Real and Mythical in the Fantasy Fiction of C.S.Lewis: A Study of C.S.Lewis’s novel The Magician’s Nephew

Authors

  • Surinder Singh Kotwal PhD Scholar, Department of English, University of Jammu, India
  • Dr. Subhash Chander Assistant Professor, Department of English, Bhaderwah Campus, University of Jammu, India

Keywords:

mythical, heroic, postmodern, archetypes, fantasy, narrative

Abstract

This paper discusses C.S Lewis’s novel The Magician’s Nephew as a narrative of its hero’s struggle to restore peace and balance in the fictional world of Narnia. This paper posits the view that since literature can never be divorced from the society, the fictional world of Narnia, therefore exists as a mythical counterpart of the contemporary world. In a postmodern world where virtues like truth, love, faith, valour, honesty etc. are rapidly dying under the pressure of materialism and increasing commoditization, the resurgence of myth and archetypes in literature serves a novel purpose. C.S Lewis’s The Magician’s Nephew, therefore, becomes a fictional mirror of comparative between antiquity and post modernity as its narrative allows the reader to compare the two worlds- the mythical and the real. In mythical Narnia, the hero fights evil with his virtue and valour whereas in today’s postmodern world virtue and value are just the mythical terms and evil is central to the society. The postmodern society has lost its heroic ideals. It is totally de- energized. The narrative of The Magician’s Nephew emanates a fresh energy which serves to heal the postmodern society of its social as well as existential maladies. These arguments of the paper will be developed in the light of the critical works of the critics like Carl Gustav Jung and Northrop Frye.  

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Bunyan, John. The Pilgrim’s Progress. 1678. London: Penguin, 1987. Print.

Burrows et al. Myths and Motifs in Literature. New York: The Free Press, 1973.Print.

Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. 1949. London: Allen and Unwin, 1978. Print.

Frye, Northrop. The Anatomy of Criticism: Five Essays. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1957.Print.

Jung, C.G. The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. Trans. R.F.C.Hull. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1968. Print.

--. “Psychology and Literature.” Collected Works of C.G. Jung, ed. Gerhard Adler. Princeton:

Princeton UP, 1953: 175-85. Print.

Jung, C.G. et al., eds. Man and His Symbols. New York: Dell, 1968. Print.

Le Guin, Ursula. “From Elfland to Poughkeepsie.” Fantastic Literature: A Critical Reader. NY: Greenwood Press,2004: 144-55.

Leitch, Vincent B. “Northrop Frye.” Norton Anthology: Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch. New York: Norton, 2001: 1442-45. Print.

Lewis, C.S. The Magician’s Nephew. 2009. HarperCollins. Print.

Pragoff, Ira. Jung’s Psychology and its Social Meaning. New York: Dialogue House, 1985. Print.

Guerin, Wilfred L. et al. A Handbook of critical Approaches to Literature. New York: OUP, 1977. Print.

Von Franz, Marie-Louise. Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche. Boston: Shambala, 1997. Print.

Downloads

Published

10-01-2018 — Updated on 01-06-2021

Versions

How to Cite

Kotwal, S. S., & Chander, D. S. (2021). Real and Mythical in the Fantasy Fiction of C.S.Lewis: A Study of C.S.Lewis’s novel The Magician’s Nephew. SMART MOVES JOURNAL IJELLH, 6(1), 11. Retrieved from https://ijellh.com/index.php/OJS/article/view/2761 (Original work published January 10, 2018)

Issue

Volume 6, Issue 1, January 2018

Section

Article

License

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Most read articles by the same author(s)