Reading The Chronicles of Narnia and Seeking "Enlargement of Being"

• Main Authors: Jang Wendy, Jya Wen, 張嘉文
• Other Authors: Patricia Haseltine
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 1998
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/16581780889793078037

碩士 === 靜宜大學 === 英語學系 === 86 === The Chronicles of Narnia, written by Clive Staples Lewis, includes seven stori es of some children's adventures to the enchanted world of Narnia.Besides bein g a Christian apologist and fiction writer, Lewis was also a literary crtic.Mo st of his ideas about reading and fairy-tales relevant toThe Chronilces can be found in his book An Experiment in Criticism and his essays.The purpose of th is thesi is to illustrate the resemblance between the experience of the childr en's adventures in The Chronicles of Narnia andthat of readers' reading athe C hronicles as fairy-tales, with reference to the ideas of J.R.R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis.In the first chapter, I try to explain that despite the fact that THe Chronicles has long been read as a Christian allegory, it can be read, as Lew is asserts, as a supposition. I also examine why Lewis chooses thefairy-tale t o be the ideal form of his stories.The second chapter investigates Lewis's and Tolkien's theory of thefairy-tale: its essence, functions, and its associatio n with children.Thedelineation of the similarities and differences between the seven stories is carried out, as in the illustration of the paralel relations hip in Chapter Three.Chapter Four is devoted to the demonstration of the chara cters' self-transcendence in The chronicles and the "enlargement of being" of the readers of the fairy-tales.I show the difference between the dwarf-mindedn ess which makes the transcendence impossible and the child-like attitude that makes the enlargement possible. The difference notonly comes from different at titudes but also from the willingness ofsuspending one's belief.Chapter Five c oncludes my thesis.