1. Gelatinous shoe insert? Not at all – Turkish Delight is one of the finest confections on the face of the planet. (See Michel Tournier’s The Fourth Wise Man; if you doubt this – in that book, Prince Taor, on first tasting Turkish Delight is so entranced by the taste that he sets off in search of the Divine Confectioner.) In my family, Turkish Delight was so highly esteemed, it was considered one of the great gifts for Christmas or birthdays.

    Having looked at it as a symbol in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; for many years now, I conclude that it is indeed the ultimate temptation. It took Tournier’s book to give me enough clues to decipher Lewis: Turkish Delight is more-ish. More-ish is an ancient spelling for Moorish or Morris. The White Witch is, amongst other things, symbolic of the Woman in White who, at the end of some morris dances, offers a sweet confection to the bystanders on the end of a sword. That sweet confection symbolises ‘the head of mine enemy’.  Now – that is, in my view, a true temptation whoever you are.

    • Those are connections I had not even considered. Thanks, Anne.

      Again this goes to show that Lewis clearly thought through these literary and symbolic connections more than other authors gave him credit. For example, Tolkien concluded that Lewis’s Narnia tales were an oddball, thoughtless mishmash; Lewis, perhaps grinning to himself, let him go on thinking that. But as author Michael Ward argues in Planet Narnia, that has led to some likely wrong preconceptions as Tolkien the literary genius compared with Lewis the just-go-play-at-random-with-Narnia author. Ward argues this is not true, and that we need to see Narnia as more carefully planned.

      As for Turkish Delight, perhaps I had the wrong kind. I recall it was homemade and rose-flavored, specially made for the first film’s premiere in 2005. But then again, I am not a big candy person anyway, and the texture alone makes it taste odd to me.

  2. Galadriel says:

    I had some when I visited the Kilns…I don’t know how much I would have gone on eating, but it was very good. And I have a picture of it too.

  3. Bainespal says:

    Why do you think the wardrobe didn’t work that one time? How does the wardrobe magically “work” anyway — given what we know from the rest of the story?

    I was wondering that myself.  I would say that it only works if you’re not deliberately trying to make it work, but Lucy semi-intentionally goes to look through the wardrobe when they’re playing hide-and-seek, to test whether or not she really was crazy.

    [Lucy] did not shut [the wardrobe door] properly, because she knew that it is very silly to shut oneself into a wardrobe, even if it is not a magic one. (page 27) [Edmund] jumped in and shut the door, forgetting what a very foolish things this is to do.(page 28)

    Notice how Lewis keeps repeating this little bit of advice. Why do you think that is? (This is especially interesting, because we never read later about Lucy or Edmund actually getting stuck in the wardrobe because of the shut door!)

    I think Lewis must have had more of a purpose for mentioning Lucy’s care not to shut herself in than to show how Edmund is so much more impetuous and careless than Lucy.  I think the wardrobe has to represent something (even though the story is not allegory).
     
    Maybe it implies discernment in some way.  Although she believes in the fantastic with humble faith, Lucy leaves the door open to mundane reality; she doesn’t just take everything she sees at face value.  Edmund “shuts himself in” to the fantastic world that he doesn’t understand, and then he blindly accepts the word of the first person he meets there.
     

    Is Turkish Delight evil? Later we find out that this Turkish Delight is enchanted (page 38).

    Both Lucy and Edmund eat treats upon their first visits to Narnia.  Lucy and Tumnus shared a few types of food for their “tea,” including a “sugar-topped cake.”  We can assume that Lucy partook rightfully, and Edmund wrongly.  I think this must be significant, and it probably reflects the children’s differing attitudes or responses to the fantastic, to spiritual reality.
     

    Why do you think Edmund isn’t catching on to what the rest of us very likely see clearly — that the Witch is asking him all these questions so she can prevent the prophecy?

    At that moment, he’s blinded by gluttony.  I’m pretty sure he hadn’t heard about the prophecy before, but his bluntness and lack of discernment prevented him from being suspicious about why the Witch would be asking such questions.
     

    Why does Edmund repeat almost exactly what the Witch said?
    What are some other things that “everyone knows,” which aren’t exactly true?

