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Christianity
Themes and Colors
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.
Although Shasta is the main character of The Horse and His Boy, the character of Aravis is also very important to the story, and female characters like her illustrate the significance of gender in the novel’s fictional world. Aravis resents whenever anyone tries to treat her as “just a girl.” She is of high social status in Calormen, but this doesn’t give her any power: she is nearly forced into a marriage with Ahoshta, an older man that she doesn’t like. Some characters, like Lasaraleen, don’t see the problem with this arrangement because they’ve always lived in a society where such imbalanced marriages are normal. But Aravis senses the injustice of a marriage that only suits the man. Just as Aravis challenges the conventions of her society, the novel raises questions about how marriage conventions in the real world could also favor men, even when it’s not to the same extreme as Aravis’s situation.
Other female characters in the novel also deal with expectations placed on them because of their gender. Lucy, for instance, defies expectations and proves herself to be a gifted archer. She also takes an active role in politics, advocating for mercy for the captured Prince Rabadash, an idea that wise Aslan eventually accepts. The monarchs Peter, Edmund, Lucy, and Susan have roughly equal standing and influence, and since Narnia is in many ways a utopian place during this era of its history, this suggests that a just society is one where men and women are relatively equal. Ultimately, The Horse and His Boy uses fictional countries to explore real-world gender expectations, portraying women as oppressed by certain customs and traditions but also capable of succeeding in typically male-dominated activities like war and politics.
Related Themes from Other Texts
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Gender Roles ThemeTracker
The ThemeTracker below shows where, and to what degree, the theme of Gender Roles appears in each chapter of The Horse and His Boy. Click or tap on any chapter to read its Summary & Analysis.
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Gender Roles Quotes in The Horse and His Boy
Below you will find the important quotes in The Horse and His Boy related to the theme of Gender Roles.
Chapter 2
Quotes
“Why, it’s only a girl!” he exclaimed.
“And what business is it of yours if I am only a girl?” snapped the stranger. “You’re probably only a boy: a rude, common little boy—a slave probably, who’s stolen his master’s horse.”
“That’s all you know,” said Shasta.
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Chapter 5
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“Yes,” said Tumnus. “And when I supped with the Grand Vizier last night, it was the same. He asked me how I liked Tashbaan. And I (for I could not tell him I hated every stone of it and I would not lie) told him that now, when high summer was coming on, my heart turned to the cool woods and dewy slopes of Narnia. He gave a smile that meant no good and said, ‘There is nothing to hinder you from dancing there again, little goatfoot; always provided you leave us in exchange a bride for our prince.’”
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Chapter 7
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“I’ll take you home. My husband’s away and no one will see you. Phew! It’s not much fun with the curtains drawn. I want to see people. There’s no point in having a new dress on if one’s to go about shut up like this.”
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“But, darling, only think! Three palaces, and one of them that beautiful one down on the lake at Ilkeen. Positively ropes of pearls, I’m told. Baths of asses’ milk. And you’d see such a lot of me.”
“He can keep his pearls and palaces as far as I’m concerned,” said Aravis.
“You always were a queer girl, Aravis,” said Lasaraleen. “What more do you want?”
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Chapter 15
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Aravis also had many quarrels (and, I’m afraid, even fights) with Cor, but they always made it up again: so that years later, when they were grown up, they were so used to quarreling and making up again that they got married so as to go on doing it more conveniently. And after King Lune’s death they made a good King and Queen of Archenland and Ram the Great, the most famous of all the kings of Archenland, was their son. Bree and Hwin lived happily to a great age in Narnia and both got married but not to one another. And there weren’t many months in which one or both of them didn’t come trotting over the pass to visit their friends at Anvard.
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