Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Prince Caspian, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Good vs. Evil
Faith and Belief
Power vs. Leadership
Fear and Courage
Summary
Analysis
The hour appointed for combat arrives. The field marshals are Glozelle, Sopespian, and one more Telmarine lord on Miraz’s side; Wimbleweather, Glenstorm, and the eldest Bulgy Bear on Peter’s. Peter shakes hands with Edmund and Doctor Cornelius, then enters the lists (a field for fighting). Trumpkin wishes that Aslan had showed up before it came to this, and Trufflehunter agrees—but then points out the thousands of dryads and silvans whom Aslan awakened and who surge toward the challenge field. In the center of the lists, Peter and Miraz bow to each other and briefly speak, although no one can hear their words. Then their swords flash in the sunlight and both sides break into cheers. Peter gains the early advantage, but Miraz soon rebounds and begins to use his superior height and weight to gain the upper hand.
Although Aslan has returned and reawakened the reinforcements that will help the Narnian Army win the war, he does so late enough that Peter must still demonstrate his courage and selflessness by challenging Miraz to single combat. In doing so he shows his own virtuousness, but he also models how humans should rule Narnia: with more concern for the common good than for their own safety and wellbeing. Importantly, Peter models complete selflessness in this regard: he’s not fighting for his own throne—he’s fighting for Caspian’s. And he has a whole other life in England that he could potentially lose.
Themes
After their initially fierce volleys, a winded Peter and Miraz both fall back momentarily before resuming their fight, but more carefully this time. Each tests the other’s defenses and weaknesses. Peter draws first blood, but it soon becomes apparent that his left arm—his shield arm—is injured and hanging uselessly at his side. After a little while longer, Miraz and Peter agree to a rest, allowing Edmund and Doctor Cornelius to bind Peter’s sprained wrist. Peter confesses that he only has one shot at winning: outlasting Miraz until the older man tires. But he’s not hopeful on this count, and just before the fight resumes, he asks Edmund to give their family (and Trumpkin) his love if he dies.
Although readers can feel confident that good will prevail in the end, the evenly matched battle between Peter and Miraz shows that neither the world nor Aslan guarantees this triumph.. It requires work, danger, and persistence for good to prevail—and Peter says outright that the only way for good to ultimately prevail is to patiently outlast evil. In a way, the hiding Narnians have been doing just that for all these years, and they are about to receive their well-deserved reward.
Themes
But with his shield arm back in play, Peter does surprisingly well in the next round. He seems to play a game of tag with Miraz, dancing ever out of his reach and forcing him to follow him around the ring. The Telmarines begin to jeer and heckle Peter for “dancing,” but Edmund knows that his brother won’t heed them. Then, Miraz lands a heavy blow on Peter’s helmet and Peter stumbles. But before Miraz can strike a fatal blow, Peter grabs Miraz’s arm, uses it as leverage to regain his feet, and rejoins the fight. Miraz grows angry and the fighting grows fiercer.
Peter puts his plan of outlasting Miraz into immediate action as he dances around the ring and works to turn the older, larger man’s size and strength against him. The Telmarines jeer, but Peter knows better than to let their taunts bait him. The forces of good must keep themselves focused on what they stand for to achieve their goal—in this case, a Narnia free of human oppression where all magical creatures (and all virtuous humans) will flourish.
Themes
Then, suddenly, Miraz trips and falls facedown to the ground. Peter stands back and chivalrously waits for Miraz to regain his feet—but Glozelle and Sopespian don’t. They instantly rush into the ring claiming that Peter has stabbed Miraz in the back. Peter shouts to the Old Narnians for backup and, as Glozelle stabs Miraz deeply and fatally in the back, the Telmarines and Old Narnian forces spring into all-out battle. Reepicheep and the mice fight as bravely as anyone, skewering Telmarine soldiers’ feet and killing those who fall. Then the Telmarine forces retreat, shrieking “The Wood!” The awakened trees plunge into the fray like a rising tempest. The remnants of the Telmarine army retreat in disorder toward Beruna. But when they arrive at the river, they find the bridge gone.
