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| Map of Jill, Eustace, and Puddleglum's journey. |
In terms of age, the intended audience for The Silver Chair is arguably quite different than for Out of the Silent Planet, even though there are likely just as many (or more) adults who read (and reread) Silver Chair as there are children.
Lewis was very aware of his audience. As you're reading SC, what do you notice about the narrative tone, style, and structure that points to this awareness? Specifically, how can you tell (assuming you can tell) that he was writing for a young audience? Please don't point out the obvious (the protagonists are children; the story is full of fairy-tale elements; there are colored pictures; etc.). Rather, point to a specific moment or scene or description or conversation (or whatever) in SC that illustrates this narrative awareness and then, if possible, tell us how Lewis dealt with the same type of moment or scene or description or conversation differently in OSP.
Comments are due by noon FRIDAY 28 SEPTEMBER.
Lewis acknowledges in “Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say Best What’s To Be Said” that there is a difference in writing for adults than writing for children, but it is not a drastic difference. On page 63 in the course packet he says, “I was therefore writing ‘for children’ only in the sense that I excluded what I thought they would not like or understand; not in the sense of writing what I intended to be below adult attention.” To me, this means that the only difference between writing for adults and children is the level of details, vocabulary, and obvious morality.
ReplyDeleteThere are many parallels that I have already found between The Silver Chair and Out of the Silent Planet; however, one of the most prominent is the ways in which Lewis added his own comments into the story. On page 56 in OSP, Lewis adds the comment, “If you are not yourself a philologist, I am afraid you must take on trust the prodigious emotional consequences of this realization in Ransom’s mind.” This comment is added into the story by a different narrator, and it is almost as though it is a side note to the reader; there are several times throughout the book that Lewis makes a comment such as this.
Lewis adds comments to the reader in The Silver Chair in the same respect, but he makes it more obvious by adding parentheses; thus making it easier for children to understand and relate to the text. For example, on page 4 Lewis adds, “(which is quite a likely thing to happen if you have been interrupted in a cry).” This comment not only makes it seem as though the readers are being told a story, but it is something that children can relate to because they are less likely to be able to control their emotions than adults. Lewis does this numerous times throughout the first four chapters and throughout the entire book. I believe that this helps the children relate to the book and feel more included in the story.
Though Lewis adds comments in both books, the way in which he adds the comments are less obvious for adults and more obvious for children.
In The Silver Chair it is easy to tell that C.S. Lewis is writing for a younger audience by how his choice of words and how he is describing what is happening. On great example of this is on page 108. The porter giant gave some liquor to Puddleglem, but it was way more than he need. Puddleglem drank all of it though because he was thirsty for it and had not had it in a few days. This caused Puddleglem to become drunk, but Lewis does not say that. He just tells the story that Puddleglem keeps pronouncing is name wrong like “Repectabiggle” and “Reshpeckobiggle.” Lewis just lets Puddleglem talk to himself and the children ignore him. If this were in Out of the Silent Planet, Lewis would have said right away that Ransom was drunk (19). He would not have described what was happening because adults already know what happens when a person drinks too much. In The Silver Chair Lewis is describing the Puddleglem’s drunkenness because children do not know what it means to be drunk, and since it is a children’s novel Lewis may have received some criticism had he not tip-toed around the topic.
ReplyDeleteThere is another moment in the book that makes it geared more for children than for adults. On page 88 when Pole, Scrubb, and Puddleglem meet the knight and the lady on the horses; Lewis has Pole talking right away about wanting to find the lost Prince before Puddleglem steps in. In Out of the Silent Planet, Weston and Devin are very stand-offish to go to and to talk to the Oyarsa. They feel they will be killed by the Oyarsa, and so they refuse to go and then when they finally do go Weston and Devin do not even want to bother talking to the Oyarsa. (128) These scenes are similar but also different. The Silver Chair is written for children so when Lewis sets up this scene, Pole is ready to talk right away about their voyage. She does not hesitate to think about what the consequences may be. In Out of the Silent Planet, Weston and Devin think about what might happen to them if they go to meet the Oyarsa and if they tell the Oyarsa about their plans. This causes them to be rude and act like a stuck up person, when in the Silver Chair the children just want to be friendly and talk to the lady and the Knight.
Although there is a lot of crossover between young adult and adult fiction, there are still several details that distinguish the two. First off, children's books are much quicker paced to accommodate their short attention spans. This can be seen in the first chapters of Lewis's The Silver Chair in contrast with Out of the Silent Planet. In The Silver Chair, two of the story's major characters are immediately introduced and much of their personalities are revealed via conversations between the two. Eustace tells Jill about the magical land of Narnia and as children would, they attempt to go there and eventually do, though through a different way than intended. Lewis also recognizes that a child's unfiltered imagination is stronger and more vivid than what can be put into words, so when they go through the door of the school into a new world, he sets up the general descriptions of the setting with enough simplicity for a child to fill in the cracks with his/her own imagination and mold it to what they want to see (12 & 14-15). Lewis ends the chapter by having Eustace fall off an atmospherically high cliff and a giant lion blowing him away. All this happens in chapter one with very brief setting and background information, and an overview of the plot is given in the next chapter, whereas OSP is written at a much slower pace.
