The Magician’s Nephew

The story begins in London during the summer of 1990. Two children, Digory Kirke and Polly Plummer, meet while playing in the adjacent gardens of a row of terraced houses. They decide to explore the attic connecting the houses, but take the wrong door and are surprised Digory’s Uncle Andrew in his study. Uncle Andrew tricks Polly into touching a yellow magic ring, causing her to vanish. Then, Digory takes the yellow ring and the green rings to bring Polly back. When he finds Polly, both of them decide to explore a different world before returning to England. But unfortunately, they awaken the evil witch of Charn named Jadis, and brought her back to their world after being threatened by her. In England, she dismisses Uncle Andrew as a mere dabbler in magic. However, she discovers that her magic does not work in England but she still has her strength, and she uses her strong power make a big mess on the street. Digory is regretful for what he had done by accident, so he and Polly decide to bring Jadis back to her world. But sadly again, they also bring Uncle Andrew, cabby Frank, and horse Strawberry to another world, which is a world of nothingness. They then all witness the creation of a new world by the lion Aslan, who brings various entities, stars, plants, and animals, into existence as he sings.

Aslan then gives some animals the power of speech, commanding them to use it for justice and merriment. Aslan confronts Digory with his responsibility for bringing Jadis into his young world, and tells Digory he must atone by helping to protect Narnia from her evil plan. Digory’s task is to take an apple from a tree in this garden, and plant it in Narnia. At last, Digory and Polly overcome the provoke of Jadis’s and bring the apple back selflessly.

In the end, Aslan gives an apple to Digory to restore his dying mother to health, and Digory plants the apple's core, together with Uncle Andrew's magic rings, in the back yard of his aunt's home in London. Years later the grown tree was blown down by storm. Digory had its wood made into a wardrobe. Little does he know that later four children will discover Narnia and help defeat Jadis again.

The beginning of the universe has always been a mystery, and there are lots of legends and novels as to how it began. Narnia- The Magician’s Nephew is one of the famous novels which talks about the creation of a new world between worlds. It’s just like a fairy tale which contains magic, nature and peace; the story is full of imagination, and I could feel like I was in Narnia, in the magical world where anything could happen when I was reading it.

Magic is everyone’s childhood dream. To me, I still often dream of living in a magical world. And of course, the part I like the most is when the lion uses its magic to create Narnia, and grant the animals which were chosen by him the ability to talk. It would be interesting if I could know what animals are thinking, or even to chat with them.

To my opinion, the author may want to tell us not to be greedy. When Digory first went to the Charn Kingdom, his desire made him strike the bell not knowing what would happen. Then, the evil Queen Jadis was awakened, and brought a lot of trouble to Digory. When Digory went to the garden to pick apples for Aslan, he nearly ate the apples because of his greed. But at last, he resisted it, and got an apple from Aslan to cure his mother. I believe the author wanted to tell us: God’s mill grinds slow but sure.

In the end, Aslan told them that the world where a dying sun shone over the ruins of Charn’s pool is gone. That means, the Charn Kingdom has vanished, as if warning that if human beings keep on corrupting, we will gradually demise just like Charn.