Reading through the Chronicles of Narnia, I have been struck by how often C.S. Lewis uses repeated patterns through out his stories.  These patterns are often to offer a compare / contrast between characters or to present themes in the story.  I thought it might be fun to discuss some and see what other’s think.

Has anyone else noticed any repeated patterns in the Narnian books?  (You don't need to go into as much detail as I do, I have a disability that prevents me from writing briefly. 😀 )

The first pattern I noticed was in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.  When entering Narnia, there seems to be a general pattern to the events (though the order of events have some variance) along the lines of:

1. Wandering around the Professor’s mansion
2. Enter through Wardrobe [always with a comment that it is unwise to shut oneself in a wardrobe]
3. Lamppost
4. Meet a Narnian
   1. Spend time with Narnian
      1. Eat
      2. Converse
   2. Betrayal
   3. Danger from White Witch

 This pattern first shows up when Lucy meets Mr Tumness:

Wandering around the mansion:     Lucy first encounters the wardrobe while the kids are exploring the house:

“Do stop grumbling, Ed,” said Susan. “Ten to one it’ll clear up in an hour or so. And in the meantime we’re pretty well off. There’s a wire-less and lots of books.”
“Not for me” said Peter; “I’m going to explore in the house.”

Enter through Wardrobe:    Lucy checks out the wardrobe:

She stayed behind because she thought it would be worth while trying the door of the wardrobe, even though she felt almost sure that it would be locked. To her surprise it opened quite easily, and two moth-balls dropped out.
Looking into the inside, she saw several coats hanging up — mostly long fur coats. There was nothing Lucy liked so much as the smell and feel of fur. She immediately stepped into the wardrobe and got in among the coats and rubbed her face against them, leaving the door open, of course, because she knew that it is very foolish to shut oneself into any wardrobe.
...
Then she noticed that there was something crunching under her feet. “I wonder is that more mothballs?” she thought, stooping down to feel it with her hand. But instead of feeling the hard, smooth wood of the floor of the wardrobe, she felt something soft and powdery and extremely cold. “This is very queer,” she said, and went on a step or two further. Next moment she found that what was rubbing against her face and hands was no longer soft fur but something hard and rough and even prickly. “Why, it is just like branches of trees!” exclaimed Lucy. And then she saw that there was a light ahead of her; not a few inches away where the back of the wardrobe ought to have been, but a long way off. Something cold and soft was falling on her. A moment later she found that she was standing in the middle of a wood at night-time with snow under her feet and snowflakes falling through the air.

Lamppost:      As Lucy walks through Narnia, she encounters the Lamppost:

She began to walk forward, crunch-crunch over the snow and through the wood towards the other light. In about ten minutes she reached it and found it was a lamp-post.

Meet a Narnian:        Lucy meets Mr Tumness by the lamppost:

And soon after that a very strange person stepped out from among the trees into the light of the lamp-post.
He was only a little taller than Lucy herself and he carried over his head an umbrella, white with snow. From the waist upwards he was like a man, but his legs were shaped like a goat’s (the hair on them was glossy black) and instead of feet he had goat’s hoofs. He also had a tail, but Lucy did not notice this at first because it was neatly caught up over the arm that held the umbrella so as to keep it from trailing in the snow. He had a red woollen muffler round his neck and his skin was rather reddish too. He had a strange, but pleasant little face, with a short pointed beard and curly hair, and out of the hair there stuck two horns, one on each side of his forehead. One of his hands, as I have said, held the umbrella: in the other arm he carried several brown-paper parcels. What with the parcels and the snow it looked just as if he had been doing his Christmas shopping. He was a Faun. And when he saw Lucy he gave such a start of surprise that he dropped all his parcels.

Spend time with Narnian     Lucy agrees to go to Mr Tumness’s home:

“If you will take my arm, Daughter of Eve,” said Mr Tumnus, “I shall be able to hold the umbrella over both of us. That’s the way. Now — off we go.”
And so Lucy found herself walking through the wood arm in arm with this strange creature as if they had known one another all their lives.

Eat      At Mr Tumness home, Lucy has tea with Mr Tumness:

And really it was a wonderful tea. There was a nice brown egg, lightly boiled, for each of them, and then sardines on toast, and then buttered toast, and then toast with honey, and then a sugar-topped cake. And when Lucy was tired of eating the Faun began to talk.

