Charn

Charn

Charn is a fictional city appearing in the 1955 book The Magician's Nephew, book six in C. S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia, written as a prequel to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. In the book, Charn is described as a very large and completely deserted city that is in a semi-ruined state. There is no visible presence of life in this city, not even weeds or insects. There is mention of a vine existing in one of the courtyards. However, according to the book, it had died long ago. The river that once flowed through Charn is completely dried up, and there is no water to be found.

What little information is given about Charn comes from Jadis. According to her, Charn was once the greatest city of her (unnamed) world, "the wonder of all worlds". It was ruled by a line of magically-adept emperors and empresses, descended from Djinn and giants, of which the last was Empress Jadis. By the time the protagonists enter, the world is now an arid wasteland, with no living organisms to be seen anywhere, and the city on the brink of collapse.

Magic may have been widely used by the Charnish culture; Jadis referred to the common use of magic carpets for transportation. However, its use was apparently limited to the nobility, who inherited inborn magical powers. Jadis dismissed Andrew Ketterley, Digory's magician uncle, as an amateur conjurer without a drop of real magic blood in his veins, saying, "Your kind was put an end to in my world a thousand years ago."

Apparently dragons were also once abundant in Charn, and in the service of the royal and noble families.

The Hall of Images in the royal palace exhibits lifelike images of the past rulers of Charn, all of them remarkably tall and incredibly beautiful, and all of them crowned and seated upon thrones. These images tell a story of a world which was once benevolent but degenerated into a cruel, tyrannical empire. The first generations were kind and wise but the lineup progressively degrades into corruption and evil. The last queen of Charn was Jadis; however, there are numerous empty thrones after her, symbolising a premature end to the dynasty of Charn.

Once the Emperors and Empresses of Charn were kind and decent, but as the centuries passed quickly became sadistic and malevolent, seeing their subjects as property to be killed if they deemed it necessary. Slavery was once common in Charn, as was human sacrifice.

As Jadis leads the children through the decaying palace, the locations she informs them of portray the cruelty of Charn and its leaders. She points out dungeons and torture chambers to them, and gloats that her great-grandfather invited seven hundred nobles to a banquet and slaughtered them all "before they had drunk their fill", for they had allegedly had "rebellious thoughts."

Jadis is responsible for the eradication of all life in Charn, but blamed the destruction on her sister; claiming she had offered to spare her sister's life if she surrendered, so the resulting destruction was the nameless sister's fault. Jadis obliterated her kingdom and all its people rather than relinquish her power over them.

According to Jadis' own account, her sister had tried to usurp the throne from her, starting a long and murderous civil war. Apparently there was a solemn oath between Jadis and her unidentified sister that neither side would use magic; a pact broken by the sister, which was most likely the reason for Jadis' army being destroyed and leaving her helpless. Finally, facing defeat, Jadis spoke the Deplorable Word which annihilated all living things under the Sun apart from herself.

After this, she put herself into an enchanted sleep in the Hall of Images. This enchanted slumber last for countless millennia; long enough for all water in Charn to dry up and vanish forever, and long enough for the once magnificent city to crumble into ruin. Apparently all the furniture and treasures in Charn rotted away long ago as well, as there is no mention of the palace being furnished.

The spell which bound Jadis was broken when Digory Kirke — who had arrived in Charn with Polly Plummer — succumbed to temptation and rang a bell in the royal palace where Jadis slumbered, along with images of her royal ancestors, after reading a verse which hinted that he would be driven mad by curiosity if he did not do so.

Charn's Sun is a red giant described as red, large, and cold; it also has a solitary companion (either a planet, or a moon, or a blue dwarf star). When Digory asks Jadis about the sun's appearance, she asks him to compare it to our world's Sun. When informed that our sun is yellow, brighter, smaller and "gives off a good deal more heat," she remarks, "Ah, so yours is a younger world."

Charn was described as being completely destroyed after Jadis and the children left. Later, when Aslan and the children are in the Wood between the Worlds, Aslan shows them that the puddle leading to Charn is dried up, meaning that the empty world is destroyed. It is not clear whether this was due to the red giant collapsing, the departure of the last living person of that world, or the power of Aslan. Jadis entered Narnia with the other humans from our world and, after 900 years, became the White Witch in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, ruling that land for 100 years until Aslan returned and defeated her with the aid of the four Pevensie children.[1]

Commentary

Some believe that Charn stands for the natural progression of human depravity. There is a striking similarity between Jadis's description of the life and death of her city and the text of the prophetic book of Nahum concerning the biblical city of Nineveh. There are also similarities between the world of Charn, and the Biblical cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, two cities whose depravity and wickedness resulted in their own devastation. Judging from the expressions of the waxwork images of Jadis' ancestors, it is apparent that while her race started out being gentle and wise, they later became corrupt. This has a parallel in J. R. R. Tolkien's depictions of the Kings of Númenor (Lewis and Tolkien were friends). The hall of waxworks may also be inspired by the underground grotto of mummies in King Solomon's Mines, an image which Lewis found very powerful.[2] The name "Charn" suggests "charnel house," a repository for human skeletal remains.

References

  1. ^ Sammons, Martha C. (1979). A Guide Through Narnia. Wheaton, Illinois: Harold Shaw Publishers. pp. 110–111. ISBN 0-87788-325-4. 
  2. ^ See his essay "The Mythopoeic Gift of H. Rider Haggard", in Of This and Other Worlds.
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