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Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Horse and His Boy, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Freedom and Justice
Bravery vs. Recklessness
Christianity
Gender Roles
Summary
Analysis
Earlier, when Aravis first noticed Shasta being seized, she tried to keep calm, because neither Bree nor Hwin would speak (in order to keep up their disguises). But as she keeps walking, she happens to run into a Tarkheena named Lasaraleen that she knows well. Lasaraleen spots Aravis and asks what she’s doing, but Aravis urges her to be quiet. Lasaraleen invites Aravis to travel in her litter and orders two enslaved people to watch after the horses.
Lasaraleen represents the life that Aravis is trying to run away from. The fact that Lasaraleen’s litter needs people to carry it provides an image of how the lifestyles of a few wealthy Calormenes are built on the shoulders of many peasants and enslaved people. By joining Lasaraleen in her litter, Aravis seems to show that she is having doubts about leaving behind her old wealth and status.
Themes
Aravis learns from Lasaraleen that Aravis’s father is in town and has been searching for his daughter everywhere. Lasaraleen’s husband is away, however, so she offers to hide Aravis at her house. Aravis reveals that her horses can talk. Lasaraleen asks Aravis if she’s heard about the “barbarian” queen from Narnia (Susan) whom Prince Rabadash apparently has fallen in love with.
Lasaraleen is already married, and so she again represents the type of life Aravis might lead if she decided to stay behind and marry Ahoshta. Lasaraleen’s description of Susan as a “barbarian” shows how concepts like what constitutes civilization are relative, and how for someone deep in Calormene culture, the freedom of Narnia might seem barbaric rather than liberating.
Themes
When Aravis tells her full story to Lasaraleen, Lasaraleen is surprised that Aravis doesn’t want to marry Ahoshta, who has just been made Grand Vizier after the death of a previous one. Aravis remains eager to leave, but Lasaraleen gets distracted planning for a banquet that night at the home of the Tisroc (emperor). When Lasaraleen is preparing for the feast, Aravis sends Bree and Hwin to the Tombs with a groom. Aravis herself dresses up as an enslaved girl with a veil over her face for the banquet.
Lasaraleen is too focused on the present (the upcoming banquet) to pay attention to Aravis. Similarly, she only looks at the short-term benefits of marrying Ahoshta (the wealth and power that would come from the marriage) without considering the reality of having to live in the marriage. But Aravis no longer believes in this lifestyle, and her disguise as an enslaved girl further shows how she is giving up her old status and is beginning to learn how other Calormenes live.
Themes
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Aravis and Lasaraleen go to the Tisroc’s house, planning for Aravis to escape through the garden. But when they see the Tisroc approaching, they take shelter behind a sofa in a dark room. As they’re hiding, two enslaved men enter the room, followed by the Tisroc, Prince Rabadash, and Ahoshta.
Aravis learns the dangers of rejecting her old way of life. It makes her an outcast in her own country, and danger seems to follow wherever she goes. The inability of the Tisroc, Rabadash, and Ahoshta to see Aravis when she’s so close is yet another example of how, as powerful as these men are, they remain short-sighted.
Themes
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