Converse        Mr Tumness tells Lucy of life in Narnia:

He had wonderful tales to tell of life in the forest. He told about the midnight dances and how the Nymphs who lived in the wells and the Dryads who lived in the trees came out to dance with the Fauns; about long hunting parties after the milk-white stag who could give you wishes if you caught him; about feasting and treasure-seeking with the wild Red Dwarfs in deep mines and caverns far beneath the forest floor; and then about summer when the woods were green and old Silenus on his fat donkey would come to visit them, and sometimes Bacchus himself, and then the streams would run with wine instead of water and the whole forest would give itself up to jollification for weeks on end. “Not that it isn’t always winter now,” he added gloomily.

Betrayal          Mr Tumness reveals that he had really been intending on betraying Lucy to the White Witch.  Mr Tumness has seen the error of his ways and now looks on his betrayal with great sadness:

“That’s the worst of it,” said Mr Tumnus with a deep groan. “I’m a kidnapper for her, that’s what I am. Look at me, Daughter of Eve. Would you believe that I’m the sort of Faun to meet a poor innocent child in the wood, one that had never done me any harm, and pretend to be friendly with it, and invite it home to my cave, all for the sake of lulling it asleep and then handing it over to the White Witch?”
“No,” said Lucy. “I’m sure you wouldn’t do anything of the sort.”
“But I have,” said the Faun.
“Well,” said Lucy rather slowly (for she wanted to be truthful and yet not be too hard on him), “well, that was pretty bad. But you’re so sorry for it that I’m sure you will never do it again.”
“Daughter of Eve, don’t you understand?” said the Faun. “It isn’t something I have done. I’m doing it now, this very moment.”
“What do you mean?” cried Lucy, turning very white.
“You are the child,” said Tumnus. “I had orders from the White Witch that if ever I saw a Son of Adam or a Daughter of Eve in the wood, I was to catch them and hand them over to her. And you are the first I’ve ever met. And I’ve pretended to be your friend an asked you to tea, and all the time I’ve been meaning to wait till you were asleep and then go and tell Her.”

Danger from White Witch    Lucy and Mr Tumness have to be careful because the White Witch will want to kill both of them:

“We must go as quietly as we can,” said Mr Tumnus. “The whole wood is full of her spies. Even some of the trees are on her side.”
They both got up and left the tea things on the table, and Mr Tumnus once more put up his umbrella and gave Lucy his arm, and they went out into the snow. The journey back was not at all like the journey to the Faun’s cave; they stole along as quickly as they could, without speaking a word, and Mr Tumnus kept to the darkest places. Lucy was relieved when they reached the lamp-post again.

This pattern repeats when Edmund meets the White Witch:

Wandering around the mansion: The kids play hide and seek in the Mansion:

That day, when it came to the afternoon and there was still no sign of a break in the weather, they decided to play hide-and-seek. Susan was “It” and as soon as the others scattered to hide, Lucy went to the room where the wardrobe was. She did not mean to hide in the wardrobe, because she knew that would only set the others talking again about the whole wretched business. ...

Enter through Wardrobe:    Edmund follows Lucy into the Wardrobe:

Now the steps she had heard were those of Edmund; and he came into the room just in time to see Lucy vanishing into the wardrobe. He at once decided to get into it himself—not because he thought it a particularly good place to hide but because he wanted to go on teasing her about her imaginary country. He opened the door. There were the coats hanging up as usual, and a smell of mothballs, and darkness and silence, and no sign of Lucy. “She thinks I’m Susan come to catch her,” said Edmund to himself, “and so she’s keeping very quiet in at the back.” He jumped in and shut the door, forgetting what a very foolish thing this is to do.

Lamppost:    This does not fit the usual sequence, but towards the end of their conversation, the White Witch draws Edmund’s attention to the Lamppost:

“Do you see that lamp?” She pointed with her wand and Edmund turned and saw the same lamp-post under which Lucy had met the Faun. “Straight on, beyond that, is the way to the World of Men.

