What happens in Chapter 1 of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe?
Lucy, the youngest of the four Pevensie siblings, has been sent away with her brothers and sister to the vast country home of the elderly Professor Kirke during World War II. One rainy day, stuck indoors, they start to explore the house, room by room. Lucy finds a small, empty room with just a large wardrobe. While her siblings continue on, she steps inside, brushing past the fur coats, intending to reach the back panel — but instead, she steps out into a snowy landscape, standing under a lamppost at the edge of a vast, dark forest. She has entered Narnia. Confused yet intrigued, she ventures a bit into the trees before meeting a Faun named Tumnus, who is carrying parcels and an umbrella, and is just as surprised to see her as she is to see him. They introduce themselves — he discovers she is a "Daughter of Eve" from the land of Spare Oom in the city of War Drobe — and Tumnus invites her to have tea at his cave. Lucy agrees, and the chapter concludes with her following him further into the snowy woods, the lamppost shining behind them.
Analysis
C.S. Lewis begins with a seemingly simple sentence — "This story is about something that happened to four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy Pevensie" — setting the fairy-tale tone that will carry through the novel. The wardrobe itself exemplifies effective threshold construction: Lewis doesn't point out the portal directly; instead, he allows Lucy's tactile sensations — the fur brushing against her face, followed by the cold air and the snow beneath her feet — to convey the experience. This transition unfolds slowly and through sensory details rather than in a dramatic fashion, making it feel genuine rather than random.
The lamppost standing in the middle of the woods serves as the chapter's most striking image: an artificial light in a wild, magical setting, a remnant of the world Lucy has just left behind. It acts as a navigation point, a symbol of the two worlds overlapping, and a subtle hint at Narnia's fractured, suspended condition under the White Witch's reign.
Tumnus is depicted with lighthearted humor — his dropped parcels and his fussy umbrella — yet Lewis weaves a sense of unease beneath the warmth. The Faun's surprise at hearing "Narnia" and his hesitant, probing questions suggest a world that is being watched. Lewis also cleverly engages with the children's-literature trope of the reliable guide: Tumnus is endearing, but the chapter introduces just enough uncertainty to keep the reader, like Lucy, feeling a bit disoriented. The tonal quality of the chapter — cozy wonder mixed with an underlying sense of something amiss — serves as the emotional foundation for the entire novel.
Key quotes from Chapter 1
“She did not shut it properly because she knew that it is very silly to shut oneself into a wardrobe.”
Lucy steps inside the wardrobe for the first time; Lewis embeds practical child-logic to naturalise the impossible crossing that follows.
“This must be a simply enormous wardrobe!' thought Lucy, going still further in and pushing the soft folds of the coats aside to make room for her. Then she noticed that there was something crunching under her feet and instead of feeling the hard, smooth wood of the floor of the wardrobe, she felt something soft and powdery and extremely cold.”
The moment of transition from England to Narnia, rendered entirely through sensation rather than spectacle, is the chapter's pivotal passage.
“Good evening. If it's not rude to ask, are you a Daughter of Eve or a Son of Adam?”
Tumnus's first words to Lucy introduce the novel's Narnian cosmology and establish the mythic weight Lewis places on human lineage from the very first contact between worlds.
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Create an accountSign inVocabulary in Chapter 1
- wardrobe
- A large, freestanding wooden cupboard used for storing clothes, tall enough for a person to step inside.
- parcels
- Wrapped packages or bundles; here used to mean the children's luggage and belongings sent ahead to the house.
- wireless
- A radio set; the old British term for a household radio receiver used to listen to broadcasts.