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
Caspian and Bern round up all of their people the next morning and prepare for battle. They all march down to the castle of Governor Gumpas and announce that Caspian has arrived. Although Caspian is displeased, he wants his visit to be joyous, so he orders a doorkeeper to go open a cask of wine for everyone. Caspian, Drinian, and Bern then go inside to meet with the governor.
With the cask of wine, Caspian shows that he wants to be a well-liked ruler instead of a feared one. Caspian displays selflessness by showing that he wants to rule not just to amass power for himself but also to make life better for other people, even his enemies.
Themes
Caspian confronts Governor Gumpas about how his island hasn’t paid tribute to Narnia for about 150 years. Governor Gumpas doesn’t cooperate, but he also doesn’t want to anger Caspian because he believes Caspian might have a whole fleet with him. Caspian demands that Gumpas end the slave trade on the island, but Gumpas tries to tell Caspian that he’s too young to understand the economics. Caspian insists and gets his way, installing Bern as Duke of the island, forgiving the island’s tribute debts, and abolishing the slave trade.
Like Eustace, Governor Gumpas only acts tough until someone challenges him. Gumpas’s arguments about the complicated economics of slavery on his islands mirrors real historical defenses of slavery. By ending slavery, Caspian once again shows how as a ruler, he selflessly wants to make life better for everyone, even people at the bottom of society.
Themes
Caspian goes down to Pug’s slave ship. He declares that Pug should lose his life, but instead Caspian is pardoning him and freeing every enslaved person on the island. Lucy and Edmund are happy to be saved. Two merchants from Calormen, who have dark skin, long beards, and orange turbans, politely ask Caspian for the money back they just spent on slaves. Caspian agrees to provide refunds.
This passage shows that Caspian is perhaps even selfness to a fault, as he refunds money to men who engaged in slave trading. On the one hand, the novel’s strong opposition to slavery could be interpreted as supporting the equality of all people. On the other hand, the novel’s racial politics are complicated by the fact that the dark-skinned, turban-wearing Calormen (who resemble subjects of Britain’s colonies) are slavery’s biggest supporters while Caspian (who resembles a historical British monarch) is the one who saves everyone from slavery.
Themes
When Eustace finally comes out, he complains that Caspian must have been off enjoying himself somewhere on his own. At night, there’s a large party, then in the morning, Caspian parts ways with Bern and the Dawn Treader prepares to continue its journey toward the horizon.
Eustace is still so selfish that he can’t even show gratitude to Caspian after Caspian saves him from slavery. Eustace seems to resent Caspian just because he’s everything that Eustace isn’t.
Themes
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