Meet a Narnian:        Edmund encounters the Witch shortly after entering Narnia:

“Stop!” said the Lady, and the dwarf pulled the reindeer up so sharp that they almost sat down. Then they recovered themselves and stood champing their bits and blowing. In the frosty air the breath coming out of their nostrils looked like smoke.
“And what, pray, are you?” said the Lady, looking hard at Edmund.
“I’m-I’m-my name’s Edmund,” said Edmund rather awkwardly. He did not like the way she looked at him.
The Lady frowned, “Is that how you address a Queen?” she asked, looking sterner than ever.

Spend time with Narnian:    Edmund reluctantly agrees to join the Witch on her sledge:

“My poor child,” she said in quite a different voice, “how cold you look! Come and sit with me here on the sledge and I will put my mantle round you and we will talk.”
Edmund did not like this arrangement at all but he dared not disobey; he stepped on to the sledge and sat at her feet, and she put a fold of her fur mantle round him and tucked it well in.

Eat:     The Witch provides Edmund with enchanted food:

“It is dull, Son of Adam, to drink without eating,” said the Queen presently. “What would you like best to eat?”
“Turkish Delight, please, your Majesty,” said Edmund.
The Queen let another drop fall from her bottle on to the snow, and instantly there appeared a round box, tied with green silk ribbon, which, when opened, turned out to contain several pounds of the best Turkish Delight. Each piece was sweet and light to the very centre and Edmund had never tasted anything more delicious.

Converse:       The Witch interrogates Edmund to extract information out of him:

While he was eating the Queen kept asking him questions. At first Edmund tried to remember that it is rude to speak with one’s mouth full, but soon he forgot about this and thought only of trying to shovel down as much Turkish Delight as he could, and the more he ate the more he wanted to eat, and he never asked himself why the Queen should be so inquisitive. She got him to tell her that he had one brother and two sisters, and that one of his sisters had already been in Narnia and had met a Faun there, and that no one except himself and his brother and his sisters knew anything about Narnia. She seemed especially interested in the fact that there were four of them, and kept on coming back to it. “You are sure there are just four of you?” she asked. “Two Sons of Adam and two Daughters of Eve, neither more nor less?” and Edmund, with his mouth full of Turkish Delight, kept on saying, “Yes, I told you that before,” and forgetting to call her “Your Majesty”, but she didn’t seem to mind now.

Betrayal:        Edmund (possibly innocently) betrays Lucy and Mr Tumness’s information in what he tells the White Witch, but he very deliberately betrays Lucy when he lies to Susan and Peter:

And now we come to one of the nastiest things in this story. Up to that moment Edmund had been feeling sick, and sulky, and annoyed with Lucy for being right, but he hadn’t made up his mind what to do. When Peter suddenly asked him the question he decided all at once to do the meanest and most spiteful thing he could think of. He decided to let Lucy down.
“Tell us, Ed,” said Susan.
And Edmund gave a very superior look as if he were far older than Lucy (there was really only a year’s difference) and then a little snigger and said, “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.”

Danger from White Witch:  Lucy informs Edmund that the White Witch is dangerous when she meets him in Narnia:

“The White Witch?” said Edmund; “who’s she?”
“She is a perfectly terrible person,” said Lucy. “She calls herself the Queen of Narnia though she has no right to be queen at all, and all the Fauns and Dryads 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.”

This pattern might also appear the 3^rd time, when all four of the children enter Narnia (though it’s a bit more iffy as the formula plays out - eventually - over a few chapters).

Wandering around the mansion:     The children are ‘chased’ around the Mansion by Mrs Macready and her crew of tourists:

But when they had got out into the Green Room and beyond it, into the Library, they suddenly heard voices ahead of them, and realised that Mrs Macready must be bringing her party of sightseers up the back stairs — instead of up the front stairs as they had expected. And after that — whether it was that they lost their heads, or that Mrs Macready was trying to catch them, or that some magic in the house had come to life and was chasing them into Narnia they seemed to find themselves being followed everywhere, until at last Susan said, “Oh bother those trippers! Here — let’s get into the Wardrobe Room till they’ve passed. No one will follow us in there.”

