LWW The significance of the (dead) blue bottle in wardrobe room

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
destiny.david

destiny.david

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Strange, today in September 2021, I was thinking abt that fly in the wardrobe room.

Is the 'blue bottle' or 'fly' a reference to the Witch, as in 'Lord of Flies', Beelzebub?

Is it a foreshadowing of what is to come for Satan?

Or possibly referees to the 'death watch beetle' that infests old Oak, like in the wardrobe of LWW?

Thanks. David
(a fan of Narnia for years, listened to audio series by Focus on the Family, probably 100 times over the last 7 years)
 
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in the book, LWW, when the children were first exploring house, and the room with the looking glass,
And shortly after that they looked into a room that was quite empty except for one big wardrobe; the sort that has a looking-glass in the door. There was nothing else in the room at all except a dead bluebottle on the window-sill." Lewis, C.S.. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Chronicles of Narnia Book 2) (p. 6). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
 
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They only showed one room in the movie. They were playing hide and seek and Lucy hid in that room, specifically the wardrobe. In the book, they were merely exploring the house, looking into different rooms.

MrBob
 
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destiny.david said:
Strange, today in September 2021, I was thinking abt that fly in the wardrobe room.

Is the 'blue bottle' or 'fly' a reference to the Witch, as in 'Lord of Flies', Beelzebub?

Is it a foreshadowing of what is to come for Satan?

Or possibly referees to the 'death watch beetle' that infests old Oak, like in the wardrobe of LWW?

Thanks. David
(a fan of Narnia for years, listened to audio series by Focus on the Family, probably 100 times over the last 7 years)
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Hi，I'm interested in what you said above. Could you please tell me that how did you know the word "bluebottle" in the story means "fly" instead of "cornflower"? I am doing a research on this word. I am confused about what on earth did Lewis point to. Cuz "bluebottle" has another meaning, is "cornflower", how can we sure which meaning is Lewis's original meaning? Thank you a lot!
 
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Hi Lindsay

Speaking as a British person, I've never heard the term 'bluebottle' mean anything other than the fly, and I think the term would be universally understood in the UK as applying to the fly unless clearly specified otherwise. Moreover, if Lewis were referring to a plant, 'withered' or 'shrivelled' would be a more likely term than 'dead', and also he would likely have said 'a vase containing a dead/withered blue-bottle' rather than just 'a dead blue-bottle'. Finally, it seems less strange to find a dead fly in an otherwise empty and unused room than that someone had taken the trouble put a plant in there.

What makes you confused about Lewis's meaning?

Peeps
 
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Reading up on the flower, it just doesn't sound like a plant one would grow on a window sill. It is also a national symbol of Germany, something that may not have been popular when he wrote the book in the 1950s, even if it were dead. Also, the flower seems to be more commonly known as the cornflower than the blue bottle.

MrBob
 
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It was a fly. Period. Because it was laying on the sill. It is common in abandoned rooms to find where a fly tried to leave the room and kept hitting the glass over and over till it finally fell exhausted and died there on the sill. No other possible meaning of the word would convey that meaning.
 
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Yeah, totally a fly. On the other hand, going back to the original intent of the post, it could have been meant to build suspense or could have been something where it was meant to emphasize how ordinary the room was supposed to look.
 
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