I have been reading the Chronicles of Narnia to my son while we are on holiday. And I noticed that there is a lot of quiet / silent places in the Magician's Nephew.

I was wondering why Lewis has so many quiet locations in this book?

• Is he trying to communicate something thematically through the repeated use of silence? (Generically, it always seems to be either the silence of peace, the silence of death, the silence of waiting or the silence of adventure).
• Is it some sort of framing device?
• Is something else going on?
• Am I reading to way much into this and honestly I could get just as excited that he repeatedly uses the word "the" and wonder what Lewis was doing with the repeated use of 'the definite article'?

For refence:

Polly's Tunnel is quiet, safe and private:

She had often drunk a quiet bottle of ginger-beer in there: the old bottles made it look more like a smugglers’ cave.

When Digory and Polly search for the empty house, the tunnel is again silent – but it is the silence of adventure:

“We mustn’t make a sound,” said Polly as they climbed in again behind the cistern. ... It was very dark and dusty and drafty and they stepped from rafter to rafter without a word except when they whispered to one another, “We’re opposite your attic now” ...

The Forbidden Study is silent (with a foreboding anticipation) before Uncle Andrew reveals himself:

Then, with a great shock, they saw that they were looking, not into a deserted attic, but into a furnished room. But it seemed empty enough. It was dead silent.

The Wood Between the Worlds has a living, peaceful silence:

The silence of the Wood had been rich and warm (you could almost hear the trees growing) and full of life ...

Charn has the silence of death until Digory rings the bell:

... this was a dead, cold, empty silence.

“It is silent now. But I have stood here when the whole air was full of the noises of Charn; ... All in one moment one woman blotted it out forever.”

Digory and Polly's homes are silent with boredom and waiting in the afternoon:

“I wonder what Polly’s doing?” thought Digory.  He wondered about this a good deal as the first slow half-hour ticked on. ...

So while Digory was staring out of the dining-room window, Polly was lying in bed, and both were thinking how terribly slowly the time could go. ... And in between these false alarms, for what seemed hours and hours, the clock ticked on and one big fly—high up and far out of reach—buzzed against the window. It was one of those houses that get very quiet and dull in the afternoon and always seem to smell of mutton.

Once Polly puts on the ring, it becomes comparatively silent again as they approach the Wood Between the Worlds:

He made a third grab: caught the heel: held on like grim death, shouting to Polly “Go!” then - Oh, thank goodness. The angry, frightened faces had vanished. The angry, frightened voices were silenced. All except Uncle Andrew’s. ...

But Strawberry, the horse, shook his head, gave a cheerful whinny, and seemed to feel better. He became quiet for the first time since Digory had seen him. His ears, which had been laid flat back on his skull, came into their proper position, and the fire went out of his eyes.

The world of Narnia is silent and empty until Aslan sings Narnia to life (side point: does the Cabby's song about crops foreshadow Aslan's song):

“This is not Charn,” came the Witch’s voice. “This is an empty world. This is Nothing.”

And really it was uncommonly like Nothing. There were no stars. It was so dark that they couldn’t see one another at all and it made no difference whether you kept your eyes shut or opened. Under their feet there was a cool, flat something which might have been earth, and was certainly not grass or wood. The air was cold and dry and there was no wind.

The flight with Fledge is implied to be quiet:

As they came down nearer to the earth and among the hills, the air grew warmer and after traveling so many hours with nothing to listen to but the beat of Fledge’s wings, it was nice to hear the homely and earthy noises again—the chatter of the river on its stony bed and the creaking of trees in the light wind.

The Garden is quiet (perhaps peaceful, perhaps foreboding) until Digory encounters Jadis:

Now that he could see into the place it looked more private than ever. He went in very solemnly, looking about him. Everything was very quiet inside. Even the fountain which rose near the middle of the garden made only the faintest sound.

This may be going too far, but Aslan gives Uncle Andrew the gift of peaceful silence:

But I cannot tell that to this old sinner, and I cannot comfort him either; he has made himself unable to hear my voice. If I spoke to him, he would hear only growlings and roarings. ...”

He bowed his great head rather sadly, and breathed into the Magician’s terrified face. “Sleep,” he said. “Sleep and be separated for some few hours from all the torments you have devised for yourself.” Uncle Andrew immediately rolled over with closed eyes and began breathing peacefully.

While silence is never explicitly mentioned, Digory's mother appears to me to first lie in a silent room of death and then after she eats the apple in a silent peaceful state of healing:

And there she lay, as he had seen her lie so many other times, propped up on the pillows, with a thin, pale face that would make you cry to look at it.

...

And no sooner had she finished it than she smiled and her head sank back on the pillow and she was asleep: a real, natural, gentle sleep, without any of those nasty drugs, which was, as Digory knew, the thing in the whole world that she wanted most. And he was sure now that her face looked a little different. He bent down and kissed her very softly and stole out of the room with a beating heart; taking the core of the apple with him.