The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

by

C. S. Lewis

Reepicheep Character Analysis

Reepicheep is a talking mouse and expert with swords on Caspian’s ship, the Dawn Treader. Despite his small size, Reepicheep is always eager for battle and adventure. It is Reepicheep, for example, who has to convince Caspian and the others to explore the mysteries of the dangerous-looking Dark Island and Aslan’s Table. Still, despite his bravery and habit of starting feuds (particularly with Eustace), Reepicheep also shows good sense, such as when he advises the crew of the Dawn Treader to flee from a sea serpent rather than attempt to fight it. More so than any other member of the Dawn Treader, Reepicheep wants to sail east toward the World’s End, due to a prophecy he heard when he was young. At the end of the novel, Reepicheep is still going east, seemingly disappearing into Aslan’s country, which suggests that Reepicheep’s steadfast beliefs have finally led him to paradise.

Reepicheep Quotes in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

The The Voyage of the Dawn Treader quotes below are all either spoken by Reepicheep or refer to Reepicheep. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Bravery Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1 Quotes

Something very curious indeed had come out of the cabin in the poop and was slowly approaching them. You might call it—and indeed it was—a Mouse. But then it was a Mouse on its hind legs and stood about two feet high. A thin band of gold passed round its head under one ear and over the other and in this was stuck a long crimson feather. (As the Mouse’s fur was very dark, almost black, the effect was bold and striking.) Its left paw rested on the hilt of a sword very nearly as long as its tail. Its balance, as it paced gravely along the swaying deck, was perfect, and its manners courtly. Lucy and Edmund recognized it at once—Reepicheep, the most valiant of all the Talking Beasts of Narnia, and the Chief Mouse

Related Characters: Eustace Scrubb, Reepicheep
Page Number: 14
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 2 Quotes

Where sky and water meet,
Where the waves grow sweet,
Doubt not, Reepicheep,
To find all you seek,
There is the utter East.

Related Characters: Reepicheep (speaker), Caspian
Related Symbols: World’s End
Page Number: 22
Explanation and Analysis:

There was not much difficulty in settling the matter once Eustace realized that everyone took the idea of a duel seriously and heard Caspian offering to lend him a sword, and Drinian and Edmund discussing whether he ought to be handicapped in some way to make up for his being so much bigger than Reepicheep. He apologized sulkily and went off with Lucy to have his hand bathed and bandaged and then went to his bunk. He was careful to lie on his side.

Related Characters: Eustace Scrubb, Caspian, Reepicheep, Lucy Pevensie, Edmund Pevensie, Lord Drinian
Page Number: 36
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5 Quotes

I got out all right into the big room, if you can call it a room, where the rowing benches and the luggage are. The thing of water is at this end. All was going beautifully, but before I’d drawn a cupful who should catch me but that little spy Reep. I tried to explain that I was going on deck for a breath of air (the business about the water had nothing to do with him) and he asked me why I had a cup. He made such a noise that the whole ship was roused. They treated me scandalously. I asked, as I think anyone would have, why Reepicheep was sneaking about the water cask in the middle of the night. He said that as he was too small to be any use on deck, he did sentry over the water every night so that one more man could go to sleep. Now comes their rotten unfairness: they all believed him. Can you beat it?

Related Characters: Eustace Scrubb (speaker), Reepicheep
Page Number: 77
Explanation and Analysis:

The fog lifted. He was in an utterly unknown valley and the sea was nowhere in sight.

Related Characters: Eustace Scrubb, Reepicheep
Page Number: 85
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 Quotes

Others would have joined him if at that moment Reepicheep had not called out, “Don’t fight! Push!” It was so unusual for the Mouse to advise anyone not to fight that, even in that terrible moment, every eye turned to him.

Related Characters: Reepicheep (speaker)
Page Number: 125
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 12 Quotes

“But what manner of use would it be plowing through that blackness?” asked Drinian.

“Use?” replied Reepicheep. “Use, Captain? If by use you mean filling our bellies or our purses, I confess it will be no use at all. So far as I know we did not set sail to look for things useful but to seek honor and adventure. And here is as great an adventure as ever I heard of, and here; if we turn back, no little impeachment of all our honors.”

Related Characters: Reepicheep (speaker), Caspian, Lord Drinian, Lord Rhoop
Page Number: 192
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 13 Quotes

“Because,” said the Mouse, “this is a very great adventure, and no danger seems to me so great as that of knowing when I get back to Narnia that I left a mystery behind me through fear.”

Related Characters: Reepicheep (speaker), Eustace Scrubb, Caspian, Aslan, Lord Revilian, Lord Argoz, and Lord Mavramorn
Related Symbols: World’s End
Page Number: 212
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 15 Quotes

The King took the bucket in both hands, raised it to his lips, sipped, then drank deeply and raised his head. His face was changed. Not only his eyes but everything about him seemed to be brighter.

“Yes,” he said, “it is sweet. That’s real water, that. I’m not sure that it isn’t going to kill me. But it is the death I would have chosen—if I’d known about it till now.”

