Once Upon a Wardrobe

Walking through Oxford to the Kilns, Megs imagines a dragon flying around the ancient tower of Magdalen College. When a young man runs toward her, she recognizes him as Padraig, a literature student from Northern Ireland. Megs met Padraig on her sole visit to a pub and is embarrassed by her attraction to him. After Megs explains where she is going, Padraig reveals that Lewis is his tutor. He describes the author as a “genius” who is loved by his students, although a few are afraid of him. Padraig praises Lewis’s books, recommending The Screwtape Letters and The Great Divorce. He states that the author’s latest works caused a stir, as Lewis was once an atheist. Megs says that Lewis’s stories are fascinating but that he has not answered George’s question. Padraig suggests that the answers may be in the stories. For example, he points out that the death of Lewis’s mother may be reflected in his characters’ separation from their parents.

At the Kilns, Lewis explains that he has just visited his friend Minto in her nursing home. He promises to tell Megs more about Minto, whose real name is Mrs. Moore, another day. Megs asks for a single fact about the origins of Narnia to tell George. Lewis and Warnie argue that stories provide a deeper appreciation of reality and allow us to see life from a new perspective. Lewis adds that he also loved literature because he was hopeless at math. At Wynyard, this weakness made him Oldie’s target. Megs asks him how he endured these hardships. Lewis reveals that he has always taken comfort from the words of the 17-century mystic St. Julian of Norwich: “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well” (80).

Megs declines Padraig’s invitations to the pub, as she is uncomfortable in social situations. Returning home for the weekend, she again finds George sitting inside his wardrobe. She relates three more stories to him.

When Lewis was nine years old, he saw a town called Narni on a map of Italy and liked the sound of it. Soon afterward, his father insisted that he must join Warnie at boarding school. Lewis’s first impressions of England were negative: English accents sounded strange to him, Wynward looked unwelcoming, and its headmaster greeted him sternly. During his first attempt to play cricket, Lewis fell over, and the other boys laughed at him. After the game, a boy named Wyn hit Warnie, making his head bleed. Warnie stopped his brother from retaliating, explaining that Wyn was Oldie’s son.

Lewis was homesick at Wynyard, hating the uncomfortable uniforms, tasteless food, and rigid routines. He also noticed that Wyn and his father were given a better standard of food than everyone else, including Mrs. Capron and her daughters. A boy advised Lewis not to cross Oldie since he was rumored to have beaten a pupil to death. When Lewis observed that Oldie was “evil,” a tutor overheard him and confiscated his food. On his first night, Lewis began writing a letter to his father detailing the horrors of the school. However, Warnie reminded him that Oldie reads all their letters and would punish them both. Warnie added that their father already knew about these conditions at the school.

Lewis disapproved of the study of entomology at Wynyard, disliking the cruelty of killing insects to study them. He started a reading club where boys exchanged their magazines and discussed them. One day, as Lewis was struggling with equations, Oldie caned a boy who asked for help with his work. Lewis was horrified and, that night, imagined the pain the boy must be suffering. He invented a story where a boy escapes from a dungeon.

Mrs. Devonshire overhears Megs telling George about Lewis’s unhappy schooldays and how Oldie eventually ended up in a psychiatric hospital. She suggests that George needs to hear more upbeat stories. However, Megs argues that the accounts have a positive message since Lewis endured these hardships and eventually became a great writer. Megs adds that it is important for George to understand that all narratives “have a bad part” (100). She explains her belief that Lewis tells these stories to help her and George view life in a different way.

Megs recounts the plot of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe to her mother. She explains that it is about four children who are sent as evacuees to live with a professor. There, they discover a wardrobe that leads to the magical land of Narnia, where they are destined to be kings and queens. The children’s adventures involve a wicked witch and talking animals, including a lion named Aslan and a faun. Megs says that she thinks Aslan represents God. Mrs. Devonshire regrets her former disapproval of the stories.

Megs admires George’s drawing of Lewis in his attic as a child, which also depicts a lion in the background. She declares that her brother is an artist. When Megs asks George what he would like for Christmas, he replies that he wants to visit Dunluce Castle in Ireland and have an adventure. Megs tries to dissuade him from the idea, worried that the trip would be too dangerous for him. She tells George that the next part of the story is about Lewis’s early literary influences.