Article 12 – From Misled to Leader: Edmund’s Transition in “The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe”

By Elizabeth Tritthart

In “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” C.S. Lewis transforms Edmund from a selfish and stuck-up boy to a strong and brave King. Several incidents influence his personality changes to make him worthy of being one of the eventual four rulers of Narnia. Through his journey, Edmund allows his displacement to a new home to encourage a bratty behavior and a feeling of resentment for being the second youngest. His negative attitude makes him a hostage to the White Witch’s lies, enchantments, and betrayals.
The quest to find Narnia starts when the four children are sent away from London to live with an old professor so they can avoid the war and air-raids (Lewis 111). It is entirely possible that Edmund, being the second youngest child, harbors feelings of resentment for being sent away, which assisted in the formation of a new, traitorous personality to help support these feelings, and the fear that his other siblings may overshadow him. So, when Edmund enters Narnia and exits with Lucy, he fails to see the error of his ways in letting Lucy down by saying that Narnia is not real: “Edmund gave a very superior look… ‘Oh, yes, Lucy and I have been playing—pretending that all her story about a country in the wardrobe is true. Just for fun, of course. There’s nothing there really’” (Lewis 129).

Edmund makes a calculated decision to double-cross Lucy because he needs to keep his meeting with the White Witch a secret. Edmund made this choice because the Queen offered him all the enchanted Turkish Delight he could eat, and the promise of being raised as a Prince, and then one day, a King (Lewis 126). The idea of being a prince incites powerful feelings in Edmund and seduces him; being a prince or a king would mean his siblings would no longer overshadow him, but also assist him in paying back Peter for calling him a beast (Lewis 151).

Edmund again double-crosses his siblings and leaves the house of the Beavers (Lewis 148), telling himself lies and excuses to make up for his departure: “It wasn’t a very good excuse [because] deep down inside… he really knew that the White Witch was bad and cruel” (Lewis 152). Bewitched by the thoughts of power and Turkish Delight, Edmund has no idea that this would become a terrible journey. However, during his second meeting with the Queen, Edmund comes to a painful realization: “it didn’t look now as if the Witch intended to make him a King. All the things he had said to make himself believe that she was good and kind and that her side was really the right side sounded to him silly now” (Lewis 162).

Edmund witnesses the Queen’s cruelty first hand after receiving only stale bread and water (Lewis 161), and being forced to walk with his hands behind his back as a prisoner (Lewis 164-165). Still, the harshest cruelty Edmund witnesses is when the Queen turns the squirrels to stone after finding them celebrating, and assaults Edmund with a blow to the face saying “‘let that teach you to ask favour for spies and traitors,’” after he begged her not to harm them (Lewis 163). The fact that he witnesses the cruelty of the White Witch to the innocent creatures, causes Edmund, for the first time, to feel sorry for anything but himself (Lewis 163).

The others went outside and saw the recently rescued Edmund sitting with Aslan in the grass. Although no one knows the conversation that happened, “…it was a conversation which Edmund never forgot” (Lewis 174). While meeting with Edmund’s siblings, Aslan asserts that there is no need to talk to him about the past (Lewis 174), and Edmund is pardoned of his sins against Narnia and his family. Allowing Edmund to apologize to the others and receiving their forgiveness will enable Edmund to fully transition into a person worthy of being a part-ruler of Narnia. After this conversation, Edmund and Peter are spotted fighting with Aslan’s army against a crowd of terrible creatures (Lewis 190), and we learn from Peter how Edmund is the reason Aslan’s side won. Peter tells Aslan, “‘the Witch was turning our troops into stone right and left. […] He had the sense to bring his sword smashing down on her wand instead of trying to go for her directly [….] Once her wand was broken we began to have some chance […]’” (Lewis 192). Edmund fought strategically and bravely to ensure Aslan’s army would have a strong chance at winning, and without worry for his safety, resulting in him becoming injured.

Edmund’s seemingly ‘new-found’ heroic/Braveheart personality is not new at all. Edmund’s portrayal at the end of the story is more faithful to his original character than in sections where he is portrayed as a nastier person (Lewis 129). After Lucy returns from healing others, she finds Edmund fully healed and looking better than she had seen him look in ages: “in fact ever since his first term at that horrid school which was where he had begun to go wrong. He had become his real old self again and could look you in the face” (Lewis 193). Through displacement, mistreatment, and redemption, Edmund transitions into whom he needed to be all along – himself.

Work Cited
Lewis, C.S. “The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.” The Chronicles of Narnia. HarperCollins, 2010, pp. 106-197.

About the author: Elizabeth (Lyz) Tritthart was born in Medicine Hat, Alberta, and raised in Regina, Saskatchewan. She moved to The Pas with her husband in November 2017 to attend UCN, and is now starting her second year of a Bachelor of Arts degree. Lyz is passionate about her education and hopes to inspire others to pursue their dreams.

Instructor’s Remark: Lyz’s essay, which is one of the products of close-reading exercises in my ENG.2015 (Selected Topics: Fairy Tales, Fantasy, and Culture) course, investigates the character development of Edmund, one of the four Pevensie children who travel through the wardrobe into the land of Narnia in C.S. Lewis’ novel, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. Lyz skillfully identifies the turning points of Edmund’s transformation as moments of displacement, mistreatment, and redemption before becoming “more faithful to his original character.” (Dr. Keith Hyde)