Your Winter Has Been Destroyed

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

Chapter 11 - Aslan is Nearer

Serving sin, Satan, and evil is always "disappointing," as Edmund now finds out. The witch has used him, and now he is excess baggage, except as a hostage. Only to keep him from fainting does she give him any sustenance. With Edmund right next to her, she tells her wolves to seek and kill the beavers and children, whether at the beavers' house or on their way to the Stone Table. Wonder what Edmund thought in that moment. The weather providentially prevents their tracking the children down. Lewis does this in Esther style, pointing it out by not mentioning any divine intervention.

We see more of the witch's true nature when she comes across a party, provisioned by Father Christmas. Why "all this gluttony, this waste, this self-indulgence?" She has it all backwards. The party is a right enjoyment of the good things God gives. But she will misuse such things to serve her interests.

When she turns them to stone, Edmund "for the first time in this story, felt sorry for someone besides himself." It is so much easier to see the effects of sin and evil in others, than to see it in ourselves.

Aslan's thaw begins, resulting in the witch's cruelty, even to her animals. Lewis' love for nature is obvious as he describes the thaw: celandines, crocuses, black prickly branches, patches of green, birds' music, laburnums. The dwarf realizes what it means: "your winter has been destroyed... this is Aslan's doing." The witch will not hear His name. She, like Satan, is in denial; she wants nothing to do with the One with whom we all must deal.