The Last Battle

Lewis portrays a Christlike god, Aslan, using the symbol of a lion, which is traditionally known as the “king” of animals and admired for its power and beauty. With the lion symbol, Lewis is able to convey the great vitality of the Narnian god, “leaping down from cliff to cliff like a living cataract of power and beauty” (164). Lions are also dangerous, which Lewis uses to underscore his point that Aslan is not “tame”: Because Aslan operates according to his own plan, his ways may seem harsh to people who would like him to serve their own agendas. Nevertheless, Aslan also has a comforting physical presence; the children are able to bury “their hands and faces in his mane as he stooped his great head to touch them with his tongue” (134). In contrast, the old skin of a dead, ordinary lion attached to Puzzle accentuates the hollowness and emptiness of the false Aslan.

Lewis symbolically uses a stable as the site from which the false Aslan emerges, heightening the work’s Christian imagery. In Christian teaching, the stable is where the true God, Jesus Christ, came into the world as a baby, so Lewis emphasizes Shift’s fraudulent mimicry with this choice of