     
    My answer is also related to this question:

    Imagine you’re Edmund’s age. A strange lady invites you to cuddle up to her. How would you feel? Why does Edmund, though he doesn’t want to, obey her anyway?

    I think the White Witch represents false, humanistic authority.  Edmund unconsciously takes the Witch’s word as something like academic consensus.  He has an elitist attitude.

  4. I would say that it only works if you’re not deliberately trying to make it work, but Lucy semi-intentionally goes to look through the wardrobe when they’re playing hide-and-seek, to test whether or not she really was crazy.

    My thought: because all magic/miracles, inside or outside Narnia, is within Aslan’s control, Aslan is completely running the wardrobe’s “mechanics” here. Lewis seems to hint at this in chapter 5, when he mentions this, among the possible reasons why the children felt pushed toward the spare room and wardrobe: “some magic in the house had come to life and was chasing them into Narnia.” This isn’t revealed until later, of course, but who is in charge of fulfilling the prophecy about four children?

    I think Lewis must have had more of a purpose for mentioning Lucy’s care not to shut herself in than to show how Edmund is so much more impetuous and careless than Lucy.  I think the wardrobe has to represent something (even though the story is not allegory).

    In my view Lewis is here being a very efficient storyteller. The “limitations” of the fantasy/fairy-tale genre here compel him into better creativity: this “running gag” tells something about the characters, as you said, and is perhaps also a bit of actual advice for a particular reader! (Imagine you were a child staying with C.S. Lewis, and had to be told not to shut yourself into a wardrobe …) As for the allegory, in my view the wardrobe represents any “ordinary” device that contains the magical.

    Although she believes in the fantastic with humble faith, Lucy leaves the door open to mundane reality; she doesn’t just take everything she sees at face value.  Edmund “shuts himself in” to the fantastic world that he doesn’t understand, and then he blindly accepts the word of the first person he meets there.

    I’m not sure I’d thought of that so directly, before. But then again, here it is, and disguised as a simple and quaint ho-hum-bit-of-aside-advice to the Gentle Reader.

    Both Lucy and Edmund eat treats upon their first visits to Narnia.  Lucy and Tumnus shared a few types of food for their “tea,” including a “sugar-topped cake.”  We can assume that Lucy partook rightfully, and Edmund wrongly.  I think this must be significant, and it probably reflects the children’s differing attitudes or responses to the fantastic, to spiritual reality.

    Just yesterday we hearkened back to the Turkish Delight issue, thanks to Edmund being unable to think about anything else but that, in chapter 9. I would definitely agree that Edmund eating “candy” is not the bad thing — instead it is how he eats it, his gluttonous, self-centered motives, that makes this bad. By contrast, Lucy eats what she is offered — not what she demands. Similarly, when the children dine with the Beavers (in chapter 7 and 8), they not only also eat what they are offered, but even when they are hungry, they take a very long time to help prepare the food — “ordinary food,” the start of chapter 9 notes, and not “bad magic food.” 

    At that moment, he’s blinded by gluttony.  I’m pretty sure he hadn’t heard about the prophecy before, but his bluntness and lack of discernment prevented him from being suspicious about why the Witch would be asking such questions.

    Agreed. Edmund is a glutton for attention, “power” and “adulthood” as he wrongly perceives it, and also for candy. See chapter 9, and part 6, for more about how Lewis explains Edmund’s motives. Deep down he knows the Witch is evil, and ignores it anyway — Lewis wonderfully illustrates the doctrine of “total depravity,” though he wrongly understood what that meant and thus rejected it by name only.

    I think the White Witch represents false, humanistic authority.  Edmund unconsciously takes the Witch’s word as something like academic consensus.  He has an elitist attitude.

    … Which is a recurring theme in Lewis’s works. Especially in his fiction — Ransom’s disgust with Prof. Weston in Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra, and the narrator’s and later Aslan’s disgust with the “progressive” leaders of Experiment House in The Silver Chair — Lewis constantly questions the notion of the All-Wise Clique or the Prevailing Wisdom. You get the idea that he saw a lot of that kind of thing in academia, and likely at some point fought against it himself. Even when people really are grown-up, when they strut about Edmund-style, thump their chests, and say “ask anybody you like” in response to challenges, they’re big babies.

What do you think?