Concerning Gender Roles in C.S. Lewis’ Work
C.S. Lewis is well known for bringing a religious side to a fantasy story. With the genre of fantasy an author is about to go beyond the normal and create a world with its own rules. Lewis, however, missed the mark on one very important point: gender roles. At the time Lewis was writing, women were treated less than men which is apparent in The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.
The story in The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe is centered around Peter and Edmund, while Susan and Lucy are just there in the background. Peter represents the hero of the story while Edmund creates the conflict by helping the Witch. Each of the male’s growth in the story are important to the plot, while the females are on the sidelines unable to help in a significant way. The first point the story shows the severe divide between genders is when Father Christmas gives gifts to each of them. Peter’s gift was a shield and a sword, signifying him as the defender of his family. Susan was gifted an ivory horn that is to be used when she needs to be rescued as well as a bow that will always hit its mark with a quiver of arrows. Lucy was given a bottle with a healing potion in it as well as a small dagger. With the weapons that were provided to the girls, Father Christmas put emphasis on the fact that neither of them should use them as there is no need for them to be in battle, ‘” You must use the bow only in great need,” he said, “for I do not mean you to fight in the battle” …” And the dagger is to defend yourself at great need. For you also are not to be in the battle.”’ (Lewis, Pg. 118-119). Lucy tries to argue with Father Christmas by stating that she would be brave enough in a battle and he responds by saying that battles get ugly when there are women involved, ‘” That is not the point,” he said. “But battles are ugly when women fight.”’ (Lewis, Pg. 119). To me, this reads as battles are less honorable when women fight in them.
Even with being provided a weapon that will never fail, Susan was told to never use it and instead rely on a horn to call for help. Susan was provided with something that would make her the best asset to a battle, but she did not use it once throughout the whole story. When the Witch sends her wolves to attack the children, Susan flees up a tree from them and waits for Peter to come and save her, ‘Peter wondered why she did not get higher or at least take a better grip; then he realized that she was just going to faint and that if she fainted she would fall off.’ (Lewis, Pg. 144). Lewis treats Susan as though she is a damsel in distress when she has the potential of being the strongest fighter among the four siblings.
Lucy’s gift of the healing potion shows another gender stereotype for the time. During the war, the only way women were able to help was by being nurses for the injured soldiers. In Narnia’s wartime, the only use given to Lucy is to be a healer who is expected to run all over the battlefield helping the wounded. In order to play that role, Aslan forced Lucy to leave her brothers side when she was unsure if he would live, to go help the others among the battlefield. ‘”Daughter of Eve,” said Aslan in a graver voice, “others also are at the point of death. Must more people die for Edmund?”’ (Lewis, Pg. 197). As with Susan, the weapon that was given to her is only seen once after she receives it and that is when she cuts Aslan free of the stone table.
Once the battle has been won and the four children took their places on the throne, they are all awarded titles. Peter and Edmund are given stronger titles that touch on their accomplishments, ‘And Peter became a tall and deep-chested man and a great warrior and he was called King Peter the Magnificent…Edmund was a graver and quieter man than Peter, and great in council and judgement. He was called King Edmund the Just.’ (Lewis, Pg. 201). Susan and Lucy are recognized for their beauty and how many suitors they have; their titles reflect this as well, ‘Susan grew into a tall and gracious woman with black hair that fell almost to her feet and the kinds of the countries beyond the sea began to send ambassadors asking for her hand in marriage. And she was called Susan the Gentle…But as for Lucy, she was always gay and golden-haired, and all princes in those parts desired her to be their Queen, and her own people called her Queen Lucy the Valiant.’ (Lewis, Pg. 201).
The only powerful female that Lewis created is the Witch, who is the villain of the story. The Witch is the one who trapped Narnia in winter and seized rule as the Queen of the land. The Witch is known for her spells and her trickery to gain what she wants, ‘but soon he forgot about this and thought only of trying to shovel down as much Turkish Delight as he could, and the more he ate the more he wanted to eat, and he never asked himself why the Queen should be so inquisitive.’ (Lewis, Pg. 38). With the Turkish Delight, the Witch put a spell on Edmund to ensure he would bring his siblings to her when they return to Narnia. The Witch uses Edmund’s betrayal as a method to defeat Aslan and the prophecy. The Witch was originally in charge of executing traitors and with Edmund’s betrayal, she was due his blood for payment ‘” You know that every traitor belongs to me as my lawful prey and that for every treachery I have a right to kill.”’ (Lewis, Pg. 155). Aslan ends up trading his life for Edmund’s to satisfy the deep magic. The Witch feels like she wins with this arrangement because either Aslan dies and she can conquer his armies easier, or Edmund dies and the prophecy cannot be fulfilled.
Another way the Witch is portrayed as an evil entity in the Narnia world is that she is associated with fear, while Aslan is associated with happiness. When Edmund first encounters the Witch, she is described as cold and stern. As their conversation continues, Edmund becomes more afraid of her ‘As she spoke these words she rose from her seat and looked Edmund full in the face, her eyes flaming; at the same moment she raised her wand. Edmund felt sure that she was going to do something dreadful, but he seemed unable to move.’ (Lewis, Pg. 36). When the Witch discovers that Father Christmas has returned to Narnia, she took her anger out on the animals who told her, ‘But even while he was shouting she had waved her wand and instantly where the merry party had been there were only statues of creatures.’ (Lewis, Pg. 127). When the other three children saw the Witch for the first time, they could feel how evil she was, ‘The three children who had not seen her before felt shudders running down their backs at the sight of her face.’ (Lewis, Pg. 154). As to be expected in a fantasy novel, the good conquers the evil, but in this case the male prevails, and the woman falls.
