Editing Puddleglum (section)

==Christian elements==

Lewis, himself an expert on allegory, did not consider ''The Chronicles of Narnia'' allegory. He saw them as "suppositional" answering the question, "What might [[Christ]] become like, if there really were a world like Narnia and He chose to be incarnate and die and rise again in that world as He actually has done in ours?' This is not allegory at all."<ref>{{Harvard citation|Martindale|Root|1990|pp=}}</ref> While not allegorical, Narnia does present significant parallels with elements from [[Christianity]].

Lewis is perhaps using Puddleglum to give a somewhat [[Existentialism|existential]] statement of faith when he writes, "Suppose we ''have'' only dreamed, or made up, all of those things—trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and [[Aslan]] himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones... We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play-world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia... and that's a small loss if the world's as dull as you say."<ref>{{Harvard citation|Caughey|2005|pp=47}}</ref> Lewis himself said of this passage:
:I suppose your philosopher son... means the chapter in which Puddleglum puts out the fire with his foot.  He must thank [[Anselm of Canterbury|Anselm]] and [[René Descartes|Descartes]] for it, not me. I have simply put the '[[Ontological argument|Ontological Proof]]' in a form suitable for children. And even that is not so remarkable a feat as you might think. You can get into children's heads a good deal which is quite beyond the [[John Robinson (bishop of Woolwich)|Bishop of Woolwich]].<ref>Letter to Nancy Warner, 26 October 1963, in {{cite book|last=Hooper|first=Walter|title=The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, Volume III|year=2007|publisher=HarperCollins|isbn=978-0-06-081922-4|page=1472}}</ref>

Lewis has, in sending the protagonists underground to a world which claims to be the only true one, also presented children with an inversion of [[Plato]]'s [[allegory of the cave]]. Puddleglum, with Plato, recognizes the difference between the world of shadows, and the world with the sun.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Johnson |first1=William C. |last2=Houtman |first2=Marcia K. |title=Platonic Shadows in C. S. Lewis' Narnia Chronicles |journal=Modern Fiction Studies |date=1986 |volume=32 |issue=1 |pages=75–87 |url=http://muse.jhu.edu/article/244283 |access-date=1 October 2018 |doi=10.1353/mfs.0.1154|s2cid=162284034 |url-access=subscription }}</ref>