Just some random thoughts about Lewis and Tolkien's different portrayals of war in their books.
Both Lewis and Tolkien had firsthand experience of WWI, but it seems to me that they came back from war with differing views. The battle scenes in the Chronicles of Narnia are very much downplayed (they're missing the blood and gore of battle) and are more focused on how the characters have matured and are able to fight this battle. Tolkien's representation of war seems more realistic. The battle scenes are very detailed and are gruesome. I realize that Lewis was writing a children's story and Tolkien was targeting an adult audience, but I still think that the differences are interesting. Maybe Lewis was aiming to portray his battles as spiritual battles. I really don't know. Does anyone else find this interesting?
Both Lewis and Tolkien had firsthand experience of WWI, but it seems to me that they came back from war with differing views. The battle scenes in the Chronicles of Narnia are very much downplayed (they're missing the blood and gore of battle) and are more focused on how the characters have matured and are able to fight this battle. Tolkien's representation of war seems more realistic. The battle scenes are very detailed and are gruesome. I realize that Lewis was writing a children's story and Tolkien was targeting an adult audience, but I still think that the differences are interesting. Maybe Lewis was aiming to portray his battles as spiritual battles. I really don't know. Does anyone else find this interesting?
posted by Gena at 9:10 PM
2 Comments:
thats a great point you make. i never really noticed the difference until you said something. maybe besides the children story and spiritual battle observations, lewis feels that people just assume that the battles are violent and what not so he just chooses not to focus on that aspect of the fighting. the last battle does have a bit more violence than the other books did though. maybe those fights in the last battle were supposed to be seen as more serious?
It could also be that many of Lewis' characters are not hardened warriors like in Tolkien's stories. In the Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe, the four main characters are children who are doing the fighting. There is a major differenece between Peter and Aragorn and not just the age. Peter is a hesitant fighter while Aragorn is not. All of Tolkien's characters live in a land where fighting is expected and completely natural for surivial. In Narnia, one gets the sense that peace is usually the norm. That's what I think of when you mentioned the subject. Yes, this is a very interesting difference between two men who have both seen war. It may also be that Lewis didn't want to glorify war at all and by making the battle very abstract he could make it seem just a necessary thing that had to unfortunely happen.
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