“What do you mean?” asked Edmund.

“It—it’s like light more than anything else,” said Caspian.

“That is what it is,” said Reepicheep. “Drinkable light. We must be very near the end of the world now.”

Related Characters: Caspian (speaker), Reepicheep (speaker), Edmund Pevensie (speaker), Eustace Scrubb, Aslan
Related Symbols: World’s End
Page Number: 248
Explanation and Analysis:
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Reepicheep Quotes in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

The The Voyage of the Dawn Treader quotes below are all either spoken by Reepicheep or refer to Reepicheep. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Bravery Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1 Quotes

Something very curious indeed had come out of the cabin in the poop and was slowly approaching them. You might call it—and indeed it was—a Mouse. But then it was a Mouse on its hind legs and stood about two feet high. A thin band of gold passed round its head under one ear and over the other and in this was stuck a long crimson feather. (As the Mouse’s fur was very dark, almost black, the effect was bold and striking.) Its left paw rested on the hilt of a sword very nearly as long as its tail. Its balance, as it paced gravely along the swaying deck, was perfect, and its manners courtly. Lucy and Edmund recognized it at once—Reepicheep, the most valiant of all the Talking Beasts of Narnia, and the Chief Mouse

Related Characters: Eustace Scrubb, Reepicheep
Page Number: 14
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 2 Quotes

Where sky and water meet,
Where the waves grow sweet,
Doubt not, Reepicheep,
To find all you seek,
There is the utter East.

Related Characters: Reepicheep (speaker), Caspian
Related Symbols: World’s End
Page Number: 22
Explanation and Analysis:

There was not much difficulty in settling the matter once Eustace realized that everyone took the idea of a duel seriously and heard Caspian offering to lend him a sword, and Drinian and Edmund discussing whether he ought to be handicapped in some way to make up for his being so much bigger than Reepicheep. He apologized sulkily and went off with Lucy to have his hand bathed and bandaged and then went to his bunk. He was careful to lie on his side.

Related Characters: Eustace Scrubb, Caspian, Reepicheep, Lucy Pevensie, Edmund Pevensie, Lord Drinian
Page Number: 36
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5 Quotes

I got out all right into the big room, if you can call it a room, where the rowing benches and the luggage are. The thing of water is at this end. All was going beautifully, but before I’d drawn a cupful who should catch me but that little spy Reep. I tried to explain that I was going on deck for a breath of air (the business about the water had nothing to do with him) and he asked me why I had a cup. He made such a noise that the whole ship was roused. They treated me scandalously. I asked, as I think anyone would have, why Reepicheep was sneaking about the water cask in the middle of the night. He said that as he was too small to be any use on deck, he did sentry over the water every night so that one more man could go to sleep. Now comes their rotten unfairness: they all believed him. Can you beat it?

Related Characters: Eustace Scrubb (speaker), Reepicheep
Page Number: 77
Explanation and Analysis:

The fog lifted. He was in an utterly unknown valley and the sea was nowhere in sight.

Related Characters: Eustace Scrubb, Reepicheep
Page Number: 85
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 Quotes

Others would have joined him if at that moment Reepicheep had not called out, “Don’t fight! Push!” It was so unusual for the Mouse to advise anyone not to fight that, even in that terrible moment, every eye turned to him.

Related Characters: Reepicheep (speaker)
Page Number: 125
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 12 Quotes

“But what manner of use would it be plowing through that blackness?” asked Drinian.

“Use?” replied Reepicheep. “Use, Captain? If by use you mean filling our bellies or our purses, I confess it will be no use at all. So far as I know we did not set sail to look for things useful but to seek honor and adventure. And here is as great an adventure as ever I heard of, and here; if we turn back, no little impeachment of all our honors.”

Related Characters: Reepicheep (speaker), Caspian, Lord Drinian, Lord Rhoop
Page Number: 192
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 13 Quotes

“Because,” said the Mouse, “this is a very great adventure, and no danger seems to me so great as that of knowing when I get back to Narnia that I left a mystery behind me through fear.”

Related Characters: Reepicheep (speaker), Eustace Scrubb, Caspian, Aslan, Lord Revilian, Lord Argoz, and Lord Mavramorn
Related Symbols: World’s End
Page Number: 212
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 15 Quotes

The King took the bucket in both hands, raised it to his lips, sipped, then drank deeply and raised his head. His face was changed. Not only his eyes but everything about him seemed to be brighter.

“Yes,” he said, “it is sweet. That’s real water, that. I’m not sure that it isn’t going to kill me. But it is the death I would have chosen—if I’d known about it till now.”

“What do you mean?” asked Edmund.

“It—it’s like light more than anything else,” said Caspian.

“That is what it is,” said Reepicheep. “Drinkable light. We must be very near the end of the world now.”

Related Characters: Caspian (speaker), Reepicheep (speaker), Edmund Pevensie (speaker), Eustace Scrubb, Aslan
Related Symbols: World’s End
Page Number: 248
Explanation and Analysis: