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Aslan's Country
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Aslan's Country, is a fictional location from C. S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia series. It is the home of Aslan, the great lion. It is described as a series of mountains, thousands of feet high, but without snow or ice. Instead, Aslan's Country has a clear blue sky, lush green grass, colorful birds, and beautiful trees. There are entrances to Aslan's Country from all worlds, including Narnia and this world. It is located beyond Narnia's rising sun at the eastern edge of the world.
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In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the third published book of the series, King Caspian X of Narnia set out to the eastern end of the world to find seven lost lords of Narnia. At the end of the voyage Reepicheep, a talking mouse, went directly to Aslan's Country. (VDT Ch. 16)
At the beginning of The Silver Chair Eustace Scrubb and Jill Pole escape from bullies at a boarding school in England and find themselves in Aslan's Country, where they meet Aslan. They are then blown to Narnia by Aslan's breath. At the end of the book they find themselves back in Aslan's Country, where they meet the resurrected King Caspian and are sent back to England. (SC Ch. 1,16)
At the end of The Last Battle, there is a stable door that leads to Aslan's country. For creatures that have not believed in Aslan, the stable door leads inside of a stable that is said to hold the false god "Tashlan". For creatures that have believed in Aslan—including King Tirian, Eustace Scrubb, and Jill Pole—the door leads to part of Aslan's country. It is there that they meet almost all of the human children that have come to Narnia, who died in a train wreck in England. Aslan later summons all creatures in the world of Narnia to the stable door to be judged: all creatures look at Aslan and are separated, the "good" creatures going to Aslan's country, and the "bad" going to an unmentioned place. The Narnian world is then destroyed.
The part of Aslan's country that they are brought to is described as a larger Narnia: it is exactly like the old one only perfect. It is also discovered that there are several worlds like it that jut out from the mountains of Aslan's Country. It is where creatures from all worlds come to live at their death or the end of their world. This is a picture of the end of our world as prophesied in the Book of Revelation. (LB Ch. 12-16)
Because, as Lewis wrote, "he [Aslan] is an invention giving an imaginary answer to 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?'" (Martindale & Root 1990) it is natural to associate Aslan's Country with the Christian heaven. It is here that Narnians who love Aslan go at death (Lewis 1953, pp. ch16) and where all Narnians who "looked in the face of Aslan and loved him" arrive at the end of the world (Lewis 1956, pp. ch14). The representation of Heaven as a mountain is Biblical: "Who shall ascend the mountain of the Lord?"
Aslan's Country also represents Plato's World of Ideas, of which the physical world and the ideas in our minds are alike copies. In The Last Battle it is explained that all worlds, including the Narnia world (the world of mythology) and our own (the physical universe), are spurs from Aslan's Mountain, and Professor Kirke comments "All in Plato, all in Plato".
- Martindale, Wayne & Jerry Root (1990), The Quotable Lewis, Tyndale House, ISBN 0-8423-5115-9
- Lewis, C.S. (1952), The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, London: Geoffrey Bles
- Lewis, C.S. (1953), The Silver Chair, London: Geoffrey Bles
- Lewis, C.S. (1956), The Last Battle, London: Geoffrey Bles