When Miraz falls—a lucky break for Peter—his own people turn on him. His cruel, selfish, and power-hungry form of monarchy has turned on him; his nobles are just as cruel and power hungry as he is. They take advantage of him and show him even less respect than Peter, his adversary, does. Glozelle and Sopespian’s betrayal also puts the Telmarines in breach of the rules of combat, which places the outcome of the fight on the two people in the ring alone and allows the Narnians—including the newly reawakened dryad giants—to attack.
Themes
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To understand what happened to the bridge, the story turns back to earlier in the day. After letting Susan and Lucy sleep for a few hours, Aslan wakes them up with the promise that they will “make holiday” together with Bacchus, Silenus, and the Maenads (Bacchus’s troupe of wild girls) remain. The girls climb onto Aslan’s back for a ride around Narnia. They start at the bridge, where Bacchus’s grapevines squeeze the bridge into dust, freeing the giant, bearded river-god whom the bridge has imprisoned for generations.
Importantly, Aslan didn’t intervene in Narnian affairs until he was called by someone who believed in him and his power—Caspian. The fact that it was a Telmarine human who called him shows that the next Narnian Golden Age will be different from the last. But it begins with erasing the signs and symbols of Telmarine oppression, including the bridges and other structures they built to try to contain the Narnian nature they experienced as a threat to their power.
Themes
In the nearby town, people flee in terror at the company’s approach. They liberate a little girl named Gwendolen from her strict and mean teacher, Miss Prizzle, who screams and flees when she sees Aslan. Most of her class follows her, but Gwendolen begs to join Aslan, and he welcomes her. Then, in the countryside, Bacchus turns an old man who is cruelly beating a boy into a tree and the boy joins them. Near Beaversdam, they find a school where a tired teacher faces a roomful of pig-like little boys. She’s reluctant to abandon her post, but when the boys flee, she happily joins the group. Legends say the boys were never seen again, but that a group of very fine pigs lived in the area ever afterward.
The Telmarines fear nature (such as Bacchus’s unstoppable vives) and talking animals (like Aslan) because they have been taught that they can only be safe in dominion over nature and magic (and even other humans), not in cooperation with them. Aslan turns that false belief on its head, gathering followers with gentleness and affection. And although Gwendolen at first seems to reinforce the connection the book has repeatedly made between youth and faith, some adults can see the truth, too. As Aslan parades through the countryside, he easily and peacefully divides the Telmarines who will fit in the new Narnia (the believers and the followers) from those who will need to be removed.
Themes
Near Beaversdam, they find a sad little girl worrying about her dying aunt. Aslan goes to the door of the aunt’s cottage, tossing it from its foundations when he can’t fit inside. A little old woman (who looks like she may have some Dwarf blood in her ancestry) lies in bed. She instantly and joyfully recognizes Aslan. As he speaks to her, the color and life return to her face and soon, she’s sitting up and asking for breakfast. Bacchus dips a pitcher into her well and hands it to her, and she discovers, much to her surprise, that it’s filled with rich wine instead of water. Lucy and Susan yield their places on Aslan’s back to the old woman, and the troupe dances all the way back to where Miraz’s army has surrendered to Peter’s. The old woman slips from Aslan’s back and runs to embrace Caspian—she is his faithful old Nurse.
Aslan exhibits tenderness on his “holiday” through the countryside, but he also demonstrates his power, like when he effortlessly tosses the cottage to the wind. He comes to restore Narnia, but restoring good where evil has reigned for so long requires breaking some things, despite the gentleness of the revolution. When Bacchus dips his pitcher into the well and brings the old woman rich wine, this recalls the story of Jesus Christ’s first miracle in the Christian Bible, where he turned water into wine at a wedding (John 2:1-11). It also suggests the Christian communion, in which believers share bread and wine in memory of Jesus’s death and resurrection, and also as an important act of community.
Themes
