallowness for sophistication. The effect is not demonic. It is simply airless. That makes her a useful part of the novel’s setup.
Role in the Story
Alberta’s importance lies in what kind of home she helps create. Eustace is not naturally obnoxious in a vacuum. He has been formed in an environment that rewards smugness and drains wonder out of life. Narnia becomes a shock to him partly because it is so unlike home.
Legacy in Narnia
As a character, Alberta is small in scale, but she helps set one of the clearest before-and-after contrasts in the Chronicles. Without the stale mood of the Scrubb household, Eustace’s change would still matter, but it would not feel quite as dramatic or as satisfying.
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