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The Silver Chair

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Cover artist
  
Language
  
English

Publication date
  
7 September 1953

Originally published
  
7 September 1953

Illustrator
  
Country
  
United Kingdom

Publisher
  
Media type
  
Print (hardcover)

Author
  
C. S. Lewis

The Silver Chair t1gstaticcomimagesqtbnANd9GcQAUUbC4FzJjzCmQS

Characters
  
Similar
  
Works by C S Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia books, Fantasy books

The Silver Chair is a high fantasy novel for children by C. S. Lewis, published by Geoffrey Bles in 1953. It was the fourth published of seven novels in The Chronicles of Narnia (1950–1956); it is volume six in recent editions, which are sequenced according to Narnian history. Like the others, it was illustrated by Pauline Baynes and her work has been retained in many later editions.

Contents

The novel is set primarily in the world of Narnia, decades after The Voyage of the Dawn Treader there but less than a year later in England. King Caspian X is now an old man, but his son and only heir, Prince Rilian, is missing. Aslan the lion sends two children from England to Narnia on a mission to resolve the mystery: Eustace Scrubb, from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and his classmate, Jill Pole. In the frame story, Eustace and Jill are students at a horrible boarding school, Experiment House.

The Silver Chair is dedicated to Nicholas Hardie, the son of Colin Hardie, a member of the Inklings with Lewis.

Macmillan US published an American edition within the calendar year.

The Silver Chair was adapted and filmed as a BBC television series of six episodes in 1990.

Bbc chronicles of narnia sc chapter 1 6 part 1 3


Plot summary

Eustace Scrubb, having reformed his character following the events of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, encounters his classmate and new friend Jill Pole at their miserable school Experiment House; she has been tormented by bullies and is hiding. Eustace confides in Jill about his Narnian adventures, and that his experiences there have led to the changes in his behaviour. Jill initially thinks that Eustace is lying, but when he promises and asks her to attempt to go to Narnia with him, she agrees. Eustace suggests asking for Aslan's help, and as the bullies converge on them, the two blunder through a gate that leads them to Aslan's Country.

There, they encounter a cliff, where Jill shows off by approaching a cliff's edge, and Eustace, trying to pull her back, falls over the edge. Aslan appears and saves Eustace by blowing him to Narnia. He charges Jill with helping Eustace find Prince Rilian of Narnia (the son of King Caspian X), who disappeared some years before, and he gives Jill four Signs to guide her and Eustace on their quest. Aslan then blows Jill into Narnia, where she arrives a few moments after Eustace—just as an elderly and frail King takes ship and sails from the harbor. They learn, much to Eustace's dismay, that the departing King is actually King Caspian X, who has set off to search for Aslan or for his son. Trumpkin the Dwarf, now Lord Regent and quite deaf, provides Jill and Eustace with rooms in Cair Paravel, but on the advice of Glimfeather the Owl they make no mention of their quest. Master Glimfeather summons them to a Parliament of his fellow talking owls. The owls explain that Caspian's son, Prince Rilian, disappeared while searching for the green serpent that killed his mother, and is under the spell of an enchantress.

Jill and Eustace are flown to the marshes on the northern edge of Narnia where they are partnered with the gloomy but stalwart Marsh-wiggle Puddleglum, who serves as a guide, hunter for food in the wilderness, and down-to-earth voice of reason. They journey toward the giant-lands north of Narnia after crossing the River Shribble. The first giants they encounter take no notice of them, and the trio continue north.

Hungry and suffering from exposure, they meet the Lady of the Green Kirtle accompanied by a silent knight in black armour. She encourages them to proceed northward to Harfang, the castle of the "Gentle Giants", who she says would be glad to have them at their Autumn Feast. Jill and Eustace, overcome at the thought of comfort and warmth, are eager to go; only Puddleglum argues against the journey to Harfang. After several days' journey, and falling into a mysterious chasm in a driving snowstorm, they arrive at Harfang and are admitted inside.

After a night of rest, the three look out a window of the castle and discover the obvious ruins of a giant city in the valley below, which they had passed through but failed to notice due to the snowstorm. They also see the words "Under Me" engraved on the road, which they recognize as Aslan's third Sign. Discovering that they are the main course for the Autumn Feast, they make a narrow escape from Harfang. Following the Sign, they take shelter in a cave under the ruined city, where they fall down a long dark slope into Underland.

They are found by an army of earthmen, who take them aboard a boat across a Sunless Sea to the city ruled by the Lady of the Green Kirtle. Her protégé, a young man, greets the travellers pleasantly but does not seem right in the head. He explains that he suffers from nightly psychotic episodes, and during these episodes he must, by the Lady's orders, be bound to a silver chair; for if he is released, he will turn into a deadly green serpent and kill everyone in sight. The threesome determine to witness the youth in his torment, as they sense it could be the key to their quest.

