The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Summary

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is the third Chronicle of Narnia to be published. Edmund and Lucy Pevensie are spending the summer holidays with their aunt and uncle in Cambridge, where their cousin Eustace Clarence Scrubb, a priggish, bullying boy raised on modern notions, makes them miserable. A painting of a ship on the wall of a spare bedroom comes to life, sea water pours out of the frame, and all three children are swept into the sea of Narnia and hauled aboard the Dawn Treader. On board is King Caspian, three years after the events of Prince Caspian, sailing east to find the seven lords his usurping uncle Miraz had sent away: Revilian, Bern, Argoz, Mavramorn, Octesian, Restimar and Rhoop. With him are the captain Lord Drinian and the valiant talking mouse Reepicheep, who hopes to reach Aslan's country at the eastern end of the world. In the Lone Islands, nominally Narnian, Caspian, Lucy, Edmund, Eustace and Reepicheep are seized by the slaver Pug; Caspian is bought by Lord Bern, and together they depose the corrupt governor Gumpas, abolish the slave trade, and make Bern duke. After a long storm the ship lands on an island where Eustace, slipping away from work, falls asleep on a dead dragon's hoard with greedy thoughts and wakes as a dragon, a gold bracelet biting into his foreleg. Lonely and changed, he helps the crew, and Aslan at last leads him to a well, strips off his dragon skin layer by layer with his claws, and bathes and clothes him; the bracelet belonged to Lord Octesian. A sea serpent nearly crushes the ship. On Deathwater Island a pool turns everything to gold, including Lord Restimar. On an island of invisible voices, Lucy enters the magician Coriakin's house to read the spell that makes the clumsy one-footed Dufflepuds visible again, is tempted by a spell for beauty, eavesdrops on her friends by magic, reads a story of refreshment she cannot afterwards remember, and sees Aslan. Near a Dark Island where dreams come true they rescue the terrified Lord Rhoop, guided out by an albatross that whispers to Lucy in Aslan's voice. On Ramandu's island the last three lords lie in enchanted sleep at Aslan's Table; Ramandu, a retired star, and his daughter explain that the spell will break only if someone sails to the world's end and stays there. Through sweet, bright water and a sea of lilies, Caspian is turned back, while the three children and Reepicheep row on to the edge of the world. Reepicheep sails up the great wave in his coracle, and the children meet a Lamb who becomes Aslan and tells them he has another name in their world. Geoffrey Bles published the book in London on 15 September 1952, illustrated by Pauline Baynes.

Top Lessons

• Becoming a new person

  Eustace becomes a dragon by sleeping on a hoard with greedy thoughts, and he cannot tear off the dragon skin by his own efforts; only Aslan's painful claws can do it. The scene shows that real change comes as a gift that has to be accepted, and that afterwards the change still has to be lived out day by day.

• Courage with courtesy

  Reepicheep is the smallest member of the crew and the bravest. He fights Eustace to teach him manners, comforts him when he is a dragon, and goes willingly to the end of the world.

• Temptation in small things

  On Deathwater, Caspian and Edmund quarrel over the gold-making pool, and in the magician's house Lucy is tempted by a spell for beauty and by the spell that lets her hear what her friends say about her. The book treats envy, greed and curiosity as ordinary dangers that Aslan steps in to stop.

• Longing for Aslan's country

  Reepicheep's whole voyage is aimed at the utter East, and the ending shows the children that Aslan is also present in their own world under another name. The book teaches that the deepest longing points beyond any place on a map.

Verified Quotes

Medical Lens

The Dark Island in Chapter 12 is the book's one sustained study of fear: it is the place where dreams come true, meaning not wishes but nightmares, and Lord Rhoop, rescued after years there, is so shaken that he begs never to be asked about it; at Ramandu's island he is granted dreamless sleep. Readers interested in anxiety and nightmare can find in the episode a vivid children's picture of terror that feeds on imagination, though it is presented as enchantment rather than illness. Smaller sickroom details appear elsewhere: Eustace's seasickness and complaints in his diary, the water rationing during the storm, Lucy's cordial from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, used to ease his sickness, and the painful tightness of the gold bracelet on the dragon's swollen foreleg, which the cordial cannot relieve. Reepicheep sits with the lonely dragon and comforts him, a small picture of companionship in suffering.

• Chapters 5-6

  Eustace's diary records seasickness, the storm, and the rationing of fresh water; he is caught stealing extra water at night.

• Chapter 6: The Adventures of Eustace

  The gold bracelet bites into the dragon's foreleg, and Lucy's cordial does not ease the pain.

• Chapter 12: The Dark Island

  The crew enter the island where dreams come true and flee in terror; Lord Rhoop is rescued after years of living nightmares.