The Ideas of the Dawn Treader #3

SPOILER WARNING – the following unravels the plot in some detail. If you’re considering watching the film, go do that now, then come back.

Idea #3 – Focus

When Eustace arrives in Narnia, every new experience is horrible to him because it challenges his idea of reality. The things that enabled him to get his own way in England – his intelligence, spitefulness, arrogance, and ultimately his parents who spoil him – are useless in this wider reality. They cannot help him with strangers, or face up to evil.

By contrast, Reepicheep delights in facing every new challenge, even though he is only a 2ft talking mouse. He actively longs to go into the unknown, ‘to the utter east’. This is a significant change in his character from what we saw of him in Prince Caspian, and can best be explained by his encounter with Aslan at the end of that film. He no longer fights with bitterness, to prove himself – he fights with delight, to get to Aslan’s country.

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Needless to say, it is Reepicheep above all who irritates Eustace. Everything Eustace despises, he loves. He represents to Eustace this whole upsetting revelation of reality.

Things come to a head when Eustace tries to steal some gold and is turned into a dragon. Although he manages to let the others know what’s happened, he despairs; he is as far from his ordered world as it is possible to be, with no sign that he can ever get back.. and this reality seems to hold no joy for him either.

Turning point. Reepicheep notices Eustace’s dragon tears. He stays up with him through the night, sharing stories of adventures, and his longing for Aslan’s country, For the first time, Eustace realises his need for someone else, and lets them in. And so, for the first time, he sees there is some hope in this reality.

Reepicheep persuades Eustace to face the terrifying prospect of evil and join the final battle, because his vision of hope - of ‘Aslan’s country’ - is so much bigger than that of the dark island ahead. And though evil has a couple more tricks up its sleeve, it is Eustace in the end that defeats it, after his own encounter with Aslan.

As Reepicheep heads off beyond the edge of the world to Aslan’s country, Eustace is distraught to lose him. His guide in hope is gone. But then he remembers he is standing with Aslan, and his tears go – he is face to face with the very object of his hope. And he asks if he can come back to Narnia again! In Aslan, he has found something that, unlike his parents and his own capacity, will get him through this wider world.

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Our world is just as frightening a place as Narnia, and you’ve probably noticed the things that used to give you security becoming useless as you get older and become aware of more of reality. (If so, we’re the lucky ones – many people around us were born into chaos, and have never known security) Equally, time proves many of the securities we develop as we grow older – our looks, our abilities, our careers, our savings – to be redundant too. In the face of the real evil in our world; to face that that evil and overcome it; we need a security that will hold firm.

As the crew of the Dawn Treader waited for the darkness to strike, I felt a lot of identification with them. As I look ahead I see the strains of work increasing, my body falling apart, my dreams not being fully realised, the people I love most dying, and ultimately, death. Some of those things really scare me. I have no idea how I’ll cope. What could keep me secure through a journey like that?

The answer to the riddle is given us by Aslan. He tells the children, ‘in your world, I am known by another name.’

Now you probably knew this whole Narnia thing was about Jesus, and have some reservations about kids films with religious agendas. I think what gives me peace is that if people know its about Jesus, then they know and can do what they like with it; if they don’t know about Jesus. Then it won’t tell them.

What the story actually does is give me hope and joy. Because when Aslan appeared to Eustace on that beach and roared, all the troubles of the world grew strangely dim and I saw Jesus on the cross punching through the screen towards me, raw and warm and thick and alive and wild and strong and true and God. And I saw that he knows me. He’s shown himself to me again.
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Oh what a relief. I am not alone in this present darkness. He is real and so all darkness must one day go. There is nothing to compare to him. I’m sorry I’ve spent a fortnight, a lifetime, focused on other things beside you. They’re all nothing – even my family here next to me. I love you. I want you. Jesus. You.