ReplyDeleteIn his adult fiction, Lewis is much more detail-oriented and scatters bits and pieces of the plot throughout the book. His descriptions of the settings are precise and exact, using meticulous metaphors and adjectives to convey exactly what he intends the reader to see. The first chapter of OSP is heavily focused on character introduction and setting descriptions. Most of the dialogue explains background information of the characters, revealing things like their occupations and education (14-15). Very little of the plot is revealed at the beginning of the book and several major characters are not introduced until many chapters later.
Though The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis was intended for a younger audience, it is true that just as many adults have likely read it. Today we might classify the language used in the book as formal and, at times, even hard to understand. But at the time in which this book was written, that was the standard way of speaking. There are definitely times in the book when Lewis’s intended audience is evident; the way in which he describes the scenery and situations in simple, easy-to-understand terms makes this clear. For example, Jill’s childlike fascination with the way Aslan blows her on a cloud to Narnia, her observation of the colors in the sky, shows that Lewis was in the mindset of a child at times when he was writing this book.
ReplyDeleteThe frequent observation of colors is what really stood out to me as how the book could be intended for children. Children generally have a very innocent fascination with simple things like different colors that adults may not even notice. Though color was also a prevalent aspect of Out of the Silent Planet, also by C.S. Lewis, the fact that Narnia is seen through a child’s eyes gives it a younger, more innocent feel. I think that this style of writing can still be challenging for adults today, however, and is a worthwhile read for people of all ages.
As already mentioned the book is indeed written through the eyes of a child and her journey. Even more so from this fact alone C.S. Lewis really understands the psyche of a child and writes scenes that reflect a good relationship between the young main character and experiences with that of the young reader.
ReplyDeleteOn page 7 Eustace is explaining to Jill all about his experience in Narnia and what a great place it is that he would like to get back to. Secrets are always intriguing and are usually told by whispering. When Eustace begins to whisper his story to Jill she becomes more inclined to listen and believe in what she is hearing. For children if you have to whisper then the information tend to be true since it’s being told so softly to keep it secret. As a child, Jill begins to think of what Eustace is saying and wonders if he is only whispering it to her to trick her and play a practical joke. In this instance she tells him fiercely that he better not be pulling her leg. To prove himself true, Eustace (like any child in this instance) swears that what he says is true. This scene does a great job of describing how children socialize and is described in detail with conversation between Jill and Eustace that a young reader could relate. No child would listen to such a fairy-tale like story from another child without having some form of doubt in their words called into question.
This conversation in The Silver Chair is very brief between the two children as it calls a quick reference to all reader’s prior knowledge to the broad term of fairy-tales. This scene is very short in length and much more about setting up whom the characters are before going to a new world compared to that in the book Out of the Silent Planet. After Ransom was kidnapped and dragged on to a ship to Malacandra he asked several questions from his sense of disbelief of his unknown surroundings. Weston gave logical answers to all the questions (page 28) which gave further reason for Ransom to not want to be headed to this new world. This plot took several pages to unfold as much of these details weren’t previous ideas in a reader’s knowledge and needed much more explaining than a general suggestion of a fairy-tale. To get this information across to the readers C.S. Lewis developed a Q and A conversation between Ransom and Weston. This was written to be less about the connection of the reader to the character and more into getting information across to the reader of where, what and why these things were happening.
In comparing the two scenes in describing the new worlds, The Silver Chair was more about character development as well as their connection to the reader and Out of the Silent Planet was more about providing much needed information to the reader.
While reading the first few chapters of The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis, it was immediately apparent that Lewis wrote this story for a younger audience than Out of the Silent Planet, quite frankly, because it was much easier for me to read and understand. When reading Out of the Silent Planet I would more often than not read sentences and paragraphs more than one time. When describing how hard OSP, a short little book, was for me to read, I would tell my friends “my teacher said C.S. Lewis would read for 10 hours every day…. Sooo he knows every word in the English dictionary….. and uses a lot of the ones I don’t know in this book.” With The Silver Chair, I do not have the same trouble. The language C.S. Lewis uses is much more basic, which makes it clear that he intended the Silver Chair to be read by children.
ReplyDeleteFor example, in this quotation from Out of the Silent Planet, notice the sophisticated words Lewis uses to describe Ransom’s feelings when first exposed to the fantastic light in outer space: “he felt vigilant, courageous, and magnanimous as he seldom felt on Earth,”(OSP 31). When describing how Polly feels when being carried by the Lion’s breath, Lewis uses common language: “floating on the breath of the Lion was so extremely comfortable…. There was no wind, and the air seemed beautifully warm,” (SC 28). Remarkably, though the language is more elementary in The Silver Chair, I do not find it to be any less descriptive.
