Deplorable Word
The Deplorable Word, as used by author C. S. Lewis in The Chronicles of Narnia, is a fictional magical curse which ends all life on a world except that of the one who speaks it.
Background
In
The children are shocked by this account, but Jadis has no remorse or pity for all the ordinary people whom she killed; in her eyes, they existed only for her to use. The past rulers of her race, who evidently had not always been evil, knew of the Deplorable Word's existence but not the word itself, and had vowed that none of them, nor their descendants, would seek to discover it. Jadis said she had “learned it in a secret place and paid a terrible price to learn it".[1]
Lewis did not say what the word was, or the price paid to learn it.[2]
Meaning
The book was written in 1955 during the
It is not certain that some wicked one of your race will not find out a secret as evil as the Deplorable Word and use it to destroy all living things. And soon, very soon, before you are an old man and an old woman, great nations of your world will be ruled by tyrants who care no more for joy and justice and mercy than the Empress Jadis. Let your world beware. That is the warning.[4]
Several writers have interpreted this warning as an
References
- ISBN 0-02-044230-0.
- ^ Mony, Neetha (2003). "True Independent Women: A Close Comparison Between C. S. Lewis's Jadis, the White Witch, and J. R. R. Tolkien's Galadriel, The Lady of the Golden Wood" (PDF). In Diana Pavlac Glyer (ed.). Tollers and Jack: A Comparative Look at the Lives and Works of J.R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis. p. 8.
By saying the Deplorable Word, a word that Lewis does not reveal.
- ISBN 0060791276.
- ISBN 0-02-044230-0.
- ^ Walls, Kathryn (2009). "When Curiosity Gets the Better of Us: The Atomic Bomb in The Magician's Nephew". Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts. 20 (3): 334.
In what follows, I want to suggest that The Magician's Nephew is very much the product of Lewis's own anxiety about nuclear weapons. [...] Aslan... effectively aligns the "Deplorable Word" (with which Jadis had destroyed the city of Charn) with the scientific knowledge behind the bomb. ...
- JSTOR 45349888.
In the final chapter, Aslan tells Polly and Digory that a "Deplorable Word" equivalent may soon appear on our planet, an obvious reference to the atomic bomb...