When it comes to C.S. Lewis’ works, women are treated as the inferior gender. This is discussed in an article written by Candice Fredrick and Sam McBride titled Battling the Woman Warrior: Females and Combat in Tolkien and Lewis. Fredrick and McBride touch on a point that I have mentioned earlier, which is the fact Lewis has created this fantasy world and he had the ability to think outside the box when it comes to his female characters, ‘Her disappointment stems from the authors’ emphasis on subcreation, which ostensibly should allow them to create a world which operates on a set of assumptions different from the world as we know it.’ (Fredrick and McBride, Pg. 30). This article focuses on the statement made by Father Christmas and how a reader should not take the opinions of a fictional character to be the same as the author, but in this case it is very possible given the time that Lewis was alive, ‘While one should not confuse a fictional character’s statements with the beliefs of that character’s author, other evidence suggests C.S. Lewis’s hierarchical understanding of gender, grounded in a medieval worldview, identifies war as a man’s realm.’ (Fredrick and McBride, Pg. 29). Fredrick and McBride also state that women in battle is not an impossible thought, ‘History and literature record examples of women in combat, with which Lewis and Tolkien must have been at least somewhat familiar.’ (Pg. 29). The Narnia series is not the only novels where Lewis has poor gender stereotypes, ‘His earliest depictions divide women into two categories: innately good females who are essentially disembodied spirits, and innately bad females who serve primarily as temptations to men.’ (Fredrick and McBride, Pg. 36). Fredrick and McBride also discuss the Witch as being the only woman in combat and her role as being an evil entity, ‘To view a woman in combat in the Narnia books one must turn to the evil queens, although paralleling Tolkien’s Galadriel, these queens rely more on magic than physical prowess.’ (Pg. 38). The article makes an interesting point in the end by saying that maybe Father Christmas’ indication of battles being ugly with women is because in the world of Lewis, a woman has to be ugly in order to make a good fighter, ‘Part of what makes battles ugly when women fight is that women, according to Tolkien and Lewis, must first be or become ugly as a prerequisite for fighting.’ (Fredrick and McBride, Pg. 41).
Lisa Hopkins takes a different approach to the representation of women in the article Female Authority Figures in the Works of Tolkien, C.S. Lewis and Charles Williams. Hopkins mentions how if there is a female authority figure, she is destined for an ill fate, ‘The fates that await Lewis’ powerful women are less spectacular, but they are nevertheless unpleasant: the White Witch and the Lady of the Green Kirtle in the Narnia books are both destroyed by the forces of righteousness.’ (Hopkins, Pg. 364). The Witch is the only powerful female figure in the novel and had an authority position even before she named herself Queen of Narnia, and she was defeated by men. Her reign will be easily forgotten once Peter and Edmund take the throne of Cair Paravel, ‘Clearly these women will find few mourners, for they are all, in their various ways, virtually personifications of malignity, irrationality and selfishness.’ (Hopkins, Pg. 364). Once the Witch was defeated, there is no mention of her or her reign for the rest of the novel; it’s almost as if Lewis is erasing the memory of her from the series. Through the rest of Lewis’ novels, Lucy turns into an authoritative figure, but it comes at the cost of losing her femininity. ‘Her privileged status could however, be said to be purchased in effect at the expense of her femininity.’ (Hopkins, Pg. 364). The article compares this change in Lucy to her older sister Susan. Susan keeps her femininity throughout the series and it comes with a price, ‘Susan, on the other hand, does, and is punished for it by exclusion both from the books and from the family circle, being the only member of the Pevensie clan not to die and enter Aslan’s country at the end of The Last Battle.’ (Hopkins, Pg. 364). The conclusion of the article states how Lewis perceives womanhood as an issue when it comes to a person being in authority, ‘For Lewis as for Williams, therefore, femininity is apparently perceived as problematic.’ (Hopkins, Pg. 364).
Lewis’ portrayal of females could be a representation of the time that he lived. According to Teaching Fantasy: Overcoming the Stigma of Fluff by Melissa Thomas ‘We speak in metaphor when we don’t have better poetry, and fantasy literature, over time, has evolved as a metaphor for human experience.’ (Pg. 60). Even with the ability to break out of the normal in fantasy literature, Lewis still keeps the gender roles of the modern world. Thomas continues to say that in order for a woman to be of some significance in a man’s world, she must become more masculine, ‘Ironically women have to take on male characteristics in order to overcome…What we alarmingly see, is that women must become men and enter the world of men that is ‘war’…to defeat the evil of men.’ (Thomas, Pg. 62). This point can be seen with Lucy, in later books she becomes an archer in a battle, but as stated in the previous article she needed to give up her femininity in order to do so. Since the time Lewis produced these novels, fantasy literature has changed and allowed more powerful female characters to arise. Would this novel be different if Lewis lived in the current era? According to Thomas, ‘MacDonald, Lewis, Tolkien and almost every fantasy author to come after them use fantasy as speculation on the human condition or a metaphor for the human plight, both spiritual and physical.’ (Pg. 63). If Lewis lived in the modern day, would he reflect the human condition and turn Lucy and Susan into powerful female characters? As stated previously, I believe that Susan could have easily been the most powerful fighter amongst the four children. With a bow that never misses, she would have been the biggest asset in the final battle against the Witch.
The gender roles reflected in Lewis’ novels are proving to be problematic for our current generation. The only powerful female character portrayed in the novel is the Witch who is surrounded by fear and once she is defeated she is not mentioned anymore. Lucy eventually becomes a stronger character, but she does so at the cost of her femininity. All this ties back to the line by Father Christmas ‘But battles are ugly when women fight.’ (Lewis, Pg. 119). Lewis does not see the benefit there is to having a woman’s mind in the battle with a different perspective. Women have the potential to be powerful characters in novels, but Lewis missed the mark and made women inferior to the men in his world.