The Silver Chair may be associated with children, but C.S. Lewis was able to write a book that young adults and adults would love to read. The language that Lewis used is one main reason why this book could be considered an adult book. The Silver Chair isn’t going to feed you all of the information. Some people may find it confusing. Lewis uses both formal and informal words. When the children speak to each other, they are speaking like any child would. But when the adults begin to speak or you are just reading through the book there is a sense of formal words. This could become confusing for any young child. An example of the informal language spoken between Eustace and Jill would be on page 10 when Eustace says, “What are you doing Pole? Come back --- blithering little idiot!” C.S. Lewis is very descriptive when describing a scene in any of his books. In my opinion, his descriptions are not childish. Lewis explains them way any adult would explain how they see something. Most children’s books are very fast pace so that the author can keep the child involved with what is being said. In Out of the Silent Planet it took a long time for the plot to actually get moving. Some adults don’t find it appealing when the plot moves too fast, they sometimes feel like they had little time to understand what was happening. The plot begins right in the beginning of The Silver Chair. Eustace was “blown” to Narnia right in the beginning by Aslan, and Jill has already been sent on a quest to find the prince. This style of writing can be very difficult for adults, but Lewis has been able to keep all ages interested with his writing.
ReplyDeleteIt is true that Lewis is very aware of his audience and it becomes apparent when you compare SC to OSP. In his essay "Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say Best What Needs To Be Said," he mentions that’s he was not specifically writing only for children, but only excluded things that children would not understand. I think that this is very true when applied to SC.
ReplyDeleteA difference I noticed between SC and OSP was in how he described meeting a stream. "It grew clearer every moment and, sooner than she expected, she came to an open glade and saw the stream, bright as glass, running across the turf a stone's throw away from her." In this sentence from SC, he decribed the stream as "bright as glass" and "a stone's throw away." Both of these terms are easily within a child's experience, and so thus easy for them to picture. However, in OSP, when Ransom finds a stream, it is described quite differently; "Many of the gullies which he crossed now carried streams, blue hissing streams, all hastening to the lower ground on his left." Here Lewis uses the word "hastening" which, in my opinion, is a more complex word then "sooner" used in SC. He also explains the positon of the stream as "to the lower ground on his left." This is a lot more complex to imagine than simple the stream being a stones toss away. Lewis is really quite aware of his audience when he writes.
I would also like to note that the setting of SC is tailored towards children a lot more than OSP. Here you have castles, animals, and mountains, when in OSP you are greeted with pinkish-white vegetation and gigantic red cauliflower trees. I think that having OSP be set in a different world can even be difficult for adults to read, which supports the fact that there are as many adults as children that read SC.
Tyler King
You can tell Lewis writes for a young audience in numerous ways. One way that I see his audience represented is by the type of dialogue Lewis gives the characters in the story. In a conversation between Jill and Eustace, Jill said, “If I find you’ve been pulling my leg I’ll never speak to you again; never, never, never” (7). The repetition of the word “never” illustrates the way kids talk. Jill is over exaggerating here like most children do. It is a type of complaining a young audience can relate to more than an older audience. Jill will most likely talk to Eustace again if he is “pulling her leg.” Even though many adults do not talk like this, this book is still enjoyed by an adult audience.
ReplyDeleteIn Out of the Silent Planet Lewis does not give the characters childish conversations not just because they are adults, but also because the story itself is geared towards adults. When Ransom wakes up in the spaceship, Weston tells him, “As to how we do it, I suppose you mean how the spaceship works, there’s no good your asking that” (28). Weston will not tell Ransom how the spaceship works because he does not believe he will understand. However, in The Silver Chair Eustace gives Jill a chance and explains to her this magical planet. In OSP Ransom says, “There isn’t a planet called Malacandra” (28). Adults do not have the imagination kids have. Ransom is more reluctant to believe in a planet like Malacandra than Jill is to believe in a magical world like Narnia. Children have a better imagination that is more believable to themselves than adults. This is why The Silver Chair attracts a much younger audience than Out of the Silent Planet.
C.S. Lewis' descriptions in The Silver Chair and Out of The Silent Planet clearly are written toward the skill level of the expected readers. Even something as simple as describing the main characters’ surroundings can be simplified for a younger audience in The Silver Chair and developed deeper for an older audience in Out of The Silent Planet.
