Joy Laxton: Disbelief in Out of the Silent Planet and The Last Battle

     In the first book of a Space Trilogy, “Out of a Silent Planet,” by C.S. Lewis, Dr. Ransom’s doubts from whether his experiences of Malacandra were real are disclosed in the last chapter of the book.  The pressures of Dr. Ransom’s normal life make him forget his beliefs and he questions whether or not his experiences were hallucinations.  Lewis, however, in reaching out to Dr. Ransom with a question allows him to return to his neglected beliefs.

     This relates to Susan’s choice to no longer believe in Narnia in “The Last Battle,” as she gets caught up in different things such as partying and Aslan states she is “no longer a friend of Narnia” (Lewis, 1956).  It also relates to an excerpt from Lewis’ essay, “Miracles,” where Lewis described how seeing is not believing through a story of the only women he knew to see a ghost, who neither believed in the immortality of humans before or after seeing the ghost, as she disregarded the experience as a hallucination (Lewis, 1970). 

 

References

Lewis, C. S., & Baynes, P. (1956). The last battle. New York: Macmillan.

Lewis, C. S., & In Hooper, W. (1970). God in the dock: Essays on theology and ethics.

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