From: The Girls of Narnia: Conflicts Between Religion and Gender in C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles
By: Courtney McKim Yates

Clive Staple Lewis has been depicted as a misogynist and a blatant sexist. Even while he was living, stories circulated around Oxford that he would not teach female students and that he treated them unfairly. Lewis’ long term as a bachelor before his eventual brief marriage also led to speculation on his sexuality, which further fueled the rumors of women-hating. As there is proof of Lewis’ regard for women in many of his correspondences, it is likely that the reports of his misogyny were exaggerated. Instead Lewis was, “to some extent [a] male separatist”, preferring to spend his time “exclusively in the company of other men” (Frederick 55). However, Lewis’ inclination for solely masculine companions did not keep him from creating female characters. His fantasies and science fiction stories for adults include many characters of both sexes. This is also true of his literature for children. In The Chronicles of Narnia, Lewis writes child characters and includes girls who quest right alongside the boys. These books have been subjects of debate since the first appearance of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in 1950.

Today the debate on The Chronicles of Narnia tends to focus around Lewis’ religious agenda. Some people hold The Chronicles up as spiritual guidance. The same Christian theology leads to “parents who feel their children should not be allowed to read [The Chronicles of Narnia] and others who found their children were unduly upset by them” (Holbrook 9). Still other readers ignore the religious agenda and regard The Chronicles simply as good adventure stories- as fairytales. But to regard Lewis’ work merely as fairytales ignores the deeper meanings that he strove to convey. Lewis’ main focus in creating The Chronicles of Narnia was religion, but he also depicts very distinctive idea of gender. Despite his views on women, Lewis created four very strong female characters. His work is a struggle between this progressive gender portrayal and the inclusion of the religious ideology that was so important to Lewis and his life. While Lewis’ inclusion of major female characters into his children’s books and the masculine world of the quest is progressive, this gender equality is undermined by Lewis’ religious agenda.

Though the effect of these Christian ideals is often detrimental to the female characters of The Chronicles, this does not negate the shift towards gender equality. Whether Lewis intended to write a more progressive story for children or simply needed to utilize some sort of gender equality to effectively teach his religious convictions, his strong female characters in The Chronicles of Narnia are unusual for the literature of his time. Lewis’ work is ahead of a trend that combined the before and after in a changing view of women and women’s roles.

Constructions of ‘modern’ girlhood in the period…to 1950 were similarly characterised by continuity with pre-established, ‘old-fashioned’, conceptions of girlhood which were the product of past attempts to culturally manage gender and social change, and negotiate the interests of capital and of patriarchy. The incorporation of the old with the new served to diminish the perceived implications of modernity by establishing its continuity with more established ideals of feminity (Tinkler 186).

Though Lewis was not trying to make any statement on gender equality, he could not avoid making firm assertions about women’s roles in the Protestant faith through his portrayal of proper female behavior in Narnia. His total denial and condemnation of female sexuality through Susan’s exclusion from Narnia, his emphasis on feminine spiritual weakness and temptation in Lucy, and his depiction of complete passivity in Polly as the ideal Christian woman take potentially strong representations of women and weaken them through their affiliation with religion. The decay of strength in potentially formidable female characters illustrates the misogynistic view of women that religion unavoidably presented in C.S. Lewis’ works and life.

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