~The Society of Avid Young Readers~

Dec. 3, 2007

Chapters 5-6

It’s the third day, and we'll be going through Chapter V: "The Deplorable Word" and Chapter VI: "The Beginning of Uncle Andrew's Troubles."

If you haven't participated in the discussion yet, make sure to first read the simple guidelines at the beginning of this post.

Discussion Notes

Here's when the real excitement begins. ;-) Queen Jadis has entered the story. She obviously introduces some real problems, particularly for Uncle Andrew. He is finally starting to get "paid out" for his magical meddlings, just as Digory predicted. Of course, there is more to come; as the chapter indicates, this is just "the beginning" of his troubles.

The thing that interests me most about the reading we went through today is the City of Charn. There seems to be quite a long history behind everthing that the Witch said about it.

"'Look well on that which no eyes will ever see again,' said the Queen. 'Such was Charn, that great city, the city of the Kings of Kings, the wonder of the world, perhaps of all worlds. Does your uncle rule any city as great as this, boy?'"

To me, Charn shows how human greatness is so depraved. Perhaps Charn was the greatest city of all. What does that tell us about humankind? Charn was full of selfishness, deceit, pride, and despicable sin. It reached the epitome of power and destroyed itself with one single word.

Can any human kingdom survive forever?

And in the days of these kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people; it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever. Inasmuch as you saw that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold--the great God has made known to the king what will come to pass after this. ~ Daniel 2:44-45a

Human power can't stand on its own. Only something built firmly on God will survive.

Discussion Questions

1. What were some things that you noticed about Jadis and her attitude toward everything?
2. Does Uncle Andrew's reaction to Jadis's arrival surprise you? Why does he act the way that he does?
3. How is everything affecting Polly and Digory?

I have a couple of announcements and updates to make, so I will try to get all that together within the next couple days. Thanks to Eyebright, Sweetpotato, and Blogboy for posting in the discussions!!

Regards and happy reading :-),
Sylvia

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Comments

Dec. 4, 2007 - Untitled Comment

Posted by sweetpotato

1. Vanity, a strong will, and great selfishness seem to be Queen Jadis's main characteristics. We can see her vanity and awareness of her own beauty as she is convinced that Uncle Andrew has called her out of this world after seeing her great beauty, and her unwillingness to be convinced otherwise. And obviously she considered herself the only one that mattered when she destroyed everyone but herself in her world.

2. Hmm, when I think about it, his reaction isn't really too surprising. We know that he is a coward, and yet he is very prideful. So it's not surprising that at first he is servile and weak in facing the Queen, then later he begans to spiff up, thinking that maybe the Queen will fall in love with him.

3. I'd say they're handling it fairly well. I think it was an important move for Digory to apologize and Polly to forgive. They're going to need to be unified and work together somewhat in dealing with Queen Jadis, I should say.

I thought it was interesting how Polly noted that there was a "sort of likeness" between Uncle Andrew's and Queen Jadis's faces. Here is this great, powerful, Queen who destroyed her own world, and here's this little pipsqueak of a guy who mooches off his sister for a living, and yet they are somehow the same. It reminded me that circumstances really don't matter. Queen Jadis may be great on the surface, but when you come down to it, she is just as despicable as the wimpy Uncle Andrew because of her character. Urgh, I can't quite put my finger on what I'm trying say, but that's the best I can do.

You're doing an awesome job with this Sylvia! I'm enjoying your discussion questions and thoughts thoroughly, and I really appreciate the time and effort you're putting into this.

Edited by sweetpotato on Dec. 3, 2007 at 11:27 PM

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