ReplyDeleteOn page 51 in The Silver Chair, Lewis describes the setting around Jill when she is flying on the owl. “It was much lighter than she expected, and though the sky was overcast, one patch of watery silver showed where the moon was hiding above the clouds. The fields beneath her looked gray, and the trees black. There was a certain amount of wind—a hushing, ruffling sort of wind which meant that rain was coming soon.” There are no words in there weighing the sentences down. He is simply describing the scene in everyday terms that younger readers can understand. In contrast, on page 43 in Out of The Silent Planet, Lewis describes what Ransom sees the first time on Malacandra with a more thought provoking perspective. “He saw nothing but colours—colours that refused to form themselves into things. Moreover, he knew nothing yet well enough to see it: you cannot see things till you know roughly what they are.” This goes beyond just simply describing the physical appearance of the planet and provides a sort of abstract approach that gets you thinking. Granted some of this mystery about the planet is due to the fact that it is new to Ransom and totally foreign to our planet’s standards, but it still remains true. Even Jill is new to the land of Narnia, yet what she sees is still described in simple terms. This speaks to Lewis’ plan to write The Silver Chair to a simpler, younger audience and Out of The Silent Planet to a refined, older audience. It is tough for an author to make such a distinction and accomplish them as well as he did, so he should be commended.
Out of The Silent Planet and Silver Chair are both books written by C.S. Lewis that share many similar themes and motifs. Although they have obvious similarities, one is more of an adult novel while the other is a children’s novel. Lewis claims in “On Three Ways of Writing for Children” that stories form out of pictures in his mind. From these pictures he connects the dots and creates a story. The intended audience, young or old, depends on the pictures that he sees in the beginning. He makes it clear in this article that writing for children should not be a goal of pleasing them, but instead one where the story is told best in the form of a children’s book. I believe this is what happened when Lewis wrote The Silver Chair.
ReplyDeleteOne parallel between the two books that I noticed was the way in which the main characters reacted to loneliness. Ransom from Out of The Silent Planet is seen on page 51 comforting himself by talking to himself and trying to rationally think things through by saying, “We’ll just rest a bit till you feel better, then we’ll go on again.” Ransom was alone and scared that night and comforted himself in a way that most adults could relate to, by laying down and getting rest because it was logical.
Jill, on the other hand, deals with her recognition of being alone in a completely different manner; crying. The act of crying is one that children can relate to and it their natural reaction to anything upsetting. Once Scrubb falls off the cliff, leaving Jill alone Lewis writes Jill’s reaction as “she burst into tears” (page 18).
The way that C.S. Lewis shows the reactions of these two different characters speaks to both the age and maturity of the characters themselves as well as the reactions in which the readers can relate. Jill in the Silver Chair reacts by crying which anyone, especially children, can relate to. Ransom reacts by reasoning and convincing himself that everything will work out in the end, which is what adults do each day.
One way that I could tell that Silver Chair was made for children was actually the point leading up Eustance and Jill traveling to Narnia and their initial reaction when they first got there. The children happened upon Narnia because they were running from bullies and they were looking for a place to hid. This is something that many children can relate to because school bullies are so common. When they arrived in Narnia the children were first frightened but then curious and relieved to be in this new place(SC 14). To parallel this to Out of the Silent Planet, Ransom was kidnapped and forced to go to this new place. When he arrived on the new planet he was defensive and fearful of what the planet might hold (OSP 43).
ReplyDeleteLewis’s target audience is young readers. By having giants, talking animals, kings and queens, young readers can get lost in the book's content, but Lewis's language is also tailored to younger readers. One way Lewis makes this novel easy to read for a child is through his description of the animals, such as when he is describing a Marsh-wiggle. Lewis describes one as having “very long legs, and arms, so that although his body was not much bigger than a dwarf’s, he would be taller than most men when he stood up. The fingers of his hands were webbed like a frog’s, and so were his bare feet which dangled in the muddy water.” (69) By first giving a description of the creature by comparing it to common animals to cater to a child's experience. In Out of the Silent Planet, this would be described differently. For example, when Lewis describes the sorns as “Its knees rose high above its shoulders on each side of its head-grotesquely suggestive of huge ears-and the head, down between them, rested its chin on the protruding breast.” (92) This description is very abstract and not very easy to picture. Comparing The Silver Chair to Out of the Silent Planet, the former has more descriptions that can resonate with kids rather than a lot of descriptive scenery all the time.
