C.S. Lewis, Narnia, and the Fight for Animals: The Roar Heard Around the World
Critics are calling The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and TheWardrobe “childlike magic,” “gorgeous,” and “spectacular.” Rocketing to number one in 14 countries, the film version of C.S. Lewis’ beloved literary classic brings to vivid life the talking animals, the dwarfs, the fauns, the centaurs, and the giants who have enchanted countless fans over the years.
Beyond the big-budget Hollywood hoopla, Narnia is a reflection of Lewis’ belief that a person’s identity springs from his or her relationships—with the Earth, animals, people, and God. The Oxford and Cambridge academic maintained that people who do not have a caring and appreciative attitude toward animals will not likely have a caring and appreciative attitude toward humans. He despised the abuse of animals and condemned even the cruelty that was sanctioned by educated men in authority—experimentation on animals, or “vivisection.” Lewis wrote: “The victory of vivisection marks a great advance in the triumph of ruthless, non-moral utilitarianism over the old world of ethical law; a triumph in which we, as well as animals, are already the victims and of which Dachau and Hiroshima mark the more recent achievements. In justifying cruelty to animals we put ourselves also on the animal level. We choose the jungle and must abide by our choice.”
In an essay in the recently published book Revisiting Narnia, PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk argues that C.S. Lewis would be an animal rights activist if he were alive today. “After all,” Newkirk writes, “he was a vehement anti-vivisectionist, and his all-time hero was a cat.” Newkirk writes that in Lewis’ time, “The idea of preserving habitat or the thought that animals actually have feelings and can enjoy, love, be devoted to and grieve for their fellows had not yet been born. Lewis might well have marveled at how close other animals’ DNA is to our own, but no such finding had appeared in scientific periodicals. … If he had known what we found decades after his death—that elephants communicate at frequencies inaudible to the human ear, as do mice, that gulls sing lullabies to their chicks in the nest, that squid send messages via dermal patterns of light and color, that prairie dogs utter different sounds to announce the presence of friend, foe or stranger, and volumes of similar research showing that animals talk outside of fairy tales—I believe Lewis would have evolved from a kindly man into a true animal rights activist. I wish, at the very least, I had the opportunity to discuss it with him.”
Read C.S. Lewis’ essay on vivisection.
