Structuralist Conventions, Religious Intents: The Uses of Fantasy in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and His Dark Materials Anonymous College

Fantasy bridges the gap between reality and experience in a child’s mind, becoming a crucial part of a child’s engagement with the world around them. The fantasy genre dominates children’s literature; entailing themes of magic, adventure and animorphism typically set in a fictional universe. Elements of this supernatural, fantastical genre can be traced back as early as the ancient Babylonian creation epic, Enûma Eliš[1] which tells the tale of a cosmic battle between good and evil; a theme that extends across centuries of storytelling. This essay focuses on two particular novels within the fantasy genre; from the mid and late 19th century. C.S Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe represents a world completely different to the reader’s reality, set in a medieval period filled with mythical creatures and witches. Lewis’s fantasy world functions as a spiritual allegory, with characters acting as parallels to Biblical figures. In contrast, another great, however controversial fantasy novel is Philip Pullman’s The Northern Lights wherein the use of fantasy is solely used to critique the power of organised religion and expose readers to the world beyond our physical own. It is possible to apply a structuralist perspective to...