The Silver Chair Foreignness and Other Quotes

How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Page)

Quote #7

They were very different; some had tails and others not, some wore great beards and other s had very round, smooth faces, big as pumpkins. There were long, pointed noses, and long, soft noses like small trunks, and great blobby noses. Several had single horns in the middle of their foreheads. But in one respect they were all alike: every face in the whole hundred was as sad as a face could be. (10.141)

Beyond Narnia (or below it, as the case might be), Jill, Eustace, and Puddleglum discover worlds even more diverse and strange. In Underland, it becomes even harder to describe the species that exist, because they are more fantastical than ever. Lewis focuses on some extraordinary features of the Earthmen to explain just how different they are from anything we've seen before.

Quote #8

The cold light came from a large ball on top of a long pole, and the tallest of the gnomes carried this at the head of the procession. By its cheerless rays they could see that they were in a natural cavern; the walls and roof were knobbed, twisted, and gashed into a thousand fantastic shapes, and the stony floor sloped downward as they proceeded. (10.142)

The look of this shadowy new world reveals its frightening and potentially sinister nature. In this case, otherness is not a delightful diversity but rather something that provokes anxiety and fear.

Quote #9

It brought them into a smaller cave, long and narrow, about the shape and size of a cathedral. Here, filling almost the whole length of it, lay an enormous man fast asleep. He was far bigger than any of the giants, and his face was not like a giant's, but noble and beautiful. His breast rose and fell gently under the snowy beard which covered him to the waist. A pure, silver light (no one saw where it came from) rested upon him. (10.145)

Even in this frightening, strange place, there can be beauty. Lewis describes a myriad of strange creatures in this place (all of which have "fallen down from the sunlit lands"), most of which fire our imaginations. Old Father Time is a creature of legend, and though in a sinister place, he maintains his purity and beauty.