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Chapter 12
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Bravery
Christianity
Growing Up and Selflessness
Temptation
Summary
Analysis
The water is still and beautiful as the Dawn Treader continues to sail. The ship harbors in a shallow bay at a new island, and everyone except for Lord Rhoop and a couple guards gets off the ship to explore. They see some tall structures in the distance and debate what they could be. They come across some ruins where three men sit still in chairs at the end of a table.
As the Dawn Treader nears its final destination, the voyage becomes more meditative. The ruins on this island, which may once have been impressive buildings, serve as a reminder of mortality and the passing of time.
Themes
Caspian wonders if the men are dead, but Reepicheep can see that one of them has a pulse. The men are only sleeping. Caspian inspects the rings on the men and realizes that they are Lord Revilian, Lord Argoz, and Lord Mavramorn, the last three of the seven exiled lords of Narnia. Reepicheep figures the men must have fallen asleep for seven years after eating the food on the table.
Several of the previous lords in the story succumbed to greed or temptation, and the placement of these final three lords next to a grand banquet table seems to suggest the same thing. This passage plays on a long history of stories about enchanted sleep, including the island of the lotus-eaters in the Odyssey. The sleep of the three men seems to suggest they weren’t vigilant and gave in to temptation—but since they aren’t dead, they still have the potential to awaken.
Themes
Everyone wants to get off the island as quickly as possible, but Reepicheep wants to sit by the table before dawn to see what mysteries it might hold. The others soon agree to join him, except for Drinian, who heads back to the Dawn Treader.
Reepicheep continues to prove how he sees bravery as not just a chance for excitement but as a moral duty. His desire to see dawn at the table relates to his larger desire to keep traveling east. In many ways, Reepicheep’s desire to learn the truth about the table also suggests a quest for spiritual enlightenment.
Themes
Everyone sits for hours by the table, some of them falling in and out of sleep. All of a sudden, from some pillars in the distance, a tall, beautiful girl (Ramandu’s daughter) comes with a candle to the table. She asks why no one has eaten yet from Aslan’s table. Caspian explains how they feared that the food put the three men in chairs to sleep. But the girl replies that the men never tasted the food.
This passage subverts expectations set by previous adventure stories by having the food not be the source of the lords’ sleep after all. Because Reepicheep was willing to face the potential dangers of the table, they all learned that it was not a cursed table but in fact the property of Aslan. The abundant food on the table represents how Aslan (a God-like figure) provides for those who need it.
Themes
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According to Ramandu’s daughter, Lord Revilian, Lord Argoz, and Lord Mavramorn got into a fight with each other when they arrived at the island. When one of them touched the Knife of Stone on the table, they all fell into an enchanted sleep. Lucy recognizes the Knife of Stone as being like a weapon that the White Witch used to kill Aslan on the Stone Table long ago.
As this passage makes clear, the cause of the men’s sleep isn’t Aslan’s table itself, but their own greed and distrust, which led one of them to touch the Knife of Stone. The men were unaware of the consequences of their actions, and so their punishment was to be stuck in sleep, the ultimate state of being unaware.
Themes
Edmund asks Ramandu’s daughter how they can trust her, but the girl says that he only has two options: to believe or not. She explains that the food on the table never goes bad because it gets renewed every day.
Edmund and the others have no guarantee that this mysterious girl is telling the truth (and not playing a trick), but she points out that faith can’t bring certainty. The situation in this passage relates to the book’s Christian themes and how trusting God also require faith without guarantees.
Themes
