I’m getting sort of tired of defending C.S. Lewis.
I know a lot of people who are well-read, well-educated people, who are critical informed readers, who know how to take apart narratives, who can see problematic elements and discuss them for what they are fall into a trap. It is a well-meaning trap, a trap that has been set rather unintentionally. So let’s get this out of the way first: C.S. Lewis was by any modern standard, a bit of a stuffy misogynist, but I would also argue that Tolkien, and even Carroll were all the same kind of stuffy misogynist – in the sense that they were purely the product of their time, and should be viewed that way.
But I’m getting a bit annoyed with well-read, well-educated people approach C.S. Lewis with a sort of a wild, rambling caution, stating things like “The Narnia books are wildly misogynistic – I mean, do you know what happened to Susan,” as if the problem of Susan (coined by Neil Gaiman) is the defining factor that summarizes and encapsulates the entire female perspective on the Narnia series as a whole. In fact, it’s an odd thing, because most of these readers have not read the Chronicles of Narnia since they were children, but have read commentary made by adult (and male, oddly enough) contemporary authors like Phillip Pullman, whose essay “The Dark Side of Narnia” I largely blame for this phenomena. Most of these people have also read Gaiman’s fantastic short story “The Problem of Susan” which examines Susan from an imagined, problematic adulthood.
The problem of Susan itself is enormous and complex and problematic, and I address it at length in larger works than this blog allows, but it is also a completely reductive argument that ignores a larger issue, namely: Susan is not the only female character in the Chronicles of Narnia, and suggesting that the Narnia books are entirely misogynistic and not worth reading because of a single paragraph at the tail end of a confusing and confused final book is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
This is because it ignores stellar female characters like Aravis, who is the embodiment of agency, who leaves an oppressive home and flees an arranged marriage to find freedom in Narnia, who is smart and sassy as well as quick-tempered and utterly capable. It ignores Jill Pole, who is cranky and crabby and full of wonderful flaws that have nothing to do with her being female and everything to do with her being human, and who evolves into someone with thought and depth and forethought. It ignores Polly, who is scads smarter than any other protagonist in The Magicians Nephew, and it ignores Lucy, who the entire series revolves around, who is good hearted and golden and still manages to Get Things Done, and importantly, is the one who believes first and foremost in Aslan even when it seems like there is no hope left.
But tragically, it ignores Susan herself, who is a character in her own right beyond her choices at the end of the series. It’s reductive and it’s tragic that she as a character has been boxed into this role to hold up as a beacon of How the Narnia Series Fails Young Women when in fact, the Narnia series says quite a number of things about young women that is rewarding and empowering.
Consider this:
At no time, in the entire seven books, is a single female character kidnapped, taken hostage, or needed to be rescued, with the exception of Lucy during Voyage of the Dawn Treader, in which she is not singled out but part of a group kidnapping. Compare this to the fact that several male characters of note are kidnapped and do need to be rescued, usually by a rescue party that includes female characters, and it happens to Edmund not once but twice, and the entire plot of The Silver Chair revolves around rescuing a male character. Compare that to say, Peter and Wendy, where a large portion of the plot revolves around rescuing Wendy Darling, or contemporary children’s series like Rick Riordan’s Heroes of Olympus, which has several female characters needing rescue.
Consider, too, that Susan herself falls in love with a potentially abusive man, and realizes that he is abusive before marrying him. She does not need to be told by Edmund that he is abusive, or be slapped, or come crying to her brother to save her. Instead she recognizes that the way he treated her when they were courting was a lie, promptly decides she doesn’t like it, and suggests leaving back to Narnia right away.
This is not to say that misogyny is absent from the Narnia books. But it is, quite frankly, not nearly as bad as commentators, usually riding the Pullman train, would have people think it is.
11 comments
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August 18, 2014 at 1:43 pm
Carmel I
Reblogged this on The Lemrac Lists and commented:
I’d like to add that C.S. Lewis is not the only great mind “guilty” of this. Writers, like the rest of the human rice, are not infallible, and are still subject to their time and place, although there is a limit to which the extent of their ignorance can be excused.
