The Princess and the Goblin

Faith in the mystical, unseen, or in a god figure is the novel’s foremost theme and central to protagonist Irene’s character development. The story begins when Irene is just eight years old and full of curiosity. She finds her way up a secret passage and discovers that she has a great-great-grandmother with magical abilities living in the tower above her. Irene witnesses Grandmother’s magic and the way she can manipulate the world around her, and she falls asleep in Grandmother’s bed, overwhelmed by love. When she wakes, she is in her own room, and she wonders if it was nothing more than illusion. Irene’s faith and courage are thus tested by her grandmother, who becomes a beacon of light, safety, and wisdom. These traits, along with her ability to use magic, frame Grandmother as a godlike figure, and it is implied that she and Irene are of the moon and stars. George MacDonald was a devout Christian and uses Irene’s journey to illustrate the nature of Christian faith.

Despite having firsthand knowledge of Grandmother, Irene experiences several moments of doubt, questioning first her grandmother’s existence and later her benevolence. When Lootie dismisses her account as a story, Irene wonders if she dreamed her meeting with her grandmother—a nod to the challenge of maintaining faith in the face of others’ disbelief. Irene again doubts the experience’s reality when tries to find Grandmother again and cannot. As Grandmother later explains, Irene’s pre-existing doubts contributed to her difficulty, implying that one must be in the right state of mind to see the divine at work in the world. This is why Lootie could see Grandmother and still deny her existence; she is not open to the possibility to begin with.

One of Irene’s most crucial moments of doubt occurs when she is in the goblin caverns following her grandmother’s thread. Irene has no idea where she is going or why, but she trusts her grandmother’s word and guidance. When the thread leads her to a large heap of heavy stones, Irene’s faith momentarily crumbles: “For one terrible moment she felt as if her grandmother had forsaken her” (122-23). Though Irene by this point accepts that her Grandmother (i.e., God) is real, her faith in her Grandmother’s (i.e., God’s) wisdom and goodness is less secure. However, when she realizes she can lift the stones and hears Curdie down below, her faith is restored and she becomes certain she was led there intentionally.

Soon after Irene learns about faith, she is tasked with teaching Curdie to believe. Irene saves Curdie from the goblins by following her grandmother’s thread, but when she explains this to Curdie, he refuses to believe her. He does not see it as possible, even though he knows of no other explanation for how Irene came to find him there. It takes Curdie several months, as well as speaking to his mother, to realize that he was wrong to mistrust Irene. The latter conversation allows MacDonald to elaborate on his understanding of faith. Curdie’s mother reminds him of Irene’s character as a princess and someone who does not lie, reasoning with him that perhaps Irene can see things he cannot. When no better explanation exists, she argues, it is unreasonable to remain skeptical of a claim simply because it doesn’t correspond to one’s pre-existing understanding of the world.

Nevertheless, MacDonald is sympathetic to those who find the claims Christianity makes difficult to believe. Grandmother reassures Irene that she must be patient with Curdie, reminding her, “People must believe what they can, and those who believe more must not be hard upon those who believe less. I doubt if you would have believed it all yourself if you hadn’t seen some of it” (138). Months later, after the goblin attack, Curdie is both led by the thread and witnesses the moon-lamp. Grandmother only reveals herself when she wishes to, and Curdie’s experiences indicate that she saw him as being finally ready to believe.

The symbols that surround Grandmother further clarify the novel’s ideas about faith. The thread is itself a symbol of faith, invisible but felt. Images associated with the Holy Spirit—fire, the pigeons that resemble doves in their whiteness—feature heavily in the novel because Christianity teaches that it is the Holy Spirit that enables faith. Finally, the bath that Grandmother submerges Irene in provides Irene with a window into a greater spiritual reality, via her grandmother’s song. When she emerges, not only is she completely restored, but she has in some way internalized the song without consciously understanding or remembering it; from that point on, the song acts as a guide, nudging her in the right direction in a manner similar (MacDonald suggests) to the way God guides humans.