The Voyage of the Dawn Treader: Chapter 4 “What Caspian Did There”

C.S. Lewis Read-Along, Vol. 3, Issue 5

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Chapter 4 “What Caspian Did There”

Background: In having the governor of the Lone Islands defend slavery on the grounds of progress, C.S. Lewis reveals that “progress” without a defined moral direction can be used to defend anything. When we are headed down the wrong road, the most progress you can make is by turning around and going back in the opposite direction.

Foreground: All tyrants are monotonously boring, but Lewis never wants to place someone outside the reach of redemption—even deposed tyrants.

Quote: “But that would be putting the clock back,” gasped the governor. “Have you no idea of progress, of development?” “I have seen them both in an egg,” said Caspian. “We call it ‘going bad’ in Narnia.”