Jonathan Middleton: Narnia and The Ability to Learn in Fantasy

 The fact that children are the only people who can enter into Narnia, with few exceptions reflects the following for Chesterton quite well, “Ah, yes, when one is young, one has these ideals in the abstract and these castles in the air; but in middle age they all break up like clouds, and one comes down to a belief in practical politics…” (Chesterton, 81). It is because that children are more apt to believe and immerse themselves into the fantastical that they are more easily able to pass into these fantastical lands.

This is similar to young people in reality, at least when the ability to immerse oneself into fantasy is broached. Children are much more easily able to place themselves into these fictionalized environments because of their relative lack of knowledge about the world and how it works in reality. It only takes a few reality checks, so to speak, to permanently and irreparably damage an individuals ability to remove themselves from the 'real world' and supplant themselves into the fantastical, albeit even temporarily.

It is apt then that most of the characters that we know of that have traveled to Narnia are either young or are already predisposed to the fantastical. These characters haven't been corrupted by life yet, so to speak, and are those more easily able to see the magic in it as a result.

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