ReplyDeleteThe first thing I notice about the differences in style between Out of the Silent Planet and Silver Chair is sentence structure. OSP contains more complex-compound sentences, while SC has more simple sentences. Lewis still uses larger, more complex words, like “bivouacked” (82) or “balustrade” (86). However, this higher level vocabulary appears less often and since it is broken into smaller pieces by the simple sentence structure, the writing appears more childish. Narrative perspective is also a factor when determining the ideal audience for these two stories. In OSP, we get a lot of what Ransom thinks. Readers are given internal dialogue, thoughts. Ransom is able to describe why he is feeling happy or frighten. For example, in OSP there is the line “He no longer supposed that any harm would be done to him if he went down and mixed with the crowd, but he felt a reluctance to do so” (109). In SC, this would have been enough explanation and Lewis would have moved on with the plot. However, in OSP, Lewis goes on to explain the Ransom has this feeling because it reminds him of being a new boy at school and watching all the older boys arrive. On the other hand, we have SC, where all we know if that “Jill Pole was crying” (1). We know that she is crying because she was bullied, but we know next to nothing about the action or the bully. Another way that Lewis catered to a certain aged audience is the amount of background information he provides about the characters. With Ransom, we know that all kinds of things, like that he has a married sister who lives far away, which is not at all related to the plot. In SC, we know never to nothing about Jill. Where is she from? Why is she at this Experimental school? Does she have a family? Adult readers are more likely to be interested in characters that are more complex and developed. Children are less likely to be concerned with these details. To highlight the differences in the audiences Lewis wrote these two books for, I would like to talk about the first meeting of talking creatures. When Ransom meets Hyoi, he behaves like any adult: instant fear. Ransom regards Hyoi as a beast even after he knows that Hyoi will not hurt him. Jill, on the other hand, while showing some surprise over talking animals, immediately accepts that fact that animals can talk. She never questions is or freaks out. It just becomes a fact in this new world, which is a childlike acceptance of reality.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading both Out of the Silent Planet and The Silver Chair, there are correlations that make it known that both are written by the same author, C.S. Lewis, however because one is a children’s book and the other an adult book there are big differences. Both of these books are very descriptive, however The Silver Chair is much less extraneous. While reading Out of the Silent Planet, I found myself getting bored almost with all the detail and like it was being dragged out but in the Silver Chair I am able to read the detail and not be bored.
ReplyDeleteWhile reading The Silver Chair I feel like it is almost a verbal story and not so much one that is strictly written. Lewis uses parenthesis’ a lot and most the time when these are used it is somewhat of an afterthought, which makes it feel like the person who is actually telling this story thought of something else to add. This really makes the book feel like a children’s book because adults will always tell stories to kids and add a lot of little details that make it more appealing to the child, and point out things that children wouldn’t think of and what to know why. In Out Of The Silent Planet, I felt as though there it was strictly a written book so this was the biggest indicator for me of the different style of writing for a children’s to an adult book.
Compared to the OSP, The Silver Chair has a completely different narrative. The narrative tone in The Silver Chair is easy to see and follow. Lewis is very aware of his audience which is to children but not limited to them. Besides the obvious things that show the narrative awareness there are many other not so open things. The thought processes of the characters are a lot easier to follow and the decisions are a lot clearer and easily made. The children are easily persuaded and make decisions based off of feelings more. Also once the decision is whole heartily made they are not typically persuaded against that decision. For example on pages 88 and 89 when the three travelers meet the Lady in Green and she tell theme about Harfang. Another narrative tone or style is the descriptions in which Lewis uses to describe things. When describing the Lady in Green on page 86 he says, "And riding towards them on the ancient rode were two people of normal grown-up human size." . The key word being grown-up in that example, Lewis used language easily understood and easily pictured by children instead of using the word adult. Another way that SC is different than OSP is how the narrative is heard throughout the text. One example in particular is when the narrative talks about Jill crying in front of the King and Queen Giants on page 111. In OSP there were not any narrative opinions or voices throughout the story until the end where we learn whom is telling the story. In OSP the descriptions and decisions made by the characters, such as Ransom, are a lot more in depth and complex. The reason SC is not like this could possibly be because it is a fairy tale not because of whom the audience is.
ReplyDeleteThe way in which Lewis introduces and presents his characters is a good indication that he is very aware of his audience. He presents them very simply, yet not plainly at all. The best example is Puddleglum, whom we all love and adore for his over the top pessimism. There is little to no description of his attitude toward life because a page full of adjectives about thoughts and feelings is likely to bore a younger audience to death. Lewis carefully chooses which words to use in his dialogue so that each character has an easily discernible identity right from the get-go. Puddleglum’s phrases are strung together in a way that makes you feel out of breath when you finish reading them. His first spoken words in the book were on page 64 when the owls are bringing the children to him. He says, “What is it? Is the King dead? Has an enemy landed in Narnia? Is it a flood? Or dragons?” Even from just this first glimpse at Puddleglum, no child is going to have a hard time figuring out what he is all about.
ReplyDeleteThe other characters are this way as well. They all very clearly have an identity, though it was not drawn out for you by lengthy descriptions. It seems as though you can flip open the book, pick out a piece of dialogue, and know exactly who is saying it without any other textual clues. Lewis’s ability to build a realm of characters that possess such defined personalities with so few words is truly amazing. He brings in the essence of Narnia and the characters without you even realizing it.
