Summary
Chapter 7: What Happened at the Front Door
When the Witch appears in the drawing-room, Uncle Andrew introduces the Witch to Aunt Letty as a "distinguished foreigner." However, Aunt Letty is skeptical, and orders the Witch to leave the house. The Witch, offended, tries to turn Aunt Letty to dust but discovers she does not have her magical power in this world. The Witch does, however, have her strength, and she throws Aunt Letty across the room. Aunt Letty, luckily, lands on the mattress (that she had been mending earlier) and recovers quite quickly.
Uncle Andrew and the Witch leave, and Digory ponders how he will return the Witch to her own world. He decides to wait by the door so that when she and Uncle Andrew return he can touch her while touching the yellow ring and thus transport her out of London.
Polly, meanwhile, has been punished for coming home late for dinner. In addition, she had to explain why she had wet feet, and her mother comes to the conclusion that Polly must have gone off to an unknown park and jumped in puddles. As punishment, Polly must remain in her room for two hours.
While Digory waits for the Witch, a woman comes by to bring grapes for Digory's mother, Mabel. Aunt Digory overhears his Aunt Letty say that the only thing that might save Digory's mother is fruit from the land of youth. Letty says this as a way of stating that nothing can save Mabel. However, Digory hears this and starts fantasizing that he may be able to find a cure in another world that could heal his mother.
The Witch returns to the house driving a horse drawn carriage in a strange manner: she is standing on top of the carriage (not in the driver’s seat) and is madly whipping the carriage horse. The carriage crashes and becomes stuck on a lamp-post.
Many people from town and the police have followed Queen Jadis, and they all gather around her. The townspeople claim the Queen has stolen clothing and jewels, as well as the horse and carriage. Meanwhile, Queen Jadis hops on the back of the horse and attempts to free him from the tangled carriage. At the same time, she seems to be whispering things to the horse to make it more and more wild. Uncle Andrew, looking disheveled in his suit and with his top hat pulled down over his head, emerges from the ruins of the crashed carriage.
Townspeople from the crowd begin to argue with Queen Jadis, and the police try to arrest her. A nice cabby tries to calm the horse that the Witch is sitting on, because the horse is quite upset. The Witch, however, does not take this kindly, and yells at the Cabby, stating she is the Empress Jadis.
Chapter 8: The Fight at the Lamp-post
The crowd begins to laugh at the Witch and mock her because of her claim that she is the Empress. In response, the Witch grabs a bar from a nearby lamp-post and breaks it off, then uses it to hit a policeman over the head.
Meanwhile, Digory tries to get closer to the Witch to try and touch her and put his ring on at the same time, so they can travel back to the other worlds together. Polly, finally released from her punishment at home, appears on the scene. With Polly’s help, Digory is able to grab the Witch's ankle while Polly touches her yellow ring. Because they are all touching, the Cabby, the cab horse (named Strawberry), the Witch, Uncle Andrew, and Polly and Digory are transported to the Wood Between the Worlds. Moments after arriving, the horse takes a sip from another pool; because they are still all touching, Digory and Polly use this opportunity to put on their green rings. Because the horse is touching the pool while Digory and Polly are simultaneously touching their rings, and all of the other characters are also touching each other in some way, the entire group is thus transported into another world.
The world they enter at first seems completely black. The Witch tells them it is an empty world. The Cabby does not seem to mind and maintains a positive attitude. The Cabby begins singing a hymn, which in turn cheers and distracts the group. Uncle Andrew pulls Digory aside and tries to get Digory to leave with him; Digory and Uncle Andrew would, in that case, be leaving all the others there. The Witch catches Uncle Andrew trying to leave without her and gets mad. In response, Uncle Andrew explains to her that he feels he has been rather poorly treated by her.
Suddenly, one voice singing a beautiful song fills the world. Soon, brightly shining stars appear, and their silvery voices seem to join in with the first voice. Next, a sun rises and lights a beautiful landscape of valleys and rivers, mountains and hills, all very fresh and colorful. There are not yet any plants or grasses growing anywhere. The children, the Cabby, and horse are all charmed by the music and the world developing before them. Uncle Andrew and the Witch do not find the music pleasing. In fact, the Witch seems to especially dislike the music.
Finally, the singer comes into view: he is a large, elegant lion.