August 18, 2014 at 3:25 pm
Camila Tessler
You’re very right, and I concur! I think that there are number of very progressive minds in any time, but generally people are products of where they’re coming from, and to an extent we need to understand that (although yes, there are limits, I don’t think that Lewis reaches them in this particular scenario)
August 18, 2014 at 2:04 pm
Alexa Muir (@awannabe_writer)
Thank you for this: it’s summed up how I’ve always felt about the claim that the Narnia books are misogynistic. They were the very first books I ever read by myself. I read them again as an adult only a few years ago, and one of the things I love about them is that they have girls actually doing stuff that’s helpful. Little did my six-year-old self realise how rare that was going to be in children’s literature. Or in any fiction for that matter.
August 18, 2014 at 3:35 pm
Camila Tessler
Thanks for the comment! I think that there are definite things to critique in any work of fiction, but there needs to be a wider examination of the work as a whole, too. I’m glad that this resonated with you!
August 18, 2014 at 3:39 pm
Julie
Just a note: Riordan’s books are a little more complicated than that, and in fact have just as many complex female characters as Lewis, particularly in the Lost Heroes series and the Kane Chronicles.
August 18, 2014 at 3:42 pm
Camila Tessler
You’re absolutely right, and I should have clarified in my original post: Riordan is incredibly admirable with his treatment of female characters, and he doesn’t reduce them to tropes or stereotypes. My point is that he does have them occasionally need rescuing – but then they also occasionally rescue the boys, the gods, and the world, too. (I very much like Riordan and I love his characters, so I’m going to need to write a post about them soon to make up for this!) Thank you for your comment!
August 18, 2014 at 5:03 pm
F. A. Real H. (@farealh)
What a great read! Thank you for sharing such a clear Narnia defense and elucidation of the whole “Susan problem”.
August 18, 2014 at 5:28 pm
Benjamin
Well done, you!
August 31, 2014 at 1:29 pm
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[…] a brilliant defence of the Narnia books from the boring, oft-wielded “Susan Argument”. I’ve had so many arguments with […]
April 10, 2015 at 11:50 am
andrew
Hi.
Thanks for an interesting article.
Personally I think people need to cut Lewis some slack. The man was a guy in his 50s just after ww2. Its hardly remarkable that he did not share social attitudes of the early 21st century. He even referred to himself as a bit of an old fuddy-duddy and was routinely slapped down by his formidable wife(Shut up and pass the potatoes Jack!) – much to his delight and amusement by all accounts. He was also liked and admired by many female colleagues at Oxford – and these were women who did not suffer fools gladly.
It seems Lewis did not expect the success of the Narnia books – it startled him and to some extent annoyed him as they were just romps developed from stories he thought up to amuse kids living in his house during evacuation from London in the blitz. He was apparently worried that people wanted more and more of Narnia when he wanted to get on with what he regarded as his main work and I suspect just killed off the lot of them to put an end to the cycle once and for all.
As for Susan; all this stuff about her being damned surprises me. She isn’t damned ; she just has to continue with life in the real world, when in Lewis view she could have never had to grow up and lived a wonderful life in his fairy land. Lewis himself didn’t want to grow up and like a lot of men traumatised by the trenches, hid himself away in a lifestyle of his own making. I am surprised that so few people address what must have been a terrifying experience in which he picked up serious injuries and lost several close friends. These guys weren’t allowed to talk about their feelings much.
As for Pullman ; quite honestly there is something weird going on here. Its a pretty poor start to a writing career to set yourself up in opposition to another very successful writer who has been dead for half a century and keep relentlessly attacking him. Particularly given that I don’t much fancy Pullmans chances against Lewis in debate.
The Narnia books are now period pieces that reflect their times ; yes Lewis had some macho attitudes which were common in his generation, but admired intelligent women and married one; he had a few mildly racist attitudes – but was the sort of man who would have been mortified if he felt he had hurt someone’s feelings and would humbly beg pardon ;he deliberately put in digs and leg pulls at groups he regarded as cranks and I think would be delighted by the squeaks of indignation his targets are making almost half a century after his own death.
He also carried out many acts of amazing generosity. He paid for one young girls who had lived at his house during the war to study acting for three years and she became a famous British stage name before marrying a politician – she is the template for Lucy.
All in all the man was a good sort, if a bit of an old f***tat times. Far preferable to the bile hissing Pullman and his bleak vision of a counter Narnia
April 14, 2015 at 1:07 am
Camila Tessler
Thank you for such a thoughtful and detailed comment! You’re very right on his attitudes, and I appreciate all the feedback.