In C.S. Lewis’ Silver Chair we can tell that it is written for young children because of the layout of the book but also because of how quickly everything moves along. In Out of The Silent Planet Lewis goes into much more detail and is a lot more descriptive about Malacandra. Children do not have the attention span for such detail. The beginning topic in Silver Chair, bullies, is something that most every child can relate to. Children see this and they put themselves in Jill’s place, they can understand exactly how she is feeling. In the book Out of The Silent Planet, the boy that Ransom is trying to save is being bullied but it is not as clear of a topic as it is in Silver Chair. Lewis is aiming at two different audiences with both books but still has a lot of similarities in his writings. In Silver Chair he has to be less descriptive and the plot has to move quickly and in Out of The Silent Planet, which is aimed at an older audience, he was able to be more descriptive and give a lot of detail of Malacandra.
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ReplyDeleteC.S. Lewis wrote The Silver Chair for children by excluding high detail and driving the story at a relentless pace. As a consequence of the pacing, we have visited numerous locales throughout the book such as Caspian’s castle, Puddle-glum’s marsh, the forgotten city of the giants, and many more in between.
ReplyDeleteThe Silver Chair really emphasizes the journey and the adventures of our trio. It appears to me that we spend only a small amount of time at each place before forging onto the next, never quite giving the reader enough time to become bored. The Harfang may seem to break this pattern, but Lewis hints at something more sinister throughout our time and builds tension.
Out of The Silent Planet is a more focused story. While we do see many places of Melcandra, we spend a large part of the story in about four unique locations: the ship, the village of the Gross, Augray’s tower, and Meldilorn. Lewis gives each place a personality by showing us its inhabitants and lifestyles. We come to know the young of the Hrossa and their day to day lifestyles.
The Silver Chair gives almost a caricature or larger than life persona to the places we visit. Lewis is very straightforward in his description and only gives us the essence of a place which all work together to create Narnia and the lands beyond. In contrast, we see only a single harandramit of Malacandra in Out of The Silent Planet in great and meticulous detail.
I think Lewis definitely knew Out of the Silent Planet and The Silver Chair were going to attract different audiences. Out of the Silent Planet had long, drawn out descriptions of absolutely everything. Writing in this style doesn't appeal to younger readers as much because they tend to get bored with it, as it makes the action move slower. The Silver Chair is meant for a much younger audience, which you can see in multiple ways. One of the simple and obvious ways is just how things happen. In OSP everything is based around technology. In SC it's magic that causes them to reach Narnia, and I think that helps the younger generation get interested to begin with. SC also allows the readers to predict the action that is coming. An example of this is the serpent that bites the queen is green, the woman the prince sees before he disappears is wearing a green dress, and the Lady that the children meet in their travels is wearing green. It allows the reader to jump to conclusions, which inspires them to continue reading to find out if they were right. Where OSP has the long drawn out descriptions, SC has some short descriptions of the surroundings based only on what the characters can see. While this doesn't give the same level of detail, I personally like it better because it allows your imagination to make the world how you see fit. Also, the narrator adds in other information. For example, on page 37, the story tells how the ship is setting sail away from the dock. It then adds in parentheses “(It was being towed by a rowing-boat, but Jill didn't see that.)” It gives the reader a good idea of what the world is like, and allows them to feel like they know more than the characters in the book do.
ReplyDeleteIn The Silver Chair, it is easier to tell that Lewis is writing for a younger audience because of the simpler language he uses as well as the writing style. In Out of the Silent Planet there was an extensive amount of descriptions that were sometimes hard to wade through, but in The Silver Chair the descriptions are still there but much easier to read.
ReplyDeleteAlso, in The Silver Chair the presence of a narrator is known unlike in Out of the Silent Planet where it was unknown until the end. The presence of a narrator makes the story more believable and enjoyable, as well as easier to read because of the pauses in the story line. An example of this is on page 33 when Lewis breaks and says, “What made Scrubb look so dingy (and Jill too, if she could only have seen herself) was the splendor of their surroundings. I had better describe them at once.” I believe Lewis has just the right amount of narrator comments because he doesn’t use it to the point of distraction.
In Out of the Silent Planet there isn’t much dialogue either, where there is in The Silver Chair. This makes it easier for the readers to follow along and because children tend to have shorter attention spans it keeps them interested.
In The Silver Chair, the way it is written with more dialogue than a bunch of words telling you how something looks like in Out of the Silent Planet. Plus there is more fairy tale like characters. I mean like what kid doesn’t like talking animals in a book. I know I always did. The way Lewis makes them speak helps. An example is the owls (53) saying “Tu-whoo, tu-whoo…” It gives a feeling of what they are, to what they sound like in real life. Another thing in this book is they narrative, it gives a feeling of it being told instead of being read. Like a parent telling this story to his/her child. When the narrator uses I or (these) it gives more of the story telling vibe. Like on page (83) (they were not, of course, talking birds), the narrator stops to tell them (them being us or children who are being told the story) about what they are eating because they are talking animals in this book.
