Abstract
Excerpt: Imagine yourself a writer living in Britain during the late 1940s. You are writing a book for children, but you believe that a book worth reading only in childhood is not worth reading even then, and that a children’s story which is enjoyed only by children is a bad children’s story. The challenge before you is to choose something a witch might offer enticingly to a boy of ten or eleven, most likely some delicious viand, to symbolize temptation, solicitation to evil. What would it be? This was the challenge facing C. S. Lewis as he wrote The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Only recently, with the release of the Disney Pictures and Walden Media film, has the symbol received much attention, but even then, in most cases, a scant, cursory glance. For such a key symbol, it is important to consider possible alternatives, the nature and history of Turkish Delight, major characteristics that make it especially appropriate as a symbol, and its symbolic use in a major work by one of Lewis’ compatriots.
Recommended Citation
Kehl, Del
(2007)
"Grooving a Symbol: Turkish Delight in Narnia,"
Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal: Vol. 1
:
Iss.
1
, Article 5.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.55221/1940-5537.1004
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/cslewisjournal/vol1/iss1/5