The Lion, the Mouse and the Dragon:The Weight of Glory and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

The third essay for Dr. Dauphanais, July 20, 2021.

Welcome once again to Theology on Tap as we continue our journey through selected works of C.S. Lewis. Today, we will discuss The Voyage of the Dawn Treader in light of C.S. Lewis’ The Weight of Glory. This essay was originally given as a sermon at a church in Oxford in June of 1941, and published in November of 1941, a mere ten years after Lewis’ conversion to Christianity. Europe was already embroiled in World War II. While Lewis does not directly address the war, he preaches on love, both love of God and of one another. As he states at the end of the essay, “Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses.”[1] Take a moment to consider the consequences of that, and keep it in mind as we discuss a few of the characters that populate The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is the fourth of the Narnia books, and was published in 1952, about a decade after The Weight of Glory. The world is at relative peace, and Europe has begun to heal from the effects of the War. On the surface, Dawn Treader is a series of adventure stories, each chapter a new tale of danger and heroism. On a deeper level, it is a tale of temptation and conversion; of how we interact with one another and with God.

Lewis uses the imagery of dragons in Dawn Treader: real dragons, figurative dragons, metaphysical dragons. In Dawn Treader, the dragon imagery equates with the snake in Eden, and each of the four dragons represents one of the major instances of temptation and conversion we find in the story. One of these is the living dragon, which is actually not a dragon at all, but the boy Eustace, who has been turned into a dragon. Eustace had rather accidentally followed his cousins Lucy and Edmund into the world of Narnia, and has been an unhappy, cranky, uncooperative, rather unpleasant travelling companion. He has slipped away from the others to “find a cool, airy place up in the mountains, have a good long sleep, and not rejoin the others till the day's work was over.”[2] He gets lost, and winds up at the lair of a dragon, just in time to witness the dragon’s death from old age, and, escaping a rainstorm, takes up residence in the dragon’s den, where he greedily eyes the pile of treasure.

“With some of this stuff I could have quite a decent time here … I wonder how much I can carry? That bracelet now - those things in it are probably diamonds – I’ll slip it on my own wrist. Too big, but not if I push it up right up here above my elbow. Then fill my pockets with diamonds - that's easier than gold. I wonder when this infernal rain’s going to let up?”[3]

After so adorning himself, Eustace falls asleep on the pile of treasure, only to wake up not as a boy, but as a dragon – and as a dragon in pain from the now too-small bracelet around its arm.

In his dragon form, Eustace is cut off from the others. Even when he finds them and they realize that he is now a dragon, he cannot communicate with them. But becoming a dragon has changed him: “It was, however, clear to everyone that Eustace’s character had been rather improved by becoming a dragon. He was anxious to help.”[4] Eustace has broken out of his self-centeredness. “The pleasure (quite new to him) of being liked and, still more, of liking other people, was what kept Eustace from despair.”[5] He is being healed. Lewis reminds us: “I suddenly remembered but no one can enter heaven except as a child; and nothing is so obvious in a child - not in a conceited child, but in a good child - as its great and undisguised pleasure in being praised.”[6]

Eustace has taken a giant step toward learning that “Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses.”[7] Up until this time, Eustace has been to a large extent the product of his education, and the values taught by both his parents and his schooling. Lewis makes this point in The Weight of Glory:

“Almost our whole education has been directed to silencing this shy, persistent, inner voice; almost all our modern philosophies have been devised to convince us that the good of man is to be found on this earth.”[8]

Eustace has never been encouraged to listen to that inner voice, that voice which calls us to our creator. Stuck in his dragon form, for the first time in his life, he looks outside of himself for validation. His change is not yet complete, though, until his conversion experience. Late one evening, lying awake and wondering what would become of him, he “looked up and saw the very last thing [he] expected: a huge lion coming slowly toward [him].”[9] Aslan directs Eustace to cleanse himself in a pool of water. Three times Edmund peels off his dragon scales, only to find another layer of dragon scale underneath. Finally, Aslan says “You will have to let me undress you.”[10] Even though he is afraid, he lies on his back, and permits Aslan to peel the scales off him. “And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt. The only thing that made me be able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off.”[11]