ReplyDelete-Paige Landis
DeleteThere seems to be several things that CS Lewis does in his writing that help us see that he is not just writing for children but for adults as well. The biggest thing I saw in the text that shows that he is writing for adults too was all of the extra information the narrirator gives us. This information seems to be for more in depth readers which makes me think of older readers. Where children may be more ready to except things for fce value adults sometimes need more descriptions and details in the story. Another thing I think Lewis puts into his books are underlying themes and parallels to things in our world and to biblical stories. This also goes with adults being able to read deeper into the text. Lewis wrote these books like this because he was very aware that not only children would be reading his books. With this in mind he was able to spin a spectacular fairy tale for young adults but also deeper meaning for adults.
ReplyDeleteFor “The Silver Chair” I notice that the narrative is from the perspective of a 3rd person. This book has an omniscient narrative, where the narrator basically knows more than the actual character. The narrator is all knowing. For example, on page 37: The Gangway was cast of, trumpets sounded…(It was being towed by a rowing boat, but Jill didin’t see that)”. This shows how even know most of this book is from the eyes of Jill, the narrator still knows more and sees all. You can tell that he is writing for a young audience because most of the book is dialogue, there is a lot of talking between the characters going on. In contrast to “Out of the Silent Planet, which is for more mature audience I believe, where most of the book is descriptions of the setting and place and descriptions of Ransom’s thoughts, beliefs, and feelings. For example, one that points out how this is for younger audiences is on page 7 where Eustance tells Jill about what he has seen:
ReplyDelete“Could you believe me if I said I’ve been right out of the world—outside this world—last hols?”
“How did you get there” said Jill. She also felt curiously shy.
The dialogue that goes between the two characters in that page just shows how the conversation is very child-like and the fact that it’s dialogue and not much description will capture a child’s attention.
In OSP, Lewis dealt with that type of scene/dialogue differently because most of it was descriptions of the feelings that ransom had. Also, if we looked at the dialogue in OSP (especially dialogue between Ransom and Oyarsa/Hross), we can see that the conversation is much deeper and has more meaning.
The main thing that I noticed in Silver Chair that Lewis does is he is very blunt about everything. He wastes no time with over-the-top descriptions, crazy in-depth metaphors, or extra information. He just tells what you need to know for the story and what is happening in that exact moment. It is like he is writing more on a surface level in this book, when in OSP he was writing on such a deep level. That isn't to say that the story isn't good as well, you can just tell that it was intended for an audience of younger children, or even people that just like to read for the story itself and not the underlying meanings/messages.
ReplyDeleteAn example would be when Aslan is taking to Jill at the beginning. Every time Aslan spoke, I kept trying to figure out what point Lewis was really trying to make. Especially when she is saying that she is thirsty and she will have to go find another stream on page 23. Aslan says, "There is no other stream." Now in this book, I really think that all he is saying is written right there; you have to drink water here because there are no other places to drink.
I found myself reading that with OSP in mind still, where everything seemed to be a metaphor or have a deeper meaning. I was thinking , "Oh this is a metaphor for Christianity, and being thirsty and drinking are metaphors for searching for faith and peace and finding it in God (Aslan). And he says there is no other stream to say there is no other religion and I am the only way to reach these things." Obviously I am over-thinking this, but if it were OSP it wouldn't be so far-fetched to dive that deep into a sentence. Since Silver Chair is written for more of a child audience, I feel like this meaning isn't there, and Lewis just means what he says.
Between reading Out of the Silent Planet and The Silver Chair, it becomes quite clear which was written for an older audience and which was written for a younger one. One of the largest things that stand out between the two is the great descriptions contained in Out of the Silent Planet which are not contained in The Silver Chair. For example, on page twelve of The Silver Chair Jill and Eustace arrive in the new land of Narnia. Only a short description is available to tell the reader about the land of Narnia. “They saw smooth turf, smoother and brighter than Jill had ever seen before, and blue sky, and, darting to and fro, things so bright that they might have been jewels or huge butterflies.” By C.S. Lewis’s standards, this description is extremely subpar, especially compared to those given in Out of the Silent Planet. When Ransom arrived on Malacandra, the reader was met with a great, exhausting description of the planet’s landscape. Though the lack of description may be disappointing for some, for others like me, the less text devoted to description the better. This is why I believe Lewis chose to scale back the descriptions when writing for children, because keeping them at such length would more than likely cause younger audiences to lose interest quickly. Along the same lines, Lewis decided to devote much more of the text in The Silver Chair to dialogue in order to keep the story flowing for the younger audience.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, The Silver Chair is both more interesting to read and easier to read, therefore it brings in a younger audience. One thing that I noticed in the book is that there is a lot more dialogue. I think this helps kids realize what is going on more in the story. The book also moves at a much faster pace than OSP, which helps because children have a short attention span and can get bored easily if a book starts to drag out. One of the main differences I see in the books is the lack of description in the Silver Chair. It is descriptive enough, but nothing like OSP. Narnia is not nearly described as much as Malacandra was. I think that main point shows that Lewis knew what he was doing when he was writing for children. He makes it simpler but not too simple because he is able to describe the fantasy factor of Narnia.
