Bulletin Board of the Brain

Do You Remember?: Exile, Identity and Prince Caspian

For the C.S. Lewis class, four of us did a presentation on Prince Caspian. We focused on the novel’s theme of exile and return, viewed through the lens of Isaiah. Since I first read the book in 1999, I’ve been haunted by the image of the Penvensie children wandering around the ruins of a castle only to slowly realize its their former home of Cair Paravel, but somehow hundreds of years have passed. That feeling of being in a place that was once home, but is now completely unfamiliar or in ruins is resonant of other characters in the book who have been living exiled from their culture or identity. The tree spirits have gone dormant, the animals have gone wild and forgotten how to speak, or hidden their speech if they’ve not gone wild, dwarves have had to “pass” for men, and even the children have trouble recovering the memories of their Narnian identity.

We wanted to offer our classmates an aspect of this experience in the context of our own lives. We did this in three ways. First we completely demolished the classroom. As people entered the room, they had to sit amongst the ruins, or as some identified, the “war zone” remains of the classroom. Then, with many people on the floor next to turned over chairs and tables, we began by hearing portions of Isaiah 44, which in the context of the Narnia story and our sitting in the rubble of our classroom, held more potent meaning than I’d expected. Here’s a bit of the text.
Isaiah 44:21-28

21 Remember these things, O Jacob,and Israel, for you are my servant; I formed you, you are my servant; O Israel, you will not be forgotten by me. 22 I have swept away your transgressions like a cloud, and your sins like mist; return to me, for I have redeemed you. 23 Sing, O heavens, for the Lord has done it; shout, O depths of the earth; break forth into singing, O mountains, O forest, and every tree in it! For the Lord has redeemed Jacob, and will be glorified in Israel. 24 Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, who formed you in the womb: I am the Lord, who made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who by myself spread out the earth; 25 who frustrates the omens of liars, and makes fools of diviners; who turns back the wise, and makes their knowledge foolish; 26 who confirms the word of his servant, and fulfills the prediction of his messengers; who says of Jerusalem, “It shall be inhabited,” and of the cities of Judah, “They shall be rebuilt, and I will raise up their ruins”; 27 who says to the deep, “Be dry— I will dry up your rivers”; 28 who says of Cyrus, “He is my shepherd, and he shall carry out all my purpose”; and who says of Jerusalem, “It shall be rebuilt,” and of the temple, “Your foundation shall be laid.”

Then, still in the dark and destroyed classroom, we played this video.
(It had music but we can’t seem to get it to play).
It works best (is most emotionally manipulative) if you play some wordless soundtrack music with it. We used Max Richter.
And the video ends at 3:32, but the powerpoint continues after it.

The Caspian Experience from Kj Swanson on Vimeo.

Then we led a more formal presentation and discussion time, but as we spoke, two of our group members slowly returned to classroom to its proper shape, so by the time we were done, the room looked normal again, except that no one was sitting in their usual place. Everyone was spread out along the edges or in clumps at some tables. Many of us had been “exiled” by the disruption of the space.

Hard to say how much of our ideas came across in the presentation or even in this blog post, but we loved doing it. I realized in the process that this was probably my last group project ever at MHGS, and I loved getting to work with people I’d never partnered with before. I felt like I was the old timer getting to work with the energetic whippersnappers who will be at MHGS long after I’ve graduated. Kind of like old Professor Kirke getting to hear Peter, Edmund, Susan and Lucy tell about the world they found in the wardrobe. It was wonderful.

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Posted on Sun, May 30th, 2010 at 11:01 pm
Filed under Anglophilia, Books, History, intertextuality, Quotes, Seattle, The Seattle School/MHGS, theology.

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