What happens in Chapter 17 of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe?
Chapter 17 wraps up the novel with a quick, joyful conclusion. The four Pevensie children—now crowned Kings and Queens of Narnia at Cair Paravel—enjoy many years in a golden age filled with peace and abundance. They mature into their adult selves: Peter the Magnificent, Susan the Gentle, Edmund the Just, and Lucy the Valiant. When news reaches the court that the legendary White Stag has been seen—a creature said to grant any wish to whoever captures it—the four monarchs set off on a grand hunt. Deep in the Western Wood, their pursuit leads them to a peculiar iron post standing amidst a thicket. The sight awakens vague memories of another world. As they push through the thick branches, the children tumble back through the wardrobe and find themselves, once again, on the spare-room floor—no time having passed in England at all. They hurry to tell the Professor what has occurred. He listens calmly, tells them they will likely return to Narnia someday, and cautions them not to attempt to enter through the wardrobe again, as it won't work a second time. The novel concludes with his quiet assurance that Narnia's story is far from over.
Analysis
Lewis engineers a clever double temporal trick in this final chapter: the children age into royalty over what feels like years, only to snap back to childhood in a single sentence. This effect is intentionally disorienting—the reader, much like the Pevensies, finds themselves caught between different times. The old-fashioned language in the Narnian court scenes ("We should do well," "it were pity") echoes medieval romance, indicating that the children have matured into the genre itself, not just into adulthood. The White Stag serves as a classical finis coronat opus device: a target that can never truly be caught, it pushes the narrative forward even as it loops back to the beginning.
The iron lamp-post—first introduced in Chapter 1 as Lucy's entry point—returns here as an involuntary trigger of memory, connecting the object-world to recollection before words can form. Lewis relies on the image to convey meaning; he provides no authorial commentary. This restraint reflects the chapter's tonal control: wonder is expressed through a build-up of small, precise details rather than exclamations.
Professor Kirke's closing remarks serve a neat structural role, speaking to both the children and the reader at once. His comment about "the right age" for returning to Narnia plants the seed for the series' ongoing mythology while avoiding a sentimental view of the loss. The wardrobe is quietly retired as a portal—its magic used up—yet the chapter suggests that the broader story remains open. Lewis concludes not with a full stop, but with a horizon.
Key quotes from Chapter 17
“Once a King or Queen in Narnia, always a King or Queen.”
Aslan speaks these words at the coronation in Cair Paravel, establishing the permanence of the children's sovereignty even after they return to England.
“And that is the very end of the adventure of the wardrobe. But if the Professor was right it was only the beginning of the adventures of Narnia.”
The narrator's closing lines pivot from closure to continuation, reframing the entire novel as prologue.
“They had not gone far before they felt the branches of the fir trees brushing against their faces and hands... and the next moment they all came tumbling out of a wardrobe door.”
The return passage through the wardrobe is rendered with deliberate abruptness, the physical sensation of branches collapsing the years of Narnian rule into a single stumbling moment.
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Create an accountSign inVocabulary in Chapter 17
- High King
- The title given to the ruler of highest rank among the four monarchs; Peter is crowned High King, making him the supreme ruler over the others.