Shift (Narnia)

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Narnia character
Shift
Race/Nation Talking Beast / Narnia
Gender Male
Birthplace Caldron Pool, Narnia
Major character in
The Last Battle

Shift is a fictional character in the children's fantasy series The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis. Shift only appears in The Last Battle, the conclusion of the seven book series, where he is a main character.

Shift is an ape who, like many animals in Lewis' work, can talk. At the beginning of the book, he lives near his friend/servant Puzzle the donkey at the base of the Great Waterfall, next to the Cauldron Pool where the Great River starts its course to the sea. Lewis describes Shift as, "the cleverest, ugliest, most wrinkled Ape you can imagine." (Lewis 1956, pp. 1)

Contents

[edit] Name

The name Shift may be a typical Narnian animal name, but it can also be viewed as a description of the character in the same manner as other characters in The Last Battle such as Jewel and Puzzle. In the case of Shift, his name picks up on the two themes of shiftiness (deception) and development (change/shift). (GrenfellHunt 2005) (Sammons 2004, pp. 212)

[edit] Biographical summary

[edit] Prior story

Nothing is known of Shift's history before he appears in chapter 1 of The Last Battle. There Lewis says that he is so old that no one remembers when he came to live at the base of the great waterfall.

[edit] Character development

See also: The Last Battle: Plot summary

Throughout the book, Shift's greed serves as his primary motivation.(King 1984, pp. 14-19) Shift's actions to satisfy his greed increase in vileness as the story progresses. From lying to his "friend" Puzzle, he moves to manipulating the other talking animals of Narnia. In the end he has no problem murdering them and selling them into slavery to increase his own wealth and power. As Shift's actions become increasingly evil, he also becomes increasingly human in his appearance and in the way he presents himself. He dons human clothing and explains that he is not an ape, and that if he appears as one, it is only because he is "so very old: hundreds and hundreds of years old." However, at this stage he takes to drink[1] and becomes increasingly the puppet of the Calormene captain Rishda Tarkaan, and of the cat Ginger.

Shift gains the power to pursue these actions by tricking Puzzle into impersonating Aslan, the true leader of Narnia. Later, to secure the assistance of the neighboring country Calormen, he insists that their god Tash and Aslan are one and the same. Shift meets his end when he is forced to confront Tash and is eaten by the monstrous god.

[edit] Christian elements

Further information: The Chronicles of Narnia: Christian parallels

Lewis, himself an expert on allegory, did not consider The Chronicles of Narnia allegory. He saw them as "suppositional" answering the question, "What might Christ become like, if there really were a world like Narnia and He chose to be incarnate and die and rise again in that world as He actually has done in ours?' This is not allegory at all." (Martindale & Root 1990) While not allegorical, Narnia does present significant parallels with elements from Christianity.

Shift is most often compared to the antichrist from the biblical book of Book of Revelation.

Revelation 13:15 can be seen as a passable description of Shift's hold over the Narnians: "And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed." Shift's ability to present his false Aslan is what compels the Narnians to obey him, and the Calormenes kill those who resist. (Caughey 2005, pp. 27)

The portrayal of Shift also suggests elements of modern totalitarianism, as in his use of the Rousseauian argument that "True freedom means doing what I tell you" (see General will).

The most obvious meaning of Shift is that he represents evolution. This is evident from his name which connotes development or change and deceit (shiftiness). He is old--a point that Lewis made about evolution in his essay “Funeral of a Great Myth.” Shift, duping and working through Puzzle, impersonates Aslan as evolution assumes the role of God in the creation of the natural world. Thus, after gaining control over the Narnians, Shift declares that he is not an ape at all. He is a man.

"And now there's another thing you got to learn," said the Ape. "I hear some of you are saying I'm an Ape. Well, I'm not. I'm a Man. If I look like an Ape, that's because I'm so very old: hundreds and hundreds of years old."

But behind Shift lie greater powers: the Calormenes and ultimately their god Tash. Lewis revealed in his science fiction trilogy through his hero Ransom, especially in the final volume, That Hideous Strength, the connection between demonism and false science. The darker tone of The Last Battle parallels that of That Hideous Strength as both novels unveil the true face of Good and Evil, True and False, in a final conflict.

[edit] Roman Catholicism

A. N. Wilson and John Goldthwaite[2] both suggest that Shift is intended as a type of the Catholic Church, in keeping with the traditional Protestant identification of the Pope with Antichrist. This identification is based on Shift's claim that Aslan cannot be bothered with speaking to a lot of animals and that he, Shift, is hereafter Aslan's sole mouthpiece. Similarly John J. Miller, writing for National Review, says: "I find it hard to see the ape Shift in The Last Battle, for example, as anything other than a satire of Roman Catholicism in general and the papacy in particular." (Miller 2005) (GrenfellHunt 2005).

However, in Lewis' other writings it is made clear that he had no special animus against Roman Catholicism[3] but detested theocracy in whatever form it might take.[4] In his Oxford History of English Literature in the Sixteenth Century[5] he endorses Milton's view that Elizabethan Presbyterianism was just as guilty as Roman Catholicism of interposing a priestly mediator between man and God: for example, in their belief that the Bible should never be read out in churches but only "opened through preaching". The ape's claim that Aslan (God) is not bound by human standards of good and evil is also a Puritan rather than a Catholic trait.[6]

[edit] Quotations

"Now attend to me. I want--I mean, Aslan wants--some more nuts. These you've brought aren't anything near enough."

[edit] References

[edit] Additional reading

  • Ford, Paul F. (2005), written at SanFrancisco, Companion to Narnia, Revised Edition, Harper, ISBN 0060791276
  • Duriez, Colin (2004), A Field Guide to Narnia, InterVarsity Press, ISBN 0830832076
  • Wagner, Richard J. (2005), C.S. Lewis & Narnia For Dummies, For Dummies, ISBN 0764583816

[edit] Endnotes

  1. ^ Like Comrade Napoleon in Animal Farm.
  2. ^ The Natural History of Make-Believe.
  3. ^ Letter to Bede Griffiths, "You, in your charity, are anxious to convert me: but I am not in the least anxious to convert you. You think my specifically Protestant beliefs a tissue of damnable errors: I think your specifically Catholic beliefs a mass of comparatively harmless human tradition which may be fatal to certain souls under special conditions, but which I think suitable for you…."
  4. ^ "A Reply to Professor Haldane", in Of This and Other Worlds, p. 105; "Lilies that Fester" in They Asked for a Paper, p. 112.
  5. ^ p.444.
  6. ^ ibid. p. 449. Cf. also the character of Straik in That Hideous Strength.

[edit] See also

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The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis
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