An Archetypal Study Of C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles Of Narnia

Noted English literary giant Clive Staples Lewis is well known for his fictional works, especially The Screwtape Letters, The Chronicles of Narnia and The Space Trilogy. The Chronicles of Narnia can be considered as a classic of children literature. There are seven books in the series, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Prince Caspian, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Horse and His Boy, The Magician's Nephew, and The Last Battle. The Last Battle is awarded Carnegie Medal, which is the highest prize for children literature in UK. The heroes in the stories are some children from our world. They have many unusual adventures in another world---the realm of Narnia, and play an important role in helping recover the former peace of Narnia. The series is exciting with the lion, the witches, talking centaurs, and other strange creatures. It is very philosophical too, with ideas that both adults and children will benefit from.C. S. Lewis is influenced greatly by the Bible and Greek literature. Every book of the series is either more or less, or hidden or obvious interrelated with the Bible and Greek literature. Lewis highly appraises Jung for his philosophy and archetypal theory in his critical essays. Thus, the explorations of The Chronicle of Narnia in the field of archetypal criticism interest me greatly. Lack space forbids explorations of all novels, and three works which are with rich archetypes will be studied here.The archetypal explorations of The Chronicles of Narnia helps readers find out how Lewis uses archetypes to point out a set of ethical values to people who get lost psychologically in modern society. Archetypal themes, such as goodness forever defeating evil, sin, punishment and redemption, and quest cover most of the content of the work. Archetypal motifs, for example, faith and tolerance construct moral principles in Narnia. The structure and plot in Narnia stories have origins in tradition literature. The narrative structure in The Chronicles of Narnia fits in with the Bible's U-shaped narrative structure to a great extent, which reflects Lewis' optimistic attitude toward the world. The source of the death and rebirth of Aslan can be obtained in Greek mythology, and Aslan's sacrifice coincides with Jesus'giving his life to save human kind. Prince Caspian's revenging against his uncle Miraz and getting throne is closely related to Orestes's killing his uncle and being a King. Most of the characters in Narnian stories can be found archetypes in the Bible or Greek mythology. Archetypes are embodiments of the collective unconsciousness and manifestations of human's earlier experiences. Archetypal criticism supplies for us another perspective to understand literary works. The rich archetypes in The Chronicles of Narnia have fully explained the reason why the work can elicit a strong resonance from readers and remains a classic in the literary world.