A Writer's Responsibility [Narnia] - Elizabeth Roy

A Writer's Responsibility
Chronicles of Narnia Blog
Elizabeth Roy
4/19

One of the ideas that we repeatedly brought up while talking about The Chronicles of Narnia was the fact that themes and imagery can occur in writing unintentionally. For example, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was supposedly not intended to be a Christian allegory at all. Lewis expressed his belief that God could work through instruments such as Lewis and other writers of myth. This idea raises an important question – namely, to what degree is a writer responsible for what he or she writes? If Lewis is correct and forces like God can effectively work through a writer, could an opposing force – Satan, if you will – not also work through writers? I think that Lewis would undoubtedly say yes. But if Lewis places his Christian themes in God’s realm of responsibility, would not also a writer blame unintentional evil themes on Satan? Should not the writer be ultimately responsible for what he or she writes? It could be said that the author has a responsibility to filter these forces, and not write about evil things while allowing good things. The problem with this is that it assumes the writer is capable of distinguishing such. Lewis himself said that he did not at first notice Christian themes in his work. In all probability, writers of Nazi propaganda did not see themselves as being used for evil. Whether or not an author is responsible for what he or she writes is still important today. Recently, the Harry Potter series has been accused of having every possible religious subtext from occultism to Christianity, though Rowling explicitly tried to keep religious themes out of her books. So if we find these themes in books, who is responsible – the reader, the writer, or a superhuman force?