“She is a perfectly terrible person,” said Lucy. “She calls herself the Queen of Narnia thought she has no right to be queen at all, and all the Fauns and Dryands and Naiads and Dwarfs and animals—at least all the good ones—simply hate her. And she can turn people into stone and do all kinds of horrible things. And she has made a magic so that it is always winter in Narnia—always winter, but it never gets to Christmas. And she drives about on a sledge, drawn by reindeer, with her wand in her hand and a crown on her head.”
Edmund was already feeling uncomfortable from having eaten too many sweets, and when he heard that the Lady he had made friends with was a dangerous witch he felt even more uncomfortable. But he still wanted to taste that Turkish Delight more than he wanted anything else.
“Who told you all that stuff about the White Witch?” he asked.
“Mr. Tumnus, the Faun,” said Lucy.
“You can’t always believe what Fauns say,” said Edmund, trying to sound as if he knew far more about them than Lucy.
“Who said so?” asked Lucy.
“Everyone knows it,” said Edmund, “ask anybody you like…”
C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950; this edition from The Essential C.S. Lewis (Touchstone, 1996)) 77.
Some say that each of the books in The Chronicles of Narnia is based on one of the seven deadly sins. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe's conflict is shown in Edmund's gluttony. He will choose his appetite for Turkish Delight over safety, over love for his sister even over all sense. As Lewis puts it earlier on, Edmund "thought only of trying to shovel down as much Turkish Delight as he could..."
ReplyDeleteSee "Narnia and the Seven Deadly Sins" for more on this theory.
what does this have to do with turkish delight and it doesn't even mention the words turkish delight at all
ReplyDeleteIn addition to the great picture of traditional Turkish Delight, the text from C.S. Lewis does explicitly mention it: "Edmund was already feeling uncomfortable from having eaten too many
ReplyDeletesweets, and when he heard that the Lady he had made friends with was a
dangerous witch he felt even more uncomfortable. But he still wanted to
taste that Turkish Delight more than he wanted anything else."
If you're going to be critical of someone's work, at least try to be accurate.