Aslan

Character Analysis

Not a Tame Lion

If, like Jill, this is your first adventure in Narnia, you might not understand about Aslan. When Jill first encounters him, she expects him to behave like a regular lion—but then he speaks. She (perhaps stupidly) asks if he dines on girls and his reply is a stunner: "I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms"(2.22). Well then. This is not comforting to Jill, but it is our first real clue that Aslan is symbolic in nature, since no real lion could be that hungry.

There is another implication behind Aslan's frightening claim, and it's part of what makes Jill want to run away from the stream: Aslan is not safe. Lewis tells us in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe that Aslan is "not a tame lion" and that the notion of safety is out the window. Mr. Beaver "reassures" the Pevensie children in this way: "'Course he isn't safe. But he's good" (LWW 8.26). Jill does not yet know of his goodness, so she has every right to fear him.

Jill does know, however, that he has a peculiar effect on how she feels and behaves. When asked about her questionable behavior on the edge of the cliff, Jill instinctively understands that it would be very dangerous to lie to Aslan. And in this way, she senses both his power and his purity. So while Jill would prefer to avoid being a meal, she also feels a moral compulsion to throw her imperfect behavior at his feet.

And this is how Aslan works. He exudes a wild power and elicits fear and wonder in the hearts of those he meets. There's a very real sense from the beginning that he has the power to destroy everything and recreate it again at his will.

My Other Name

Between May 1955 and December 1958, a nine-year-old named Laurence Krieg and his mother received eight letters from C.S. Lewis. Laurence's mother initially wrote to Lewis with a question from her anxious child: What if I love Aslan more than Jesus? Lewis responded in this way:

Tell Laurence from me… [he] can't really love Aslan more than Jesus, even if he feels that's what he's doing. For the things he loves Aslan for doing and saying are simply the things Jesus really did and said. So that when Laurence thinks he is loving Aslan, he is really loving Jesus. (Source)

In short, Aslan = Jesus. It is no surprise that Aslan, the Lion ruler of Narnia, should be equated to Jesus in this way—Lewis was a devout Christian and prominent Christian writer in other areas of his writing life. So although he didn't begin writing The Chronicles of Narnia with the intention of creating a Christian allegory, Aslan's character kind of wrote itself.

By the time Eustace arrives on the scene in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Aslan is ready to identity himself more clearly to Edmund and Lucy.

In that book, the Pevensie children are grieving because they will never return to Narnia. Aslan comforts them by saying that he will be with them in their world, too: "But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name." He goes on to say, "This was the very reason you were brought into Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there" (VDT 16.76).

If you are still in doubt about the allegory behind the Lion, recall that in The Silver Chair, when Jill is trying to figure out who he is, she asks timidly if he was the "Somebody" who had been calling to them in Narnia. Aslan answers simply, "I am," echoing the Book of Exodus 3:14, when God responds to Moses's request for his name.

No Greater Love

Okay, so what is the point of all this? Did Lewis mean to convert people by imagining what Jesus would be like if he landed in Narnia? Well, yes. But you don't have to be in the market for conversion to understand the importance of a good and just ruler, or the value of a perfect friend. Aslan may be terrifying, but he plays these roles as well, and he can also be incredibly tender, like when he weeps over the dead body of Caspian or enjoys hugs from his subjects. More than a lion, he is the pure love that orders Narnia for the greatest good of its inhabitants.

We can also see that Aslan is willing to sacrifice his own well-being for the life and happiness of his subjects. But if Aslan is willing to do all of this for his people, he also holds them to a very high standard. Jill and Eustace are saved from Experiment House and invited into a world of wonders, but Aslan expects them to work. Narnia is not a vacation resort.

Aslan calls the children to be a part of his plan to restore justice and stability in Narnia by finding the lost prince. He also expects them to behave as Narnians, accepting his supreme authority over all things. This relationship between lord and subject is meant to be beneficial for both parties—and ultimately based on the love and respect they have for one another.

A Just and Merciful King

Jill and Eustace find it easy to fall into line when it comes to Aslan because his sense of justice is always tempered by mercy. Just as Aslan has fearsome teeth and claws, he also has a magnificently huggable mane. So when Jill reports back to Aslan at the end of the adventure and wants desperately to apologize for her mistakes, he reveals the softer side of his nature:

Then the Lion drew them toward him with his eyes, and bent down and touched their faces with his tongue, and said: "Think of that no more. I will not always be scolding. You have done the work for which I sent you into Narnia." (16.236)

Lewis works hard to show that Aslan's sense of fairness and mercy—and the fact that he does all things out of love—make him divine and the ideal king.