The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, by C.S Lewis, there are four children named Susan, Peter, Edmund and Lucy.  They discover a magical world named Narnia. Lucy has went there, but her siblings don’t believe her about that. But one day, Edmund got sucked in. Currently the White Witch, who has now taken control of Narnia, has bewitched Edmund by feeding him magical Turkish Delight which makes him always want more of it. Then the White Witch told him to betray his siblings by bringing them to Narnia. So, when Edmund got back, he lied to his siblings and told them that he’d never went to Narnia even though he had, just to spite Lucy who’d seen him and wanted him to tell his siblings. So when the siblings found out, they got really mad at Edmund and made Lucy the leader of the expedition in Narnia which made Edmund very annoyed.

 

I think that maybe Edmund’s spot in the family turned him spiteful. Maybe all Edmund wanted to do was become a leader because he doesn’t like to listen to other people, but as he’s the middle child, he can’t.

 

 For example, Susan and Peter, as the eldest kids, make all the decisions, like decided who would lead an expedition in Narnia,  and Lucy, as the little one, is sort of babied and humored and people listen to her, not in that much of a respectful way, but to make her feel better. For example, Peter, Susan and Edmund checked out the wardrobe the first time Lucy went in just to see what she was talking about. They didn’t think anything would be inside but they did it to humor her, which they never did to Edmund. But Edmund doesn’t get to make decisions, nor does he get Lucy’s treatment because he’s too old. That’s why no one ever listens to him, so he became spiteful so that some people would actually give him the attention that he yearns for. Also, now that he’s under the witch’s spell, he’ll do anything to get Turkish delight, so if he betrays his siblings, it’s not exactly all his fault. It might have been his fault for trusting the witch but betraying his siblings wouldn’t really be his fault.

 

Additionally, his siblings aren’t really helping him deal with his problem: they’re just shunning him. Peter made Lucy the leader of their expedition in Narnia, which they knew would make Edmund mad. In fact, they did it because of that. If they hadn’t and maybe talked things out, then maybe Edmund might have confessed about the White Witch and they could have helped Edmund.

 

In addition, they aren’t thinking about why Edmund was spiteful, so they aren’t thinking about his feelings, only why he lied. They’re not thinking about what he might have went through in Narnia which isn’t fair because he became bewitched, even though he doesn’t know it, while Lucy instead had a marvelous time.

 

This is why I think Edmund is spiteful. Clearly, it isn’t all his fault though possibly some negative character traits that he had might have made his spitefulness greater than it would have needed to be.

One thought on “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

  1. This is great! I love the word choice (that I would never use – a bad habit). I also think this connects to the dragon thing we did in class! Maybe in our next response you can write about Edmund and his metaphorical dragon…

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