King_Erlian, it isn't only the clothing which convinces me Narnia isn't strictly Medieval, it is the use of River Gods, fauns, satyrs, Bacchus, Silenus, maenads, dryads, minotaurs, etc. But Pauline Baynes' illustrations do tend to make the Narnians somewhere between Roman and Medieval. In
Silver Chair, in particular, the characters could be either late Middle Ages or Elizabethan. Rilian looks almost how one would depict Hamlet. Or am I being too influenced by the BBC movie of this tale?
Her depictions of the Calormenes are also rather jumbled. Yes, that sort of clothing did tend to be worn throughout the Middle East and South Asia, more commonly a century ago. Baggy ballooning "harem pants", worn by slaves, were more often worn in Turkey where the Sultans of Ottoman Turkey really did keep a harem in the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul, once called Constantinople. But the most magnificent turbans are not necessarily worn in Turkey. They are more a feature of Sikh or Hindu dress over in India, in South Asia. The herald preceding the Narnians in a frontispiece illustration of HHB's first edition wore a getup I've never seen anywhere else. Whilst the sedan chairs or litters could have been used anywhere at any time from either Medieval Europe or Asia right down to the time of the American Revolution.
Inkling wrote:You see some traces of Orientalism in The Horse and His Boy and in The Last Battle, partly because C.S. Lewis lived in a time where an obsession with the Orient was still widespread and partly because he’s emulating older European works, which happen to have Orientalism.
Yes, Aravis is just amazing, but some of the Calormene characters in The Horse and His Boy are reminiscent of established Western caricatures of Middle Eastern customs. Is it too much, or does Lewis find a middle ground?
Yes, it may seem a bit much, but in all fairness to C.S.Lewis, he grew up in a country which had been repeatedly raided by pirates, not necessarily from the Orient, to gather slaves for use in Arabia, Turkey and North Africa. Just as we see in VDT. Nor was Ireland's UK neighbours much more innocent in that regard. Not only did wealthy nobility and factory owners clear the Scottish highlands of crofters, and fail to help people affected by the Irish potato famine, they also did employ slaves, themselves, and made virtual slaves of their workers during the Industrial Revolution, with minimal wage rates and poor living conditions. Even though William Wilberforce's successful anti-slavery campaigning preceded the American Civil War.
Western Literature, of the era preceding C.S.Lewis, including Charles Dickens and Charles Kingsley, made much reference to these matters and the evils of slavery, even if they targeted their own society whilst others
Inkling mentions caricatured the East. At that time until WW1 the Orient virtually meant the Turkish Ottoman Empire of Asia Minor which also included swathes of Europe, itself. And slavery in the Orient was slow to depart, even after World War I toppled the Ottoman Empire of Asia Minor, rearranging nations in both Europe and the Middle East. It would be 1965 before wealthy Saudi Arabia would ratify UN agreements to abolish slavery, and in some places in West Africa slavery is still practised. Even today, in Western Society, it would be a sore point to refer to slavery in the USA, whilst those Australians with convict ancestry could own up to it freely only as late as 1988, the Bicentenary of Australia's founding.
So since escaping from slavery or a horrible captivity, is such a theme in the entire Narnia series, an almost Oriental setting for the country of Calormen in VDT, HHB and LB, at any rate, might seem inevitable from the author's point of view, especially as it has been said that he disliked the
Arabian Nights. And possibly, any vague mention of "Oriental"-like faults may seem insensitive to people in 2014, given current events, though these books were written more than 50 years ago.
But is Calormen necessarily Oriental in setting? Eustace's encounter with Calormene merchants did not deter him from seeing Calormen as "the least phony" country in the Narnian world. Couldn't some of the caricatures have also applied just as equally to Western Society? Though he couldn't antagonise readers by actually saying so, and upsetting some of their sensitivities?
Up until World War II, both Thailand and Japan were proud Far Eastern societies who had been slow to engage with the rest of the world and remained free of Western colonization. Both socieities have exotic, sometimes polytheistic religious beliefs, such as Buddhism, maybe Hinduism, Taoism, Shintoism etc. Thailand, once called Siam, is famous for Anna Leonowen's depiction of that exotic society under its king, Mongkut, made into a Broadway musical,
The King and I. They still have kings in Thailand, though the latest king, Bhumiphol, never had a harem, unlike Mongkut.
Japan, likewise, had long abandoned harems when their Emperor Hirohito, at the close of World War II, renounced the Japanese belief that the Japanese Emperor was of divine descent, somewhat similar to C.S.Lewis' depiction of the Tisroc, and the Ancient Roman practice of deifying at least some of their Emperors. If you ever saw a performance of the Gilbert and Sullivan musical
Mikado it is based upon 19th century Japanese society and government, on the surface. But as with other G & S musicals, the play was more a satire of UK, itself, including characters like the High Chief Executioner, Pooh Ba, Nanky Poo, and Yum Yum. Not to mention the
Mikado, himself, singing about his mission to make the
Punishment fit the Crime. With all this concern for Oriental sensibilities, isn't it odd that nobody sees a replay of
Mikado as insensitive to Japanese feelings? Especially as Japan, itself, seems to have distanced itself from anything to do with Islam yet is just as Oriental as any of its Middle Eastern Asian neighbours?
So why is the depiction of Calormen seen as insensitive at all? Getting back to when Shift the Ape in LB invited into Narnia, disguised Calormene merchants, wasn't he really inviting in Western Society with all its trappings of industrialization, roads and services, much as
Mikado was used as a cover for UK government?