Michael Hemmer: Sneaking Past Dragons

    In Lewis' fiction, he continually writes of that which reminds people of the transcendent. There is much theology that Lewis smuggles to the reader, using fiction as a sort of Trojan Horse. It is interesting that Lewis, as a Protestant Christian, uses his fiction as a subtle form of pseudo-evangelism. In Lewis' essay Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say Best What's To Be Said, he writes about the concept of casting truth into an imaginary world as a method of persuasion. 

    Lewis personifies our misuse of the rational as two dragon sentries which guard our mind from truths that we have grown cold to. Lewis suggests that by weaving truth into a fairy story, "stripping them of their stain-glass and Sunday school associations, one could make them for the first time appear in their real potency" (70). Thus Lewis continues to state that he believes this method can allow a once rejected truth to reappear in a novel way, paving the road to reconsideration. 

Works Cited
Lewis, C.S. Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say What’s Best to Be Said, in On Stories: And Other Essays on     Literature. Harper Collins, 1982

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