Was C.S. Against People Who Are Overweight?

Lucy Fan

Lucy Fan

New member
Sorry I know this is a weird question but I finished reading Prince Caspian and am now reading Voyage of the Dawn Treader on my new book set and in P.C. C.S. Lewis mentions children at a school who have "fat legs" and another sequence where the children had "fat faces" or something like that. It was a part in the book where Aslan was travelling with Susan and Lucy on his back and they came upon a school and this one particular little girl who joined the group of travellers with Aslan. I think it was mentioned that the children had "fat legs" and were rude or something.

I feel sort of awkward and wonder, being overweight myself if I would have been worthy of Narnia (even though it doesn't exist).
 
Hi Lucy Fan

That is a challenging question. I don't have a specific answer to that question, which I hadn't noticed before. However, there are a number of controversial things like this in Lewis. One of the things I noted recently was his apparent approval of smoking (even to the extent of casting non-smokers in a negative light). Others have also commented on the way he characterises Susan as obsessed with lipstick and parties, as though girls wearing make-up and wanting to socialise is a bad thing.

I think there is reasonable cause to say that Lewis unreasonably stereotyped certain groups of people, and this spoils the books for some readers. Others will say that he was merely reflecting the attitudes of his time (he was writing before the modern era of political correctness). They may also argue that when writing children's books you need to keep your characters and descriptions simple in a way that you wouldn't if your target audience was adult, and therefore it is unfair for older readers to pick the narrative apart in a way that the intended audience would not.

I don't know if that helps at all. I'm pretty sure that Lewis would not wish to suggest that a person's weight (or any other physical characteristic) had anything to do with their capacity for being good people.

Peeps
 
Or perhaps he was just raised in a time when "fat" wasn't considered pejorative, merely descriptive. My kids grew up with a children's book which came from their mother's childhood about a fat pig who eventually found a home with a family where everyone was fat. This wasn't considered a negative - all the family members were happy and welcoming, they were just rounder than other people in the story (except the pig). I remember commenting to my wife that such a book wouldn't be published today, because it presented fatness as being simply an attribute rather than something to be ashamed of.

I think the issue here is the culture, not Lewis' outlook.
 
But Lucy Fan pointed out, I think probably correctly, though I haven't checked carefully, that the people described as fat were also portrayed negatively, which undermines your point.

That said, was Frank described as fat as well? And he wasn't a bad character. Father Christmas possibly too... but I'd have to check.

Peeps
 
I think that's an interpretive projection on Lucy's part. From Lewis' point of view, "fat foreign children" would not necessarily have been an insult, rather merely a description.

Keep in mind that other times and cultures have been more comfortable with the fact that people come in different shapes and sizes than is our image-obsessed time. In Lewis' day (and even into my childhood), someone might be as likely to be noticed, and perhaps taunted, for being too skinny as too fat. This is still true in many parts of the world.
 
As for the _particular_ scene of the Telmarine schoolgirls, look at the adjectives "prim" and "dumpy." Both of these describe _attitudes_ rather than genetic heredity. In the context of Telmarine society, the "prim" would seem to indicate that the girls in question had a misguided sense of social propriety. The "dumpy" suggests a _willful_ failure to try to be presentable. It follows, I think, that the reference to being fat is not talking about _hereditary_ obesity; these girls would have become obese through a _habit_ of gluttony and laziness.

So if I understand Mister Lewis correctly, he was chiding those girls for unwise choices, not for what their chromosomes were. Be that as it may, there is TOO MUCH thin-skinned grievance-making in modern society. Do you want an example of someone being demeaned for a physical attribute which _wasn't_ in any way voluntary? Look no farther then ME! For longer than I've been alive, short _height_ in a male has been widely _assumed_ to be automatic proof of _moral_ inferiority. During my boyhood, the hero was always the _tall_ cowboy or the _tall_ soldier or the _tall_ sailor. I was no more than four feet nine inches high when I _graduated_ from high school. A part of me resents this to the present day.... but being short was actually _helpful_ when I was a submarine sailor!

Anyway, one thing I _don't_ do is to stalk around scowling, eagerly looking for every chance to get angry at people for _perceived_ insults based on my height. Life is not fair. I deal with it.
 
During my childhood and going back being fat was usually associated with being a bully. So Lewis is basically calling them a bully.
 
