Martha: Narnia

Outside of text books I read about magical places, places I want to go, places that aren’t restricted by the rules that we are so willing to impose on ourselves when we come up with what we think is all we know. One of my favorite places to go to is Narnia, from the imagination of C. S. Lewis. He created a world of child-like fantasy, a place where it doesn’t matter who the world will tell you you are but who you were created to be. Bringing in religious symbolism in a child’s setting can lead to either weak religion or child inappropriate stories or at least stories where children miss something. Narnia doesn’t do too much of this, I got more out of the book this year when I reread it than when I read it in third grade, however the stories still held meaning when I was in third grade and they still hold meaning now. There’s nothing weak about the religion in these stories, in fact it can be stronger than many religious commentaries because it allows the reader to think for themselves instead of having to listen to someone else’s opinion. These stories give a higher meaning to something that already exists, but at the same time it expands and implodes. Narnia is a place beyond the rules, and yet it also is about the rules, it opens the door to a place that exists and doesn’t exist, it makes no sense and yet it is.