Jill Pole

Lady of the Lion's Mane

Lady of the Lion's Mane

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Sorry if this doesn't belong here, I just didn't know where to put it. So, if it needs to be moved, then mods please do. :D


Okay, I have a question concerning Jill's name. It's nothing huge. Really just a trivial little thing...

Is it possible that Jill is short for Jillian? Jillian being a (once?) popular/common British girls' name. It seems unlikely she would just be named 'Jill.'

And what's with her last name? So different from the rest. lol. I guess since Lewis is dead we can't just go over and ask him. :rolleyes:

And I guess I'll throw it in with the rest here, as I just started re-reading SC after ... 2 years? of not having read it.

What's with the whole "Scrubb" and "Pole" business? I am rather not fond of their predilection toward calling each other by their...unmelodic...last names. It isn't done in any of the other books.

Is it supposed to be a reference to the "messed up" ways of Experiment House?

I know calling each other by last names can be rather British sometimes, (think Harry Potter..."Malfoy," "Weasley" and so on) but with them? When the Pevensies certainly didn't (granted, they are siblings) and Eustace called Edmund 'Edmund' or 'Ed,' not "Pevensie."

I'm guessing it must be an Experiment House thing, as They (the bullies) at EH called them by their last names as well...

o_O
 
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The Pevensies wouldn't call each other, or their cousin Eustace, by last names, because they were in the same family. But when one was NOT married to a person or related to him/her by blood, it WAS the norm in English society of Mr. Lewis' time for social equals to address each other by the last name. (For that matter, it's also the custom NOW in the U.S. Armed Forces.) That's why Jill, related to no other Narnian, used Eustace's last name and was addressed the same way by him.
 
I get the feeling that everyone at EH called Eustace "Scrubb" it says that his teachers did in VotDT. Also, if you look at other examples of classic British literature, take P&P for example, you find people (in P&P it is Darcy and Bingley) calling each other by their last names. Like CF said, it was (and still is) typical for social equals to do so.

With Jill (and for that matter Polly) it is possible they had longer names, but then too, they could have just been named Jill and Polly, instead of Jillian and Pollyanna.
 
I hadn't thought of the social class thing - I just thought it was a thing of the school or something. But if you think of it, that is a really good point.

Also, Jill standing for Jillian, hadn't thought of that.

Wow, these books can be so much more anylized than one might think!
 
well for the whole jillian thing, maybe thats her nickname, and CS lewis doesnt mention her real name, like in harry potter, every body calls ronald >> RON.

And i agree with Copperfox, jill and eustace call each other by their last name because of the social stuff ;)
 
Chapter 13, The Silver Chair:

"But when Scrubbs shook hands with Jill, he said "So long, Jill. Sorry I've been a funk and so ratty. I hope you get safe home," and Jill said, "So long, Eustace. And I'm sorry I've been such a pig." And this was the first time they had ever used Christian names, because one didn't do it at school."
 
Right. In school, unless you were related by blood or really, really, very close friend that could count almost as family (as in "Ron," "Harry," and "Hermione") schoolmates would call each other by their last name. It was kind of rude to call a schoolmate by his first name. Teachers could call you by your first name, but if they did, it meant you were in trouble!

When Jill and Eustace finally called each other by their first name, it mean that they had really bonded and had become a family, not friends anymore but brother and sister in Aslan:) Thats why the quote above by Helen-of-Narnia is one of my favorite ones in SC!
 
I just asked my dad who was at British school during the sixties and he said the same as you BK. He would generally use peoples' surnames except for close friends. IT was probably not that different 20 years earlier.
 
"And this was the first time they had ever used Christian names, because one didn't do it at school."

I've always been curious about that line from TSC. Why did Lewis refer to their first names as their Christian names? They are just their given names. And seriously, do you think Harold and Alberta were Christian? Or Jill's parents for that matter? They didn't even know who Adam and Eve were.

I do know that in Judaism one's regular first name may not be one's Jewish name, but that does not apply to this.

MrBob
 
When one refers to a "Christian name" one usually means the name a person is given when they are baptized, i.e. when they become Christian. But I belive it has also come to mean the name given to you at birth, your first name, not the name that you inherit by heredity.
 
christian name is just a standard synonym for first name

i think it's gone out of fashion a bit now though
 
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