The Horse And His Boy By C. S. Lewis

Elianna Cherne Ms. Coleman British Literature A 21 May 2023 Theme Paper The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis is the fifth book in the series, The Chronicles of Narnia. The story follows four main characters: a boy called Shasta, a girl named Aravis, a Narnian horse Bree, and a mare Hwin. The characters set out on a journey to escape the Calormen, an oppressive empire south of Narnia, to find true freedom from their past. In this book, C.S. Lewis uses lots of allegories, symbolism, metaphors, and biblical allusions to convey certain themes that are present throughout. Though there are ideas explored such as good vs. evil, pride vs. humility, and more, the theme of spiritual freedom and true liberation is shown variously and centralizes in the

The Calormenes, the citizens of Calormen, are forced to worship the Tisroc, the King of Calormen. Upon reciting his title, it’s typically followed by “May he live forever”. The Calormenes are also hidden from the rest of the world and are taught not to seek anything else. In chapter one, Arsheesh, a fisherman and self-proclaimed and rather abusive father of Shasta chastised him for wanting to know more about the North (Narnia). In honesty, it was because Arsheesh himself was not quite sure. He did not know what lay past the borders of his home country of Calormen, nor did he particularly care. Arsheesh and even Shasta at the time were not aware of the land in the North, free of oppression and slavery. Later in the chapter, Shasta meets the proud Narnian horse, Bree. After Shasta learns of Bree’s ability to speak, the horse begins to talk about how he is not a regular horse. He describes his story of how he was a war horse and was captured from the “happy land of Narnia'' when he was a mere foal. Bree continues on page ten, “All these years I have been a slave to humans, hiding my true nature and pretending to be dumb and witless like their