When the Pevensie children, Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy are sent out of London during World War II, they have no idea of the magical journey they are beginning. In the darkness of the old country house where they are sent, the children stumble through an old wardrobe to the land of Narnia, where animals talk and magic exists. This is the first story of Narnia written by C.S. Lewis and it tells the story of how these four children with the help of Aslan, the Great Lion, help defeat the White Witch who holds Narnia.
The first of the children to make their way into Narnia is Lucy, the youngest. There she meets Mr. Tumnus the faun who confesses to her that he is an agent of the White Witch and he is supposed to capture any humans he meets. He explains that the Witch has held Narnia under an enchantment which makes it always winter and never Christmas.
The only way the Witch can be defeated is to have four humans sit on the throne at the castle of Cair Paravel. When Lucy returns home, her brothers and sister think she is either lying or crazy, but soon Edmund follows Lucy into the world and meets the White Witch who plies him with Turkish Delight extracting a promise from him that he will bring his siblings to her. Finally, all of the children go through the wardrobe into Narnia. There they go on a journey to rescue Tumnus who has been arrested, find Aslan the Great Lion and defeat the White Witch forever. While a wonderful adventure, the story is also allegorical in nature telling symbolically the story of Christ's sacrifice on the cross.
Aslan the Great Lion is a Christ figure who sacrifices his life to save Edmund's. During the journey to find Aslan, Edmund betrays his siblings and goes to join the White Witch becoming her prisoner. After his rescue, the witch approaches Aslan claiming the right to Edmund's life because of his traitorous act. Aslan later goes willingly to the Witch in Edmund's place, letting her kill him. As the girls, Lucy and Susan secretly watch he is shorn of his mane, tied up and killed. As they dispair, he suddenly appears to them alive again and leads them to the aid of Peter's army defeating the Witch forever. The children spend years in Narnia where they grow up to be Kings and Queens having many adventures until one day they are hunting in the woods and find their way back to their own world through the Wardrobe. There they are children again and find that no time at all has passed.
WRITING UNIT OUTCOMES
- developing descriptive writing
- developing action sequences
- developing narrative through structure and vocabulary
- create a first person narrative around Lucy meeting Mr Tumnus