The Silver Chair

Summary

The Silver Chair begins behind the gym at Experiment House, a muddled modern boarding school where bullies rule. Jill Pole is crying there when Eustace Scrubb, much changed since his voyage on the Dawn Treader, tells her about Narnia. Chased by the bullies, they call on Aslan and slip through a door in the wall onto a high mountain in Aslan's Country. Jill shows off at the edge of a cliff, and Eustace, trying to pull her back, falls over; Aslan blows him away to Narnia. Desperately thirsty, Jill finds the Lion lying beside a stream and must drink in front of him, for there is no other water. Aslan gives her a task: find Prince Rilian, the lost son of King Caspian, and he gives her four Signs to guide her. Eustace must greet an old friend as soon as he arrives; they must travel north to the ruined city of the ancient giants; they must do what the writing on a stone there tells them; and they will know the prince because he will be the first person to ask them something in Aslan's name. Jill is to repeat the Signs every morning and night. Blown to Narnia, she and Eustace watch an old king sail away and do not realize that he is Caspian; the first Sign is missed. The owl Glimfeather takes them to a Parliament of Owls, where they learn that ten years earlier Rilian's mother was killed by a green serpent and Rilian vanished while searching for it, after meeting a beautiful lady in green. With the gloomy, loyal Marsh-wiggle Puddleglum as guide, they cross Ettinsmoor and meet the Lady of the Green Kirtle with a silent knight in black armour, who sends them to the giants of Harfang for warm beds and an Autumn Feast. Hurrying through snow, they cross the ruined city without knowing it, and only from the giants' windows do they see the words UNDER ME cut in its pavement. Discovering a cookery book with Man and Marsh-wiggle in it, they escape into a crevice and fall into Underland, where gloomy Earthmen take them to the Queen's castle. The black knight is Rilian, enchanted, who each night is bound to a silver chair for an hour of what he is told is madness. In that hour he begs them in Aslan's name to free him, and they do. The returning Queen casts a spell of sweet smoke and thrumming to make them forget the sun and Aslan; Puddleglum stamps out her fire with his bare foot and declares for Aslan, and she turns into the green serpent and is killed. The party climbs back to Narnia. Caspian returns and dies blessing his son, and in Aslan's Country the Lion's blood restores him. Geoffrey Bles published the book on 7 September 1953, illustrated by Pauline Baynes.

Top Lessons

• Remembering the Signs

  Aslan tells Jill to say the Signs over every morning and night, because the air of Narnia will thicken her mind. When she grows comfortable and careless she stops saying them, and the travellers miss the ruined city. The book shows that what we are told plainly must be remembered on purpose.

• Puddleglum's courage

  Puddleglum always says things will go wrong, yet he never turns back, and when the Queen's spell is strongest he is the one who acts. He puts out her fire with his own bare foot and says he will follow Aslan whatever happens. Courage, Lewis shows, is not the same as cheerfulness.

• The comfortable trap

  The Green Lady promises hot baths and soft beds at Harfang, and the children hurry toward comfort and stop looking for the Signs. The giants who welcome them warmly mean to eat them. The story warns that what looks easy and kind can lead us away from the task we were given.

• Holding to the truth in the dark

  In Underland the Queen tells them there is no sun, no sky and no Aslan, only her lamp and her cave. Her soft voice and sweet smoke almost make them believe it. The book teaches that the truth does not stop being true because someone talks us out of seeing it.

Verified Quotes

Medical Lens

The book contains a striking inversion of madness and sanity. The black knight is told by the Queen that for one hour each night he becomes mad and dangerous and must be bound to the silver chair; in fact that hour is the only time he remembers who he is, and his cheerful, empty manner for the rest of the day is the enchantment. The Queen's later spell, worked with a green powder thrown on the fire, a sweet heavy smell and a steady thrumming of a mandolin-like instrument, dulls memory and reasoning in a way readers often compare with intoxication or hypnosis, and it is broken by sharp pain when Puddleglum burns his foot. The opening and closing chapters bring age and death into a children's book with unusual directness: Caspian, once the young king of the Dawn Treader, returns frail and dies blessing his son, and Rilian's grief at his mother's death ten years earlier is the source of the quest. These are imaginative rather than clinical portrayals.

• Chapter 11: In the Dark Castle

  The knight explains that the Queen has told him he suffers a nightly fit of madness and must be tied to the silver chair until it passes.

• Chapter 12: The Queen of Underland

  The Queen's green powder, sweet smoke and thrumming dull the travellers' minds until Puddleglum stamps on the fire and the pain of his burnt foot clears his head.

• Chapter 16: The Healing of Harms

  Old King Caspian returns from his voyage, blesses Rilian and dies; on Aslan's mountain the dead king lies in the stream before he is made young.