Charn
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Charn is a fictional city appearing in the 1955 book The Magician's Nephew, book six in C. S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia. In the book, Charn is described as a very large and completely deserted city that is in a semi-ruined state. There is no visible presence of life in this city, not even weeds or insects. There is mention of a vine existing in one of the courtyards. However, according to the book, it had died long ago. The river that once flowed through Charn is completely dried up, and there is no water to be found.
The Hall of Images in the royal palace, which exhibits past rulers of Charn, tells a story of a world which was once benevolent but degenerated into an cruel, despotic empire. The first rulers were kind and wise but the lineup progressively degrades into corruption and evil. The last queen of Charn was Jadis. According to her own account, she tried to usurp the throne from her sister, starting a long and terrible civil war. Finally, facing defeat, Jadis spoke the Deplorable Word which killed all living things under the Sun apart from herself. After this, she put herself into an enchanted sleep in the Hall of Images which was broken when Digory Kirke — who had arrived in Charn with Polly Plummer — succumbed to temptation and rang a bell in the royal palace where Jadis slumbered, along with images of her royal ancestors, after reading a verse which hinted that he would be driven mad by curiosity if he did not do so.
Charn's Sun is a red giant described as red, large, and cold; it also has a solitary companion (either a planet or a blue dwarf star). When Digory asks Jadis about the sun's appearance, she asks him to compare it to our world's Sun. When informed that Sol is yellow, brighter, smaller and "gives off a good deal more heat," she remarks, "Ah, so yours is a younger world."
Charn was described as being completely destroyed after Jadis and the children left. Later, when Aslan and the children are in the Wood between the Worlds, Aslan shows them that the puddle leading to Charn is dried up, meaning that the empty world is completely destroyed. It is not clear whether this was due to the red giant collapsing or the power of Aslan. Jadis entered Narnia with the other humans from our world and, after 900 years, became the White Witch in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. [1]
[edit] Commentary
Some believe that Charn stands for the natural progression of human depravity. There is a striking similarity between Jadis's description of the life and death of her city and the text of the prophetic book of Nahum concerning the biblical city of Nineveh. Judging from the expressions of the waxwork images of Jadis' ancestors, it is apparent that while her race started out being gentle and wise, they later became corrupt. This has a parallel in J. R. R. Tolkien's depictions of the Kings of Númenor (Lewis and Tolkien were friends). The hall of waxworks may also be inspired by the underground grotto of mummies in King Solomon's Mines, an image which Lewis found very powerful.[2]
[edit] References
- ^ Sammons, Martha C. (1979). A Guide Through Narnia. Wheaton, Illinois: Harold Shaw Publishers. p. 110-111. ISBN 0-87788-325-4.
- ^ See his essay "The Mythopoeic Gift of H. Rider Haggard", in Of This and Other Worlds.
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