When the young man is tied to his chair, his "ravings" seem instead to indicate desperation to escape an enchanted captivity. After several threats, the youth finally begs the three to release him in the name of Aslan. Recognizing this as fourth Sign, they hesitantly do so. The young man immediately destroys the silver chair. Free from the enchantment, he thanks them and declares that he is the vanished Prince Rilian, kept underground by the Lady of the Green Kirtle as part of her plot to conquer Narnia.

The Green Lady returns and tries to bewitch them all into forgetting who they are, but the barefoot Puddleglum stamps out the enchantress's magical fire and breaks her spell. The enraged Lady transforms herself into a green serpent, and Rilian realizes that he has been enslaved all these years by his mother's murderer. Rilian kills the serpent with the help of Eustace and Puddleglum, and leads the travellers to escape from Underland. The gnomes, who had also been magically enslaved by the Lady, are now freed by her death and joyfully return to their home even deeper in the earth, a land called Bism. One of them shows Rilian's party a route to the surface before leaving. Rilian returns to Cair Paravel as King Caspian is returning home, and Caspian is reunited with his long-lost son just before dying.

Aslan appears and congratulates Eustace and Jill on achieving their goal, then returns them to the stream in his country where Jill first met him. The body of King Caspian appears in the stream, and Aslan instructs Eustace to drive a thorn into the lion's paw. Eustace obeys, and Aslan's blood flows over the dead King, who is revived and returned to youth. Aslan allows Caspian to accompany Eustace and Jill back to their own world for a brief time, where they drive off the bullies before Caspian returns to Narnia. Experiment House becomes a well-managed school, and Eustace and Jill remain good friends.

Main characters

  • Eustace Scrubb – Appeared in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and is a cousin of the four Pevensie siblings from the earlier stories. Became a much nicer person after his brief time as an enchanted dragon in the previous story.
  • Jill Pole – A pupil at Experiment House who is found by Eustace Scrubb, crying, after she is bullied by a gang of children.
  • Puddleglum – A Marsh-wiggle who helps Jill and Eustace on their quest. He guides them and keeps them on track. He represents common sense and the voice of reason.
  • The Lady of the Green Kirtle – The ruler of Underland, who plans to conquer Narnia with its rightful heir under her spell at her side.
  • Prince Rilian – Heir to the Narnian throne, who was captured by the Lady of the Green Kirtle and enslaved in her Underworld.
  • Aslan – Creator of Narnia and the only character to appear in every book.
  • King Caspian – Elderly King of Narnia who appeared in Prince Caspian as a boy and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader as a young man; in The Silver Chair he is sad because his only son was taken from him 10 years earlier just after the death of his wife from a serpent attack.
  • Glimfeather - a large talking Owl who spots Eustace and Jill during their arrival from Aslan's eastern country; he helps them by bringing them to a Parliament of Owls, where the history of Rilian is explained, and then by helping to carry them to meet Puddleglum. His speech often rhymes with the onomatopoeic call of owls, "to-whoo!" ("There's something magic about you two. I saw you arrive: you flew.").
  • Commentary

    In Chapter IV of the book, an owl speculates that the Lady of the Green Kirtle — the enchantress of the Underworld — may be "one of the same crew" as the White Witch from The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe and The Magician's Nephew. Some readers have suggested that she may in fact be the White Witch brought back to life. The cast of characters introduced by later editors seems to promote this, but it is not supported by Lewis's text. The Lady of the Green Kirtle is a were-snake, and it is never implied in any of the books that Jadis or the White Witch possess this attribute.(See the Lady of the Green Kirtle for more discussion.)

    Film, television, or theatrical adaptations

    The BBC network produced a TV series, which aired in late 1990. It was the fourth and last of the Narnia books that the BBC adapted for television.

    On October 1, 2013, The C.S. Lewis Company announced that it had entered into an agreement with The Mark Gordon Company to jointly develop and produce The Chronicles of Narnia: The Silver Chair, following the film series' mirroring of the novel's publication order (in contrast to Walden Media's initial pushing for The Magician's Nephew during planning for a fourth film). Mark Gordon and Douglas Gresham along with Vincent Sieber, the Los Angeles based director of The C.S. Lewis Company, will serve as producers and work with The Mark Gordon Company on developing the script. On December 5, 2013, it was announced that David Magee would write the screenplay. In January 2016, Gordon said the film will serve as a 'reboot' of the film franchise. It was announced that Sony Pictures and Entertainment One will finance the fourth film with both Mark Gordon Company and C.S. Lewis Company.

    Miscellaneous

    The name of the Australian alternative rock band Silverchair is a reference to this book.

    References

    The Silver Chair Wikipedia