The Problem of Susan

As I have stated before, one of my favorite stories is growing up was Harry Potter. However, because I was growing up as the story was being written there were often long gaps of months to years between one book and the next. As a result I found myself journeying into other completed works, one of which being The Chronicles of Narnia.

Unlike many little girls, I identified myself with Susan more than with Lucy and was both disappointed and dissatisfied when she did not join her sister, brothers, cousin, and every other traveler in The Last Battle. While everyone who had ever been to Narnia journeyed “further up and further in” Susan was left behind to deal with broken bodies at a train station, alone.

The Problem of Susan is a topic that has been debated ever since The Last Battle was written in 1956, but it is a debate that has become more popular with the publication of The Problem of Susan by Neil Gaiman in 2004. I won’t link it as the short story is slightly graphic, look it up if you like.

What must be remembered is that the Chronicles of Narnia is an allegory for Christianity. At the end of voyage of the Dawn treader, Aslan tells Lucy and Edmund that they must find him under a different name in their own world. It is possible that Peter and Susan also were given this message in Prince Caspian, but all the reader is told is that the two eldest Pevensie’s are “to old for Narnia”. To me, Aslan’s message implies that the siblings are supposed to grow up and bring the lessons learned in Narnia to Earth. However, by the end of The Last Battle there is no evidence shown that any of the siblings or any of the other travelers ever found Aslan on earth. Most of he “friends of Narnia” seem so busy talking about Narnia and wanting to go back there, they don’t bother looking here. The only one to follow this and move on is Susan.

Later in life, C.S.Lewis wrote that: “The books don’t tell us what happened to Susan. She is left alive in this world at the end, having by then turned into a rather silly, conceited young woman. But there’s plenty of time for her to mend and perhaps she will get to Aslan’s country in the end . . . in her own way.” My question is why should she have to? Why must Susan ask forgiveness for he crime of growing up?

I like to imagine that Susan had a long for filling life. That she helped to rebuild Britain after the second world war, that she took the lessons learned as the queen gentle into her fancy parties with nylons and lipsticks, and that even if she didn’t want to talk every day about what was lost it didn’t mean she forgot it. Only that she kept going forward instead of looking back.