The Horse And His Boy

Understanding The Horse and His Boy means recognizing that this book, like all the Narnian books, is a kerygmatic Christian novel. That is, while Lewis intends to entertain his young readers with a fantasy adventure, his underlying imperative is to expound his theological interpretation of the risen Christ at work in the lives of young people. The book is in some ways akin to the “Christian adventure” books that were popular in the 1950s and ‘60s. These books, often circulated through Sunday schools, featured youth engaged in an exotic adventure of some kind. Throughout those books, older youth people would be explaining the Christian notion of salvation to a novice young person, who typically accepted Jesus as his or her lord by the end of the book. Something very similar happens in this narrative when Shasta kneels before Aslan in Chapter 11 and, in Chapter 12, symbolically accepts communion and baptism.

The act of young people recognizing and accepting Aslan, the Christ figure, as their master occurs in some manner in each of the Narnian books. A similar dynamic occurs in much of Lewis’s fiction written for adults. For Lewis, proclaiming his Christian faith is imperative. Several factors seem to play into his urgent need to expound his faith in a multitude of creative literary genres. Having rejected the Christianity of his youth, Lewis experienced a reconversion to Christianity as a young scholar. He likens God to an angler who lures and hooks him and reels him in. Converted in this manner, Lewis maintained an evangelistic zeal throughout the remainder of his life, desiring to open doorways through his writings in hopes that others might have a similar experience. Another factor that seems to be at work in the Narnia books are the World War II experiences that Lewis and his countrymen had recently endured. In his fiction, Lewis describes the struggle of good against evil in absolute, literal terms. He expounds the view that sometimes virtuous people must resort to violent conflict against forces of evil, which he equates with godlessness. For Lewis, the triumph of the Allies over the Axis nations is also a victory for Christianity.

An English literature professor at Oxford and Cambridge, Lewis uses his understanding of literature and his writing talent to draw young readers into his stories. Beginning with the simplicity of the backstory he uses at the outset of The Horse and His Boy (”This is the story of an adventure that happened in Narnia and Calormen and the lands between” [1])—Lewis creates the perception of an adult casually reading a book to young readers. Periodically during the narrative, he stops to offer a personal aside as if he were gossiping with his readers, casually taking them into his confidence while matter-of-factly describing the dangers and hair-raising experiences that occur constantly throughout the book. For instance, he tells readers how they differ from his main character: “You must not imagine that Shasta felt at all like you or I would feel” (8).

Lewis’s does not use many complex, clause-laden sentences. At the same time, his descriptions of individuals and settings are profuse when he wants to impart a specific vision and create an impression in the minds of his readers. For example, when the Tarkaan appears in Chapter 1, Lewis describes his appearance in full detail, having scantily described Shasta’s world prior to that moment. This creates an indelible image of the Tarkaan for readers and also conveys that something important is about to happen.

It is worth noting that Lewis falls into problematic and Eurocentric stereotypes. From the beginning of the narrative, Lewis wants readers to hear that what lies north is mysterious, beautiful, and in every way superior to Calormen. Each of the main characters expresses a desire to escape Calormen and head to the north lands. Even the Tarkaan gives the northern people a backhanded compliment when he refers to them as “the accursed but beautiful barbarians” (6).

He portrays Calormenes as looking and acting like medieval Arabs, while portraying the Narnians as predominately white Europeans. Readers are thus led to conflate Narnia with Europe and white skin with goodness on the one hand and Calormen with the Arab world and dark skin with duplicitousness, and evil. This contrasting of the worthy north with the untrustworthy south is further borne out when Aravis runs away to avoid becoming the child-bride of an elderly scoundrel. Lewis is suggesting that the most virtuous Calormene must leave Calormen to remain virtuous.