Upon seeing the Lion, Uncle Andrew wishes he had a gun so he could shoot the Lion. The Witch is upset by the Lion because when she sees him she realizes this world has magic more powerful than hers. She orders Uncle Andrew to prepare the magic so they can leave. In an attempt to abandon the Witch, Uncle Andrew gets closer to Polly and Digory and orders Digory to put on his ring. When Uncle Andrew says this, the Witch realizes for the first time that they have been travelling through the use of rings, and goes to grab the rings from Digory. But, Digory moves quickly, pulling Polly and himself aside, and threatening to leave them all there if anyone comes any closer to the two children. The Cabby then interrupts them to tell them to quiet down, because he is trying to listen to the song, which has just changed.
Analysis
Chapter Seven begins with the meeting of Queen Jadis and Aunt Letty, in a humorous scene. In the scene, Aunt Letty, who does not know of, nor believe in, the existence of other worlds, sees Queen Jadis as a “‘shameless hussy’….out of a circus… ‘Drunk!’” (93). Aunt Letty is thus characterized as extremely logical, practical, and very rigid in her ways of thinking. Thus, to Aunt Letty, Queen Jadis ironically becomes hardly more than a ridiculous “lunatic”; no longer is she the all powerful Queen of Charn. Lewis makes clear that magic is partially defined by perception.
The author also employs the use of humor in his juxtaposition of Uncle Andrew with Queen Jadis. Originally, in Chapter Two, Digory had pegged Andrew as a fairy-tale-like villain, but now, it has become clear that Queen Jadis is the evil one, and the antagonist of the story. Although they are similar in character—both arrogant magicians with immoral magic practices—Uncle Andrew seems to be a weak old man in the face of the beautiful, regal Queen Jadis. Still, in Chapter Six, the reader witnesses Uncle Andrew dressing himself up as though Queen Jadis is going to fall in love with him. He thus tries to make himself her equal; however, in Chapter Seven, Uncle Andrew’s top hat is crushed down over his face. Lewis thus paints the whole scene with a humorous mood, humiliating Uncle Andrew.
From the humorous mood of the chaos of London, the characters are transported to the tranquility of the Wood Between the Worlds, and soon thereafter, to an “empty world.” Once the characters reach the “empty world” the mood of the story again changes to be slightly more serious, as the Witch states, “My doom has come upon me” (112). The Cabby too makes an understatement about how “worse things ‘appen at sea and a chap’s got to die sometime” (113). The reader is left curious as to what will happen next.
The author sets the context using imagery of nothingness: they are standing on something cool and flat, the air is “cold and dry” and windless. In contrast, as the world begins to be created around them, Digory notes that “The earth was of many colors: they were fresh, hot, vivid. They made you feel excited” (118).
The magic of Narnia is portrayed in a much different way than the magic of Uncle Andrew or Queen Jadis. Magic started out in the story as something that seemed hardly real to Digory and Polly; as Digory stated, "I didn't believe in Magic till today. I see now it's real” (28). In the Woods, magic becomes something interesting, a key to other worlds. Later, in Charn, the children see the dark side of magic: Queen Jadis’ magic and power evoke a sense of unease and fear. Finally, the magic of Narnia is powerful and good, evoking a sense of comfort and beauty.
Lewis employs the use of anthropomorphism in character of the lion, named Aslan. Lewis gives Aslan the human characteristic of speech and song. Aslan is presented for the first time in Chapter Eight, as a creature who is singing and simultaneously creating. He is clearly very powerful, as he is creating an entire world. Describing his own imaginative creation of Narnia, the author C.S. Lewis has said that he first imagined that a land like Narnia existed, and then he imagined what a Son of God, in the form of a lion, would do in a place like Narnia (Brennan, Alexander). Thus Aslan embodies some of the characteristics of God or the son of God in the allegory and theme of creation, and the theme of faith, but he also simply represents goodness in a fantasy world. Aslan contrasts starkly with Jadis: while Jadis uses her magic powers to destroy worlds, Aslan uses his to create them. Aslan emerges as the embodiment of magic's capacity for good, while, by contrast, it becomes clear that Jadis embodies evil.
In Chapter Seven the characters witness the beginning of creation, including the stars and the sun, and see the landscape before the trees and plants grow up. Creation and nature and growth as a theme are highlighted in Chapter Seven, and further developed in Chapters Nine and Ten.