Anyone who has returned to the Sacrament of Reconciliation after some time away may understand that feeling of sorrowfully and perhaps embarrassingly facing your sins, and finding relief in that examination of conscience and confession. As Lewis states in The Weight of Glory: “The promise of glory is the promise, almost incredible and only possible by the work of Christ, that some of us, that any of us who really chooses, shall actually survive that examination, shall find approval, shall please God.”[12]

The only main character whose behavior never wavers, who never goes off the path of righteousness, is the mouse, Reepicheep. When Eustace is missing, and no one particularly cares to look for him, Reepicheep says “the creature is no friend of mine but he is of the Queen's blood, and while he is one of our fellowship it concerns our honour to find him and to avenge him if he is dead."[13] When Eustace returns to the others in his dragon form, it is Reepicheep who is his loyal companion:

“[Eustace] was almost afraid to be alone with himself and yet he was ashamed to be with the others. On the evenings when he was not being used as a hot-water bottle he would slink away from the camp and lie curled up like a snake between the wood and the water. On such occasions, greatly to his surprise, Reepicheep was his most constant comforter. The noble Mouse would creep away from the merry circle at the campfire and sit down by the dragon's head, well to the windward to be out of the way of his smoky breath.”[14]

Reepicheep’s loyalty to Eustace, who he has only known briefly, has no ulterior motive. The mouse and the dragon are surely a strange pair, but Reepicheep lives in accord with that quote of Lewis: “Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses.”[15]

We see Reepicheep’s loyalty and bravery throughout the book. When the dragon first appears, before anyone knows it is Eustace, Reepicheep volunteers to face the dragon in single combat, and would have fought the dragon single-handedly, had Caspian not forbidden him to do so. It is Reepicheep who recognizes that the land Caspian would name Goldwater Island is a dangerous place: “this is a place with a curse on it. Let us get back on board at once. And if I might have the honour of naming this island, I should call it Deathwater.”[16]

And in the end, Reepicheep’s unwavering loyalty to righteousness and goodness gains him what none of the other travelers are given: he achieves his one wish and ambition. “No one in that boat doubted that they were seeing beyond the End of the World and to Aslan’s country.... ‘This’, said Reepicheep, ‘is where I go on alone.’”[17] Reepicheep throws away his sword and says goodbye to his companions, “quivering with happiness.”[18] Reepicheep has gained entry into Aslan’s country. He has achieved the goal of reaching what Lewis calls “our own far-off country.”[19] Reepicheep has been granted fulfillment; for him, “the door on which [he has] been knocking all [his life] will open at last.”[20]

In The Weight of Glory, Lewis sets out five promises of scripture.

“It is promised, firstly, that we shall be with Christ; secondly, that we shall be like him; thirdly, with an enormous wealth of imagery, that we shall have glory; fourthly that we shall, in some sense, be fed or feasted or entertained; and, finally, that we shall have some sort of official position in the universe - ruling cities, judging angels, being pillars of God's temple.”[21]

Lewis himself questions “Why any of them except the first?”[22] As Lewis points out, “The variation of the promises does not mean anything other than God will be our ultimate bliss.”[23] Reepicheep has achieved his ultimate bliss. We can achieve ours, too.

Works Cited

Lewis, C.S. The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader. Reprint, London: HarperCollins Children's Books, 2015.

Lewis, C. S, and Lyle W Dorsett. The Essential C.S. Lewis. Reprint, New York: Scribner, 2017.

[1] C.S. Lewis, "The Weight Of Glory", in The Essential C. S. Lewis (repr., New York: Scribner, 2017), 370

[2] C.S. Lewis, The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader (repr., London: HarperCollins Children's Books, 2015). Chapter 6, 62-63

[3] C.S. Lewis, The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader, Chapter 6, 70-71

[4] C.S. Lewis, The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader, Chapter 6, 80

[5] C.S. Lewis, The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader, Chapter 6, 81

[6] C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, p. 366

[7] C.S. Lewis, "The Weight Of Glory", in The Essential C. S. Lewis, 370

[8] C.S. Lewis, "The Weight Of Glory", in The Essential C. S. Lewis, 364.

[9] C.S. Lewis, The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader, Chapter 6, 84