A darker ignorance: C. S. Lewis and the nature of the fall

Mythlore, Summer, 2003 by Mary R. Bowman

   Due entrance [...] disdain'd, and in contempt,
   At one slight bound high overleap'd all bound
   Of Hill or highest Wall, and sheer within
   Lights on his feet. (PL 4.180-83)

She has also eaten one of the apples, as the Satan-possessed serpent claims to have done (9.575-612), again in violation of the directive on the gates "Take of my fruit for others or forbear").

Thus, although the scene lacks the primal force of the Edenic temptation because Digory is not the progenitor of his race, it is patterned after the earlier scene and, at least on an individual level, is infused with the same drama. It is therefore significant that neither the tree itself nor the temptation has anything to do with knowledge. Asian assigns no such meaning to the fruit; Digory is told rather that it is needed to plant a tree that will "protect" Narnia from the witch (Magician's Nephew 142). Digory is tempted at first by the mere look and smell of the apple, not by any metaphysical powers it may possess: "he couldn't help looking at it and smelling it before he put it away. [...] A terrible thirst and hunger came over him and a longing to taste that fruit" (158). It is the witch herself who identifies the inherent power of the fruit, which imparts not knowledge, but eternal life: "'It is the apple of youth, the apple of life. [...] Eat it, [...] and you and I will both live forever and be king and queen of this whole world'" (161). Neither eternal life nor worldly power proves to be very tempting to Digory, so Jadis appeals to his fear of losing his dangerously ill mother: "'But what about this Mother of yours whom you pretend to love so? [... ] [O]ne bite of that apple would heal her'" (161). It is only this last appeal which presents a genuine temptation for Digory, a "most terrible choice" (162).

Lewis's belief in the arbitrary nature of the Prohibition is dearly reflected in this scene, for the seemingly essential details of the Edenic situation are altered. The forbidden fruit is associated not with knowledge, but with life, and Digory is tempted not by curiosity but by a child's desire not to lose his mother. The test is one of trust, as C. N. Manlove has explained:

The act that Digory must carry out is one of obedience. His errors before were of self-will: he would determine the future and bring it to pass. That is the temptation himself and then the Witch put before him at the garden: why should he trust Asian, why should he not take another apple for himself, why should he not use the apple he has plucked to help his sick mother rather than take it back for Asian's uncertain purposes? He refuses: he gives himself back into Asian's hand. (176)

It becomes even clearer that Lewis regards the specifics of the Prohibition as inessential surface features when we turn to Perelandra, which even more directly than The Magician's Nephew explores the nature of the Prohibition, of sin, and obedience. There, the Prohibition does not involve fruit at all, but land: the Lord and Lady of Venus are commanded to spend their nights on the floating islands only; they may visit the fixed lands only during the daytime. The Lady herself observes the accidental nature of the rule when she learns that this particular prohibition never applied on Earth: "'There can, then, be different laws in different worlds'" (74). Margaret P. Hannay, in her seminal analysis of the influence of Paradise Lost on Perelandra, relates this important detail to Lewis's comments in the Preface to Paradise Lost (quoted above) rejecting the notion of a "magic apple" (86). And it is clear that there is nothing inherently sinful or dangerous about the fixed lands. As Manlove observes, "[d]uring the temptation [...] it is actually one of Ransom's strongest arguments that the prohibition should have no inherent significance at all, save that Maledil forbids it" (68). The Lady herself comes to understand that the temptation is, fundamentally, about trust: