The Magician’s Nephew: No Deals to be Made with the Lion

Most of life is autobiographical for all of us—and so it was for [C. S.] Lewis. Growing out of his years of sorrow, especially the ones of watching his mother become sick and die, The Magician’s Nephew tells the tale of a boy named Digory who enters into the world of Narnia on the day of its creation. 

Digory has mixed motivations, which is the way it is for all of us. On the one hand, it is for his friend Polly’s sake that he takes up the adventure that leads him into Narnia, sure that she is in distress and wanting to help. But on the other it is because of his mother’s sickness and his own great grief that he is willing to do anything for anyone that might make her better. 

Aslan, the lion who is king of the new world of Narnia, draws Digory into a conversation. In his heart, Digory begins to imagine that he can make a deal with Aslan: I will do this for him if he does this for me. But the closer he gets to the great lion, the more sure he is that no deals can be struck. 

It is then that he looks up at the lion and sees tears streaming down his tawny face. Lewis writes that Digory was then “sure that the lion cared more about my mother than I did myself.” And knowing that to be true, he opened his heart to the calling that became his, as Aslan had work for him to do in addressing the heartaches of that very new world. “A children’s story which is enjoyed only by children is a bad children’s story. The good ones last,” Lewis once wrote.