ReplyDeleteThe Silver Chair is a much easier read than Out of the Silent Planet. It's easier to get caught up in, which I think is partly from the descriptions. The descriptions of places, characters and ideas don't seem quite as lengthy and hard to get through as they did in Out of the Silent Planet. Also, the language of the novel seems more conversational, less scientific and educational. To me, Out of the Silent Planet seemed more like a sort of documentary. The style and tone were more serious in nature. Of course, Out of the Silent Planet is fiction, but it came off in that way.
ReplyDeleteThe Silver Chair, like I said before, is much more conversational. Lewis even puts quite a few phrases in parenthesis. As I'm reading, I think of an older version of Eustace and Jill recounting the tale, as I'm sitting Indian style with a semi-circle of other children, and as they're telling me the basic plot, all the comments in parenthesis are just the interesting tid bits that they throw out in an undertone. They aren't really part of the main story, but they're still very interesting to know. This happens on page 184, when we're told that Eustace's sword really didn't harm the serpent. It is also used on page 180, when Puddleglum stomps on the fire, and they mention that his feet were bare. Page 178, they give us the thrumming beat of the mandolin that the witch is playing. Within the span of six pages, this strategy is used 3 times. It's not telling us anything truly vital to the story, but it certainly gives us a more exciting and believable read. All the little details keep my attention at least.
The Silver Chair and Out of the Silent Planet are clearly two very different books. It is obvious that The Silver Chair is written for a younger audience. The fantasy setting and genre is a reason for this. It seems like the science fiction Genres of Out of the Silent Planet is usually more geared for adults or older children. One example in the way the writing is different is in both stories the protagonist meets a completely unfamiliar species. In out of the Silent Planet on page 55, Ransom meets his first Hross. The description here is much different and more analytical than anything in the Silver Chair. Ransom talks about his fear and apprehension and even how he mistakes a drinking apparatus for it's genitals. This clearly would not be mentioned in a childrens book. In The Silver Chair Jill and Eustace meet Puddleglum on page 65. All that is said is that she noticed he was mostly arms and legs. It is understandable that these are very different circumstances in the respective books but it is still interesting. There is also no fear of something new in The Silver Chair. This may be because Ransom is alone and Jill is with Eustace and Glimfeather but it is still a stark contrast. I feel like these scenes are comparable because Ransom has no idea what a Hross is when he first meets it. This is the same for Meg. If she were meeting a Unicorn, or something that all children know about from stories it would be different. But Puddleglum is a Marsh-Wiggle, which is something that is not a common fantasy creature therefore he should be just as new to Jill as the Hross is to Ransom.
ReplyDeleteThis style of more description as well as more analysis into the characters psyche and thoughts seems to be a prevailing theme in Out of The Silent Planet when compared with the Silver Chair. I think that is clearly showing Lewis' "Audience Awareness"
One thing that stood out to me as I was reading The Silver Chair and reminded me of my own childhood was the giantess nurse at Harfang who treated Jill like a child much younger than she actually was. Children can tell when they are being patronized and detest it. They like to be seriously listened to and respected, just like adults do. The giantess nurse grates on Jill’s nerves by bringing her toys meant for toddlers and calling her babyish names such as “precious poppet”. Lewis appeals to his young audience at this point of the story because most children have experienced being patronized and can identify with Jill’s ill will towards the giantess nurse. They probably feel a surge of pride for Jill and a sense that poetic justice is being served when Jill is able to use the giants’ patronization to find out valuable information about the castle that she, Eustace, and Puddleglum can use to escape.
ReplyDeleteThe bullying that Eustace and Jill experience at the beginning of the book is another one of the aspects of this story that, to me, makes it most evident that C.S. Lewis wrote The Silver Chair for children. Eustace and Jill bond with one another because they are both being bullied by the same group of older children at Experiment House. Lewis does a spot-on job of describing what it feels like to be bullied as a child, such as the inability to relax and enjoy time at school because of the constant need to make sure members of the bullying group aren’t nearby and hide to prevent being found by them.
Also, going out on a limb here, I bet that many children who choose to read in their spare time can probably identify all too well with the bullying experiences that Lewis describes. While children bully by chasing (“Poole? She’s blubbing behind the gym. Shall I go fetch her out?”) and making one another do horrible things, such as eat mud, adults (some do definitely still bully others) usually bully in much more indirect ways, such as talking badly about others “behind their backs”. However, in Out of the Silent Planet, Weston and Devine do bully Ransom in a very direct and physical way by forcing him to go to Malacandra in a spaceship with the intent of using him as a human sacrifice to the sorns. The two men also treat him very poorly throughout the journey, sometimes even inhumanely.