Why Susan Pevensie Has Defenders

Like every other good evangelical child, I grew up reading the Chronicles of Narnia, by C. S. Lewis. I was so fascinated with the books that my siblings and I made green and yellow rings and used them to travel through the pools in the wood between the worlds and explore imaginary worlds. (If you have no idea what I’m talking about, you need to reread the Magician’s Nephew.) In my family, the four oldest children were two boys and two girls, so it was only natural that we would play as Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy. Because I was the oldest, I played as Susan.

And we all know what happened to Susan.

The amount of digital ink spilled on the problem of Susan has only grown in recent years. Susan, as we know, was lost to Narnia because she became interested in lipstick and nylons and invitations. Even Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling has weighed in: “There comes a point where Susan, who was the older girl, is lost to Narnia because she becomes interested in lipstick. She’s become irreligious basically because she found sex. I have a big problem with that.” Susan’s problem was that she grew up, others have argued. I’m left thinking of my own journey.

I was homeschooled through high school, and then left home to attend college. Once there, my horizons broadened, and I stood outside the evangelical bubble of my upbringing for the first time. My parents believed I was ready for this; so did I. Initially all seemed well. I attended Campus Crusade for Christ meetings and made friends with other evangelical students. But I also had the freedom, for the first time, to sort through what I believed, and what I did not. Things changed. I changed.

There’s a reason I’m bringing my own journey into this. While Susan has her defenders, she has accusers, too. A bevy of bloggers and writers have shouted down the words of Rowling and others, arguing that Susan condemned herself with her own actions, that Lewis faulted her not for growing up but for becoming vain, that Susan became so deluded that she actually forgot Narnia. They quote Lewis’s own words about Susan, from a letter he wrote later:

“The books don’t tell us what happened to Susan. She is left alive in this world at the end, having by then turned into a rather silly, conceited young woman. But there is plenty of time for her to mend, and perhaps she will get to Aslan’s country in the end—in her own way.”

Whose lens do we use to evaluate Susan? I find myself drawn back to my own story.

As I began to change during my college years, my mother blamed it first on my boyfriend. I was “blinded by love,” she said. My father—I’m not even sure what he thought. It would have been too painful to directly ask. But they talked about me, to others in the community, and visiting my hometown became only more painful. I was refusing to obey my parents, others were told, I was leaving the faith, I was rebellious and brainwashed and refusing to listen. And so the stories spread. No one asked me what was happening. No one wanted to hear my side.

It matters who controls the narrative. Lewis says Susan was vein and conceited, Lewis says Susan cared only about material things and appearances, Lewis says Susan was a “rather silly” young woman. But did anyone ask Susan? What was Susan’s story? Where is Susan’s voice? It’s absent. She’s silent. She is given no opportunity to defend herself, to tell her side of the story. And that, quite frankly, is why many young women in my situation identify with Susan. It’s not that we didn’t realize Lewis said Susan’s problem was conceit. It’s that we know what it’s like to have authority figures lie about what happened to us.

But what about the fact that Susan doesn’t remember Narnia, and refers to it just a game they played as children? I am reminded, again, of my own journey.

As I began to change, my mother would often remind me of who I was as a girl, and as a teen. Growing up, I was devout and passionate in my evangelical beliefs. I went on missions trips and protested abortion. I studied Greek and Hebrew so that I could read the Bible in its original texts. I read apologetics books voraciously, and spent my own money to buy creation science materials. It was who I was. My mother wanted to know what had happened to change all of this. How could I have forgotten my faith, which meant so much to me?

We are not obligated, as adults, to be who or what we were as children. I know how frustrating it is to have your childhood passions thrown in your face in an effort to invalidate who you have become. But the truth is, we are allowed to make different choices. So Susan tired of Narnia. So Susan decided to go in a different direction. That is allowed. Susan should be able to choose the direction of her own life without someone throwing who she was as a girl in her face every time she turned around. ‘But Susan, when we were kids you loved Narnia.’ ‘But Susan, Narnia was the most important thing in your life when you were twelve.’ ‘But Susan—‘ Enough.

I suppose what I’m really trying to explain is why Susan has her defenders. Yes, we know that the Chronicles of Narnia is fiction. Yes, we know that C. S. Lewis created Susan. We know how literature works. We also know that Susan is written the way good evangelical girls who defect would be written, if their parents were the authors. And that makes us wonder what really happened. It makes us doubt Lewis’s lens, even though he is the author. It makes us want to liberate Susan from his pen. And it makes us feel, regardless of the rules of literature, that Susan was surely a kindred spirit.