The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Chapters 5 through 8 document the significant shift in Eustace’s character brought about by his spiritual journey. In short, Eustace gains faith through Aslan’s saving grace and consequently decides to change his behavior to align with Christian morals. Transformations such as this one become a recurring theme throughout The Chronicles of Narnia, as other characters undergo similar religious awakenings during their adventures in Narnia. This pattern suggests that Narnia acts as a utopian Christian kingdom that inspires and converts symbolically pure or redeemable children, who then go on to spread those ideals in the real world and grow to become exemplary adults. Aslan directly confirms this dynamic at the end of the novel, when he imbues Lucy and Edmund with the mission to come to know him “better” in their world.

In the midst of the adventures that befall the group, Chapter 5 also serves to emphasize Eustace’s worst traits, and Lewis exaggerates Eustace’s behavior quite a bit so as to provide a sharper contrast with his upcoming change. After the dreadful storm that damages the ship and destroys some of the provisions, Eustace relates his own account of the daily events in his diary. This section thus provides a prime example of the unreliable first-person narrator and imbues the story with a strong sense of irony, for it is clear with every sullen sentence that Eustace’s victimized perception of events is far from the reality of the situation. For example, he calls his good-natured and fair-minded companions “fiends in human form” (38) simply because they enlist his help to repair the broken mast. Similarly, Eustace’s descriptions take on a patronizing tone when he criticizes Caspian’s suggestion to ration water, and his self-centeredness and arrogance become blatant as he states, “[When] they had the cheek to ask me what I proposed […] I just explained coolly and quietly that I had been kidnapped […] on this idiotic voyage […] and it was hardly my business to get them out of their scrape” (39).

As the adventurers’ difficulties continue, Eustace’s lack of self-awareness intensifies considerably. When asked to do the bare minimum to help his companions in a dire situation, he finds a thousand ways to resist and makes himself out to be the victim of unfair treatment, while ironically claiming that he is “the last person to try to get any unfair advantage” (39). By exaggerating the character’s selfish behavior in a situation that clearly calls for teamwork, Lewis implies that, contrary to Eustace’s claims of moral and selfless behavior in the face of outrageous mistreatment, his actions are anything but moral or selfless. Significantly, while the omniscient narrator often makes editorializing comments throughout the majority of the novel, no such commentary is provided in this section. Instead, Lewis relates the post-storm events with direct excerpts from Eustace’s diary, which lends an air of objectivity to the passage and lets Eustace’s uncharitable thoughts speak for themselves. This technique is also designed to engage young readers’ critical thinking skills and to encourage them to align their sense of morality with the narrator’s implicit message that Eustace’s attitude is a stellar example of the worst possible behavior.

When they stop at Dragon Island, Eustace’s decision to shirk his duties and slip away from the others represents the height of selfish behavior and foreshadows the reckoning to come. His imminent transformation is further foreshadowed when, as he is climbing up a hill, the narrator points out that “his new life […] had already done him some good; the old Eustace [...] would have given up the climb after about ten minutes” (42). However, when Eustace experiences loneliness and convinces himself that his companions will abandon him, it becomes clear that although he has unwittingly begun to bond with the others, he still has yet to fully appreciate the nobility of their character, for of course they would never leave him behind. Thus, the scene injects a moment of dramatic irony into the story, for the reader knows that Eustace is in no real danger of being abandoned despite his negative attitude.

Thus, Chapter 6 follows up on Eustace’s foreshadowed shift from anti-hero to hero. His character development reaches a symbolic climax when he is temporarily turned into a dragon and then restored, a dual transformation that contributes to the theme of The Consequences of Greed and Sloth and, later, to the theme of Fate and Divine Intervention. The narrator repeatedly emphasizes Eustace’s lack of knowledge about dragons, which he blames on the boy having read the “wrong” books. Combined with the boy’s poor behavior to date, this lack of practical knowledge emphasizes Eustace’s inherent ignorance of deeper spiritual matters and positions him as a prime candidate for redemption. Additionally, the narrator’s repeated criticism of Eustace’s reading habits also creates a metafictional moment of humor by poking fun at the boy’s preference for boring, factual books rather than the more fantastical stories that the narrator deems useful. Finally, Eustace’s inexperience with such magic-laced situations creates suspense, because to those who have read the “right books,” the dragon’s appearance suggests that a violent, dramatic encounter is about to ensue. However, the narrative cleverly subverts such genre-based expectations by depicting the dragon as a feeble specimen that soon dies of old age, negating the need for any heroics. This event leads Eustace to take the dragon’s place and succumb to surly thoughts of greed that cause him to become a dragon himself.

With Eustace’s transformation into a beast who realizes the error of his ways and seeks to redeem himself, Lewis invokes a myriad of narrative patterns that are directly inspired by the Christian ideology that laces all of his writings. The allegorical nature of Eustace’s spiritual epiphany is further emphasized by Aslan’s intervention, for he leads the boy to an Eden-like garden and baptizes him by removing his “ugly” outer skin, thus symbolically causing him to be reborn as a new person and absolving him of all his sins. Now changed and renewed both physically and emotionally, Eustace undergoes a spiritual “cure” (62) that continues to gain momentum and change him for the better; indeed, subsequent chapters in the novel emphasize his earnest attempts to behave according to Narnian (and therefore Christian) ideals. In Chapter 8, for instance, Eustace shows Bravery and Honor when he tries to fight off the Sea Serpent, and his overall demeanor and respect for his companions improve dramatically, allowing him to finally take his newfound place among the ranks of the heroes who surround him.