Enter through Wardrobe:    Once the children are cornered into the wardrobe room, they are left with no other choice but to hide in the wardrobe:

“Quick!” said Peter, “there’s nowhere else,” and flung open the wardrobe. All four of them bundled inside it and sat there, panting, in the dark. Peter held the door closed but did not shut it; for, of course, he remembered, as every sensible person does, that you should never never shut yourself up in a wardrobe.

Lamppost: Nearly as soon as they enter Narnia, Edmund reveals his lie by mentioning the lamppost:

“I say,” began Edmund presently, “oughtn’t we to be bearing a bit more to the left, that is, if we are aiming for the lamp-post?” He had forgotten for the moment that he must pretend never to have been in the wood before. The moment the words were out of his mouth he realised that he had given himself away.

Meet a Narnian:        This is a little different to the earlier two occurrences in that the kids first see the Robin, but after the Robin, they encounter Mr Beaver (and he takes them to Mrs Beaver too):

A moment later the stranger came out from behind the tree, glanced all round as if it were afraid someone was watching, said “Hush”, made signs to them to join it in the thicker bit of wood where it was standing, and then once more disappeared.
“I know what it is,” said Peter; “it’s a beaver. I saw the tail.”
“It wants us to go to it,” said Susan, “and it is warning us not to make a noise.”

Time with Narnian:  Mr Beaver invites the kids to his home where they spend time with him and Mrs Beaver:

“S-s-s-sh,” said the Beaver, “not here. I must bring you where we can have a real talk and also dinner.”

Eat:     At Mr and Mrs Beaver’s home, the children have dinner with the beavers:

There was a jug of creamy milk for the children (Mr Beaver stuck to beer) and a great big lump of deep yellow butter in the middle of the table from which everyone took as much as he wanted to go with his potatoes, and all the children thought — and I agree with them — that there’s nothing to beat good freshwater fish if you eat it when it has been alive half an hour ago and has come out of the pan half a minute ago. And when they had finished the fish Mrs Beaver brought unexpectedly out of the oven a great and gloriously sticky marmalade roll, steaming hot, and at the same time moved the kettle on to the fire, so that when they had finished the marmalade roll the tea was made and ready to be poured out.

Converse:       Mr & Mrs Beaver discuss with the kids about Mr Tumness, Aslan and their plan moving forward:

“And now,” said Mr Beaver, pushing away his empty beer mug and pulling his cup of tea towards him, “if you’ll just wait till I’ve got my pipe lit up and going nicely — why, now we can get to business. It’s snowing again,” he added, cocking his eye at the window. “That’s all the better, because it means we shan’t have any visitors; and if anyone should have been trying to follow you, why he won’t find any tracks.”
AND now,” said Lucy, “do please tell us what’s happened to Mr Tumnus.”
“Ah, that’s bad,” said Mr Beaver, shaking his head. “That’s a very, very bad business. There’s no doubt he was taken off by the police. I got that from a bird who saw it done.”

Betrayal:        Edmund again betrays his family by heading off to see the White Witch:

“The reason there’s no use looking,” said Mr Beaver, “is that we know already where he’s gone!” Everyone stared in amazement. “Don’t you understand?” said Mr Beaver. “He’s gone to her, to the White Witch. He has betrayed us all.”

Danger from White Witch:  Mrs Beaver informs the children that the witch just wants to kill them all:

“Go to the Witch’s House?” said Mrs Beaver. “Don’t you see that the only chance of saving either him or yourselves is to keep away from her?”
“How do you mean?” said Lucy.
“Why, all she wants is to get all four of you (she’s thinking all the time of those four thrones at Cair Paravel). Once you were all four inside her House her job would be done — and there’d be four new statues in her collection before you’d had time to speak. But she’ll keep him alive as long as he’s the only one she’s got, because she’ll want to use him as a decoy; as bait to catch the rest of you with.”

I think Lewis uses this formula to contrast Lucy and Edmund; showing how Edmund is going down a destructive path.  I think Lewis has also crafted this well, so that we get the plot leaked to us in each trip (we are told about the White Witch from Mr Tumness, then we meet the White Witch with Edmund, then the beavers tell of the harm done to Mr Tumness before Edmund finally betrays his family to her).  It is a great way of drawing the audience in.

 So, what do you think?  Am I seeing a pattern where there is none?  Would you understand the significance of Lewis’ use of this formula differently?