Brave Girls, Bad Witches: Age, Agency, and Anxiety in C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia by Elanur Williams

In the landscape of mid-twentieth-century children’s literature, C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia initially appears remarkably progressive. Long before modern fantasy embraced the trope of the fiercely independent heroine, Lewis gives us the Pevensie sisters, Jill Pole, Aravis, and Polly Plummer. These are active, clear-eyed adventurers. Lucy is the spiritual compass of the entire saga, possessing a theological clarity that routinely eludes her brothers. Jill braves subterranean terrors to rescue a captive prince, while Aravis flees an arranged marriage with the sharp wit of a seasoned survivalist. In Narnia, childhood is a meritocracy of spirit, and Lewis grants his young girls immense pluck, agency, and divine grace.

However, from a feminist and theological perspective, this grace comes with a strict expiration date, and a jarring ideological fracture occurs the moment a female character crosses the threshold into adult womanhood. I find that although Lewis champions the plucky girl, he displays narrative anxiety toward the grown woman. Could it be that in the Narnian universe, female maturity is treated as a spiritual fall from grace, an intersection where Christian purity is compromised by adult desire and bodily autonomy?

The most notorious victim of this boundary is Susan Pevensie. As a young queen in Narnia’s Golden Age, she is a skilled archer and a gracious ruler. But upon returning to the real world and hitting her late teens, her transition into womanhood is framed as an apostasy. Condemned for her interest in ‘stockings, lipstick, and invitations’, Susan is barred from salvation at the series’ end. To Lewis, her embrace of adult femininity and sexuality is a vain and shallow capitulation to the world. This reveals a troubling theological thesis: a girl can be a hero of faith, but a woman’s worldly maturity distracts from the divine.

When adult women are granted genuine power and agency in Narnia, Lewis’s theology takes a darker, more patriarchal turn. In my April 2025 analysis for Feminism and Religion, I explored the glass ceiling C.S. Lewis imposes on adult womanhood by examining Narnia’s witches and queens. Upon revisiting the texts, I find that while young girls are granted admiration for their agency and courage, grown women—whether queens like Susan or tyrants like Jadis—are denied that same narrative grace. Tellingly, Lewis’s most famous sovereign adult females are witches: Jadis (The White Witch) and the Lady of the Green Kirtle. They are terrifyingly powerful, but their power is coded as a subversion of divine order, echoing the biblical Eve as a deceptive temptress. They use physical beauty, false magic, tyranny, exploitation, psychological manipulation, and promises of political power to usurp thrones, acting as direct adversaries to the ultimate, explicitly male deity, Aslan.

Although male authorities like Caspian, Peter, and Aslan safely embody benevolent rule, Narnia views mature female sovereignty with deep suspicion, coding adult women like the White Witch as dangerous threats, even while celebrating the innocent childhood coronations of Queens Lucy and Susan. Yet, to view Narnia solely through the lens of its adult anxieties is to miss the profound, magical impact the series has on its youngest readers. As an avid fan who grew up devouring these books during my own girlhood in Istanbul, Türkiye, I find myself drawn back to Narnia with a more nuanced perspective. Defenders of Lewis claim that all characters, regardless of gender, must learn the humility of service; yet I still contend that Narnia delivers a much harsher verdict on adult women. I don’t find it a coincidence that one of the only archetypes left for a fully mature, autonomous woman in Narnia is the villainous Witch; that being said, I don’t dismiss what Narnia offers in terms of girlhood. The conversation gets rather interesting here. Girlhood is often a space of preparation, restriction, or impending expectation. Yet, when Lucy Pevensie steps through the wardrobe, she enters a realm where her youth is her greatest strength, instead of a limitation. Lewis does something extraordinary here for young female readers: he decouples girlhood from passivity.

Lucy, Jill, Aravis, and Polly are allowed to be messy, brave, stubborn, and fiercely independent. They are trusted with kingdoms, weapons, and secrets. To a girl growing up halfway across the world from Lewis’s Oxford, reading about Aravis escaping an arranged marriage across the desert felt electric and liberating. It was a form of conditional feminism that felt incredibly real and necessary to my younger self. As much as Queen Jadis remains my favourite character, Jill Pole is my favourite heroine. She’s a total dark horse. To me, the most compelling people are the ones who start out crying in the dirt, face their fears, and end up standing tall. In more ways than one, despite my criticisms, I won’t deny Lewis affords his young heroines a spiritual and emotional weight that society often denied to young girls.

However, re-reading the series as an adult means wrestling with the knowledge of what awaits these girls. The tragedy of Narnia is that the text forces its readers to view childhood innocence not just as a beautiful phase, but as a mandatory prerequisite for love and salvation. The narrative implicitly tells the young girl turning the pages that her current, plucky self is deeply cherished, but her future, maturing self is more complicated and may not be as readily embraced.

My relationship with Narnia has evolved into a balance of critique and affection. I can still look back at my childhood in Türkiye and feel the exact thrill of discovering Narnia for the first time. Lewis may have failed to extend his grace to the grown woman, but he does undeniably build a magnificent world where a young girl could rule as an equal. Both can be true; however, I still find Lewis’s world operates under strict, conditional terms of service. A feminist reading reveals that Narnia celebrates the untamed, faithful girl. But when that girl grows up, the theological narrative is quick to revoke its favour. Narnia is a paradise for the plucky girl but can remain a hostile territory for the sovereign woman.

To my readers who have pointed out these nuances: a sincere thank you. There are so many fascinating angles from which to approach these stories, whether through an eco-feminist lens or even a critique of labour, and I always appreciate a hearty debate on these themes. There are so many gorgeous analyses out there worth reading. Mine is merely one of the many voices out there; I’m merely one reader revisiting her favourite childhood books.

BIO: Elanur Williams writes from Dublin, Ireland. She holds an MPhil in Children’s Literature and a MS Ed in Literacy Studies. She is a teacher who specializes in reading and writing instruction, as well as a poet whose work has appeared in Eunoia Review, the Ekphrastic Review, Halfway Down the Stairs, and Cosmic Daffodil, among others. Above all, she is inspired daily by her daughter, whose presence imbues her life with joy, magic, and a sense of limitless possibility.