The Horse and His Boy Study Guide

C.S. Lewis was born in 1898 in Belfast. His father was a solicitor and his mother came from a family where several men help positions in the Church of Ireland. Known as “Jack” to close friends and family (after a dog named “Jacksie” that died when he was four years old), Lewis developed an early love of stories about talking animals, including the books of Beatrix Potter (The Tale of Peter Rabbit). Although an atheist at one point in his life, Lewis fully converted to Christianity in his early 30s, and religion went on to be a major theme of both his fiction and nonfiction. Lewis first received acclaim as a novelist for The Space Trilogy and subsequently for novels like The Screwtape Letters and The Great Divorce. He also gained a reputation for writing nonfiction books that defended and explained Christianity (sometimes called “apologies”). These included Mere Christianity and The Problem of Pain. Today, Lewis is best known for his Narnia novels, a young adult fantasy series that he first conceived in 1939 and began publishing in 1950 with The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. The novels were written and published out of chronological order, with The Horse and His Boy being the fifth book published but the third in the timeline of the Narnia story. Lewis died in 1963.

The first Narnia book, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, is inspired by events that happened during World War II when children were evacuated from London to the English countryside for their own safety. The fictional empire of Calormen is inspired by a combination of several historical nations from the Middle East and Africa. For example, the title of “vizier” (which the character Ahoshta achieves) refers to a type of minister that has primarily existed in Islamic nations, like Egypt and the Ottoman Empire. By contrast, the Christian-like monarchy of Narnia bears more resemblance to Europe in the Middle Ages, where kings and queens were often the heads of state. The novel also deals with the issue of slavery, which has taken on various forms throughout human history. In The Horse and His Boy, slavery only exists within the empire of Calormen. While it’s true that slavery existed throughout the Islamic world, Lewis’s fantasy world arguably distorts history by presenting the European-style monarchy of Narnia as a place of freedom: in addition to traditional chattel slavery, the concept of serfdom was popular throughout medieval Europe, where tenant farmers with few rights were bound to serve lords. Perhaps, however, Lewis’s fantasy world is based on the long tradition of anti-slavery in Christianity. While Christian views on slavery have differed sharply throughout history depending on the specific sect, certain groups of Christians have long advocated abolition, dating all the way back to the letters of Paul in the New Testament.

The Horse and His Boy is part of C. S. Lewis’s Narnia series of books. It takes place at the same time as The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, including some of the same characters but mostly following a new perspective. As a Christian, Lewis takes inspiration from the Bible, with the fair and just nation of Narnia being inspired by Christian morality and with Arsheesh’s discovery of baby Shasta in the water recalling the Biblical story of baby Moses floating down a river in a basket. Lewis also takes inspiration from writers like Dante Alighieri (The Divine Comedy) and John Milton (Paradise Lost), who combined Christian allegory and epic fantasy in their works. Lewis was a contemporary and a close friend of J. R. R. Tolkien, whose books The Hobbit and The Lord of The Rings trilogy were influential not just on Lewis but on the modern fantasy genre in general. The ending of the novel seems to reference The Golden Ass (a famous Latin novel by Apuleius) or perhaps The Adventures of Pinocchio (by Carlo Collodi), two famous stories about a character being turned into a donkey as punishment for his actions. Lewis’s Narnia books have become influential classics of the young adult fantasy genre, inspiring, for example, the concept of a separate world for wizards in Harry Potter by J. K. Rowling. Other writers, like Philip Pullman, have been less admiring of Lewis. His own young adult series, His Dark Materials, is extremely critical of the religious themes present in the Narnia series.