Lucy forshadowing??

[TolkienGoddess]

I was reading Prince Caspian last night and a certain statement stuck out to me.

It's in the chapter "What Lucy Saw" or "Return of the Lion" (I don't have the book w/ me, so I'll recall the best I can). Lucy says to Susan that she's been thinking about something. She was referring to the talking beasts and the non talking ones. She says that it would be scary if people on Earth went crazy inside, but people couldn't tell. Then Susan says not to worry about it. The comment seemed VERY random and out of place, and then it was dropped.

Like I said, I haven't read the entire CofN, so I may be able to answer my own question later on, but is Lucy referring to something that happens later in the books, or was that just something Lewis threw in there? Maybe he had some hard feelings from the war, and he put that line in there to express his fears??

 

[PrinceOfTheWest]

That incident happened just after a bear charged out to attack Lucy and Trumpkin killed it with an arrow. Susan had hesitated because she didn't want to risk shooting a talking bear, but Trumpkin, who was more experienced in the "current" Narnia, knew that the bear only "wanted Little Girl for his breakfast." However, Trumpkin does allow for Susan's fears with the following statement: "That's the trouble of it when most of the beast have gone enemy and gone dumb, bu there are still some of the other kind left. You never know, and you daren't wait to see."

Here's the actual dialog between Lucy and Susan:

When they [Lucy & Susan] had sat down she said: "Such a horrid idea has come into my head, Su."
"What's that?"
"Wouldn't it be dreadful if some day, in our own world, at home, men started going wild inside, like the animals here, and still looked like me, so that you'd never know which were which?"
"We've got enough to bother about here and now in Narnia," said the practical Susan, "without imagining things like that."
​

I think this is the first indication that the Talking Beasts can lose their ability to talk and revert to being dumb beasts. This is, of course, explicitly stated by Aslan at the founding of Narnia in Nephew, but here it's alluded to. I don't think it's ever made clear what Trumpkin meant by "gone enemy". I don't think it means "gone over to the Telmarine side" - they weren't accepting beasts, talking or otherwise - so it probably means that to "go dumb" (i.e. revert) is to become an enemy of all speaking creatures.

The spot in the book was right at the beginning of the chapter "What Lucy Saw."

 

[TolkienGoddess]

Thank you!

Yes! That's it! Thanks for explaining it correctly, so now people will be able to comment more in depth, knowing the situation.

But what does it mean?? The bear doesn't talk, so it's wild (although they say that Aslan is not tame). When Narnia was founded Aslan made the animals, then chose some to talk, and some to not talk. They all followed Aslan, but the talking ones went to council with him, I thought. Then their children inhabit the "Old Narnia" that Miraz doesn't like. So only talking animals were on Aslan's side? I guess non talking animals weren't on a side b/c they were "dumb".

Lucy just out of the blue started talking about evil humans, what does that have to do with the bear??

 

[PrinceOfTheWest]

First off, it's never clear in the story whether the bear was simply an ordinary, dumb bear or a "lapsed" bear - i.e. one that had once been a Talking Animal, but had reverted. However, I think you're understanding the situation correctly - whether simply dumb or lapsed, the bear was on no "side" but his own, and therefore an enemy when he attacked Lucy.

I think the conversation between the girls is just a philosophical aside on Lucy's part, and quite an interesting one, given Lewis' world view. In Narnia, the animals that were selected to be breathed upon were given a lot more than just the gift of speech - they were given sentience, and value, and responsibility. In humans, these are aspects of the Image of God which every one of us bears. (Read carefully the account of the bestowing of the gift of speech in Nephew, then compare it to the Gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost in Acts 2.) The animals were warned that if neglected (e.g. the Lapsed Bear of Stormness Head, end of Horse) or betrayed (e.g. Ginger the Cat in Battle), they could lose the gift - that is, lose the Image of Aslan which He'd granted their forefathers at the beginning of Narnia.

For we humans, the imprint of God's image is innate to us - built in, as it were. According to Scripture, we were specially created and our very life was breathed into us by God. (As opposed to the Narnian animals, who came forth alive from the earth in response to Aslan's song, but had the Image imprinted upon them by a separate act.) However, we've proven that we can abandon that image (some extreme examples would be the wickedness of the Nazis, Communists, and even the genocides of Rwanda), but we never lose the capacity for speech. I think Lewis was speculating, through Lucy, what it might be like to have such men wandering around.

One place he speculates as to an answer is at the end of his classic novel, That Hideous Strength. At a banquet where many wicked men are gathered, the revived wizard Merlin is sent with special powers to undo their schemes. One thing he does at the banquet is pronouce a curse, or rather unleash a curse which they have pronounced themselves: they lose the ability to speak. The unleashing itself is done by the phrase, "From those who have rejected the word of God, the word of Man is also taken." (or words to that effect - it's actually in Latin.) I think there you have Lewis' idea of what ultimately might happen if men turn far enough away from the image of God in them. This, of course, parallels the Curse of Babel in Genesis 11, which is one of the whole points of Strength.

 

[Deeper_Wonderment]

Lucy just out of the blue started talking about evil humans, what does that have to do with the bear??

Lucy's always been the more imaginitive of the siblings you must remember, the one most willing to believe in "extreme possibilities." So when she starts talking about things like men in our world one day going insane and it being impossible to tell them from ordinary men, she's just exploring the turns of her mind. Of course, in our present time, it's a much more relavent question, isn't it? What with suicide bombers, and kidnappers, and the church-attending serial killers who live next door. Perhaps Lewis was simply expounding on a reality that was becoming more and more prevalent.