It's hard for me to remember the time period in which the Chronicles of Narnia was written. I get so absorbed in it, sometimes I forget that the things people thought aren't necessarily how people think today.

I think what I read is that the fat children were basically really mean kids and the only nice kid was a skinny little girl so she was asked to join the group of people with Aslan. I am wondering if it wasn't the fact that she was skinny is the reason she was asked to join Aslan, it was because Aslan knew she was the nicest child in the school. I felt that the way the children were described was very negative.

I am one of those people who are overweight because I indulge in too much snacks and I drink mountain dew so I guess you can say I am a glutton but I am still a really nice person.
 
The girls in Gwendolyn's class who ran away were described as "dumpy, prim little girls with fat legs." The boys who were presumably turned into pigs were described as looking like pigs and not nice. Their teacher joined Aslan, though she was described as a girl.

What I think Lewis did was used more derogatory terms for the bad guys and better terms for the good guys, although Father Christmas was described as both big and huge.

MrBob
 
Personally, I think "fat" was just a description. It could also mean to describe them as spoiled, (think of Harry Potter, when people accused JKR of being anti-overweight, because Dudley was fat, because his parents SPOILED him) but also simply as a despription. But spoiled kids are often both fat and mean, because they get more food and more attention and rights, etc. At least in that time. A skinny child has less money, is less spoiled and therefore friendlier. That is very simple, of course, but I interprete it that way. Apart from that, Lewis himself was quite a large man in his later life. Don't forget that. And his love Joy Davidman used to be quite large, too, until she lost some weight, when her sister suggested it.

The same goes for him talking about non-smokers, vegetarians and teetotallers. I don't think it was menat against these groups or that he wanted to show them in a bad light - he was just talking about these people (the Scrubs) being very, very "modern" (in their view). The vegetarian is a wonderful example Eustace and his parents did NOT like animals. But they were vegetarians - to be modern. Not because they had a point (except health, of course). He did not talk bad about these people (vegetarians, teetotallers, non-smokers) in general, but people who desperatley try to be as modern as they can, without even having a point for doing so. Even though there are points for being that. But just wanting to be modern is obviouly not a valid reason, from CSL's (and mine) point of view.

As for Susan... the lipstick and tights only meant her interest in material things was larger than her interest in anything else. He could have also used money or brushes (for hair) or dresses. Of course, his examples were quite clumsy, because people today often assiociate it with sexuality or anything like that (which is pointless, because if people who don't have sex could go to Narnia, only children and celibate people could go there...) but it's not the basic meaning. It's simply about materialism. Not about being pretty (or making yourself "prettier") or socialising or anything like that - as long as it#s not the only thing of importance of one's life.

And please, excuse my bad English, I'm a little tired and not a native speaker...^^"
 
Excuse me for reviving such an old thread, but I've come across this idea before (that Lewis had some sort of prejudice against overweight people) and just had to comment because there's a very clear counterexample.

In HHB King Lune is literally described as 'fat' when Shasta first met him. And Lune can hardly be considered a negative character.
 
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Although Pauline Baynes did draw the Cabby as large, I did not find a definitive description of King Frank relative to his weight; but this is how Lewis pictured Father Christmas and Doctor Cornelius, which also certainly would break from the negative overweight hypothesis...

Father Christmas:
Some of the pictures of Father Christmas in our world make him look only funny and jolly. But now that the children actually stood looking at him they didn't find it quite like that. He was so big, and so glad, and so real, that they all became quite still. LWW, "The Spell Begins to Break"

Doctor Cornelius:
Caspian felt sure that he would hate the new Tutor, but when the new Tutor arrived about a week later he turned out to be the sort of person it is almost impossible not to like. He was the smallest, and also the fattest, man Caspian had ever seen. He had a long, silvery, pointed beard which came down to his waist, and his face, which was brown and covered with wrinkles, looked very wise, very ugly, and very kind. His voice was grave and his eyes were merry so that, until you got to know him really well, it was hard to know when he was joking and when he was serious. His name was Doctor Cornelius. PC, "The Dwarf Tells of Prince Caspian"

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Peepiceek said:
But Lucy Fan pointed out, I think probably correctly, though I haven't checked carefully, that the people described as fat were also portrayed negatively, which undermines your point.

That said, was Frank described as fat as well? And he wasn't a bad character. Father Christmas possibly too... but I'd have to check.

Peeps
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