The Silver Chair

Eustace Scrubb is a young boy from Jill’s class and the other key protagonist in The Silver Chair. Eustace first appeared in The Voyage of the Dawn Trader, during which he first met Prince Caspian and sailed to the very edges of the world. Throughout The Silver Chair, Eustace makes several references to his past adventures in Narnia, especially to the dramatic improvements that his character underwent during those times. At the beginning, for example, Jill asks how his character could have improved so much since their last term, and Eustace explains that “a lot of [strange] things happened to [him] in the [holidays]” (5), alluding to his previous experiences in Narnia. He then tells his friend about Aslan just before they are magically swept away to the lion’s magical realm.

In Narnia, Eustace is initially upset to find that decades have passed since he last saw his friend Prince Caspian, now a much older King Caspian. However, he gradually becomes more and more confident, “the Narnian air [...] bringing back to him a strength he had won when he sailed the Eastern Seas” (45-46). Even though he and Jill occasionally bicker, Eustace is steadfast and loyal to his friends, and it is clear that this new adventure is building on the foundations of the previous one with regard to the development of his character. This dynamic becomes most apparent in moments when he accepts difficult circumstances much more gracefully than Jill, who is still only just learning how to be strong in the land of Narnia. This dynamic becomes apparent when the children realize that they missed Aslan’s third sign, for Eustace simply accepts responsibility for their failure rather than blaming it on Aslan. As he tells Jill:

I know what you were thinking because I was thinking the same. You were thinking how nice it would have been if Aslan hadn’t put the instructions on the stones of the ruined city till after we’d passed it. And then it would have been his fault, not ours. So likely, isn’t it? No. We must just own up (86-87).

Thus, he grows ever more mature and assertive over the course of the novel and even proves his bravery when he and Rilian slay the Green Serpent at the end.

Puddleglum is the third protagonist of The Silver Chair and the only native Narnian in the trio. He is a Marsh-wiggle, a fantastical creature who lives in a wigwam in the Narnian marshes. He is described as having “very long legs and arms, so that although his body was not much bigger than a dwarf’s, he would be taller than most men when he stood up. The fingers of his hands were webbed like a frog’s, and so were his bare feet” (50). He also has “a long thin face with rather sunken cheeks, a tightly shut mouth, a sharp nose, and no beard [and wears] a high, pointed hat like a steeple, with an enormously wide flat brim” (49). His green-gray hair hangs in flat locks “like tiny reeds” (49).

Throughout the book, Puddleglum’s demeanor is characteristic of the Marsh-wiggles’ gloomy outlook on life. In fact, the children are often discomforted by Puddleglum’s attempts to cheer them up, such as when they complain about the cold at night, and he tells them that “they would feel more comfortable if only they thought how very much colder it would be later on and farther north” (59). Puddleglum provides comic relief through his wry comments and his tendency to be overly dramatic about every situation.

By the end of the story, however, Jill and Eustace come to rely on Puddleglum’s strength and bravery, as is shown when they must endure the Underworld and realize that although they first believed Puddleglum to be nothing but a killjoy, “down here he seemed the only comforting thing they had” (107). Throughout the book, the Marsh-wiggle shows unwavering loyalty to Aslan and faith in his spiritual guidance, which eventually prompts Jill to praise Puddleglum’s true character when she says, “You sound as doleful as a funeral and I believe you’re perfectly happy. And you talk as if you were afraid of everything, when you’re really as brave as—as a lion” (165).

Aslan is an anthropomorphic lion who created and rules over the land of Narnia. Sometimes referred to simply as “the Lion” or “the Great Lion,” Aslan is an all-powerful, God-like figure who rarely interferes directly in the events of the story. Instead, throughout the entirety of C.S. Lewis’s series, he subtly influences events from afar and provides the characters with multiple opportunities to grow and learn, saving his rare appearances for the occasional “miracle” at the height of the action or the necessarily solemn conversation after all the action has subsided. Thus, his interactions with the characters take on the appearance of either the Old Testament God who performed miracles from on high, or the “still small voice” that, according to the tenets of the Christian faith, resides within all souls and nudges each person in the proper direction. Thus all the inhabitants of Narnia are familiar with Aslan’s presence and his power, and most follow him faithfully. It is established in The Magician’s Nephew that Aslan is Narnia’s creator, as well as its eventual destructor in The Last Battle. Lewis himself states:

If Aslan represented the immaterial Deity, he would be an allegorical figure. In reality however, he is an invention giving an imaginary answer to the question, ‘What might Christ become like if there really were a world like Narnia and He chose to be incarnate and die and rise again in that world as He actually has done in ours?’ (Martindale, Wayne, and Jerry Root. The Quotable Lewis. Tyndale House, 1990).

At the beginning of The Silver Chair, Aslan is the one who brings Eustace and Jill to Narnia to give them a quest, and who tells them about the four signs they must follow in order to succeed. When Jill meets Aslan for the first time, the ineffable strength of his mysterious character is well represented in the narrative’s descriptions of the sound of his voice, which is “ deeper, wilder, and stronger; a sort of heavy, golden voice. It did not make her any less frightened than she had been before, but it made her frightened in rather a different way” (17). Indeed, Aslan’s presence evokes a universe sense of awe and fear in the beings who are lucky enough to encounter him, a pattern that he himself reinforces by telling Jill that he has “swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms” (17).

At the end of the book, Aslan forgives Jill and Eustace for missing his first signs because they eventually succeed in their quest and seek his approval and forgiveness. He then brings the late King Caspian back to life in his own realm on top of the mountain, which is implied to be a sort of eternal paradise after death. Aslan then uses his power to scare Jill and Eustace’s bullies away when he sends them back to their world.

Prince Rilian is the son of King Caspian, who rules over Narnia. The latter first appeared as a young prince in Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia and later in The Voyage of the Dawn Trader, where he first met Eustace. (In The Silver Chair, Caspian is now an old man who embarks on a trip to find Aslan one last time, and he returns to his castle, Cair Paravel, just in time to greet his long-lost son before dying and being resurrected in Aslan’s ethereal realm, where he continues to live in eternal youth.)

At the time the story begins, Prince Rilian has been missing for 10 Narnian years. After a Green Serpent killed his mother the Queen, Rilian went in search of the monster and instead met the Lady of the Green Kirtle, who took him prisoner. She keeps him trapped in the Underworld under a spell that blocks his memories of his true identity, and he can only remember who he is for a few hours each night. During that time, Rilian is tied up to a silver chair, so he does not escape, and he is led to believe that this brief period of lucidity is in fact a recurring bout of insanity from which the Lady of the Green Kirtle is trying to cure him. Despite these manipulations, the prince is eventually rescued by Jill, Eustace, and Puddleglum, who realize who he truly is when they witness him during his hour of sanity.

Prince Rilian embodies the typical qualities of a fairy tale prince and can arguably be considered an archetype, for his true character is not developed beyond the possession of the usual princely attributes of bravery, loyalty, and chivalry; indeed, even his physical descriptions render him more of a static character type, for he is first described as “a young man with fair hair [...] He was handsome and looked both bold and kind” (109). Once the children have set him free, he slays the Green Serpent and liberates the formerly enslaved Earthmen, thus fulfilling his heroic role even before his return to Narnia to take up the throne upon his father’s imminent death.