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Susan Pevensie is one of the major characters from C. S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia. Susan is the elder sister and the second Pevensie by birth-order. She appears in three of the seven books — as a child in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Prince Caspian, and as an adult in The Horse and His Boy. She is mentioned in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and The Last Battle. Susan is known for her great beauty and archery skills and is sought after by Prince Rabadash of Calormen. After going to Narnia to help Prince Caspian, she is told that she will not return again. After some years she begins to convince herself that Narnia has just been a game, and she thinks her siblings silly to continue seriously entertaining such childhood fancies.
During her reign at the Narnia capital of Cair Paravel, she is known as Queen Susan the Gentle.
In the 2005 Disney film The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe Susan is portrayed by Anna Popplewell and Sophie Winkleman.
Synopsis
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Susan is given a bow and arrows by Father Christmas, together with a magical horn to blow in difficult times to bring aid. Susan shows her excellence at archery, but is advised to stay out of the battle unless absolutely necessary. Together with her sister Lucy, she witnesses Aslan's death and resurrection on the Stone Table. After the battle, she is crowned by Aslan as Queen Susan and shares the monarchy with her brothers High King Peter and King Edmund and her sister Lucy. The period of their reign is considered the Golden Age of Narnia. Throughout the book Susan is the voice of caution and common sense. Even at the end after a number of years in Narnia she counsels against pursuing the White Stag, fearing the upset to the established order she and her siblings all sense the pursuit might bring.The Horse and His Boy
In The Horse and His Boy, Susan plays a minor part. She was described as a gentle lady with black hair falling to her feet. Shasta finds her to be the most beautiful woman he has ever seen. As Queen Susan, she is asked to marry the Calormene Prince Rabadash. Her rejection of him provides the Tisroc with an excuse to wage war against Narnia.Prince Caspian
In Prince Caspian, Susan's legendary magical horn plays an important part. By the time of this sequel, her horn is a thousand-year old relic given to the future King Caspian X by his tutor, the half-dwarf magician Doctor Cornelius. When the Prince's life is threatened by King Miraz the Usurper, Caspian blows the horn and the Pevensies are magically transferred to Narnia from a railway station. Susan is again shown to be a superb archer. Using the bow and arrows she has retrieved from the ruin of Cair Paravel, Susan easily beats the excellent archer Trumpkin the dwarf in a friendly competition. During the course of the story, she pretends to believe Aslan has not come back, even though she later admits to having known it was true all along. Soon after she also admits she is grateful for the presence of Aslan during the wild bacchanal in his honor. Aslan discerns that Susan had "listened to fears" but his breath soon restores her faith and she immerses herself in their adventures as deeply as in the first book. However, at the conclusion of Prince Caspian, Aslan says that she and Peter will never enter Narnia again because they had grown too old.The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Susan accompanies her parents on a trip to America, while Peter is being tutored by Professor Digory Kirke, and Edmund and Lucy have to stay with their relatives, the Scrubbs. By this time it is being remarked by some adults that Susan is "the pretty one of the family" which causes some insecurity in Lucy. Only the intervention of Aslan makes Lucy resist the temptation of invoking a spell of beauty "beyond the lot of mortals" from Coriakin's Magic Book.The Last Battle
In The Last Battle, Susan is conspicuous by her absence. Peter says that she is "no longer a friend of Narnia", and (in Jill Pole's words) "she's interested in nothing now-a-days except nylons and lipstick and invitations". Similarly, Eustace Scrubb reports that say, "What wonderful memories you have! Fancy you're still thinking about all those funny games we used to play when we were children." Thus, Susan does not enter the real Narnia at the end of the series. There is some controversy, however, as to whether or not Susan's absence is permanent, especially since Lewis (in a letter written to a young fan) stated that Susan's story was not finished.Commentary
The Christian significance of Susan's character has been much discussed. Aside from her role together with Lucy paralleling the women in the gospel who first find the risen King, Lewis may have intended her to represent the good seeds which are "choked by thorns" in the parable of the sower from the Gospel of Matthew.
This treatment of her has drawn particular criticism from feminist commentators, who draw attention to how she was written out of the end of the story. Critics claim this indicates a fear or hatred of female sexuality on the part of Lewis and even misogyny, claims often linked with other examples of the role of girls and women in the series. Arguing against this view are realistic and positive female characters such as Aravis in The Horse and His Boy and Jill Pole in The Silver Chair, both of whom enter Aslan's Country.
Nonetheless, this is not the interpretation taken by Lady Polly within the story. She claims that Susan's "whole idea is to race on to the silliest time of one's life as quick as she can and then stop there as long as she can." That is, according to the book, Susan's failure is due to vanity and an adolescent sense of "maturity", not sexuality. Susan provides a striking contrast to her sister Lucy, who is a shining example of the Biblical "faith as a little child." Even her chronologically older brother Peter begins to see Aslan before Susan does in ''Prince Caspian.
It has been argued that Susan's maternal nature cultivates a sense of self-reliance that prevents her from sufficiently following Aslan (again, going against the sexuality argument). In this interpretation, Lewis intended Susan to represent those who in the confusion of their fallen state find a spiritual call to faith drowned out not by malice on their part but simply by the mundane distractions of everyday life.
Lewis's supporters also point out that the other children enter into the "new" Narnia (representative of the eternal Heaven) because they have died in a train accident, while Susan remains alive on our world, so that there is no proof that she has been permanently "excluded" (i.e., damned). The first footnote under Susan’s entry in Companion of Narnia by Paul F. Ford is very helpful in understanding the meaning behind Susan’s absence at the end of The Last Battle. And perhaps most importantly, Aslan’s last words at the coronation in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe of the four Pevensies to the throne offer the best justification for believing Susan will eventually join the others when the time comes in Aslan’s Country: "Once a King or Queen in Narnia Always a King or Queen in Narnia..."
Fantasy author Neil Gaiman explored this issue in his 2004 short story "The Problem of Susan", in which an elder woman named Susan is depicted dealing with the grief and trauma of her entire family dying at once; the story explicitly refers to Lewis' Susan and presents, in fictional form, a critique of Lewis' portrayal. "The Problem of Susan" is a featured story in the collection Flights: Extreme Visions of Fantasy, edited by Al Sarrantonio. It should be noted that this short story is rather adult in theme, as well as in no way canon to Lewis' works.
Susan is portrayed as attending college in 2005 New York in the comic The Oz/Wonderland Chronicles, alongside (Lewis Carroll's) Alice Liddell from Alice In Wonderland, (L. Frank Baum's) Dorothy Gale from The Wizard Of Oz and (J.M. Barrie's) Wendy Darling from Peter Pan.
External links
Narnia_characters | Fictional queens | Fictional heroines | Fictional archers
Susan Pevensie | Susan Pevensie | Susan Pevensie | Susana Pevensie
"Susan Pevensie"