Eustace Scrubb
Encyclopedia
Eustace Clarence Scrubb is a fictional character in C. S. Lewis
' Chronicles of Narnia. He appears in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
, The Silver Chair
, and The Last Battle
. In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, he is accompanied by Edmund
and Lucy Pevensie
, his cousins. In The Silver Chair and The Last Battle, he is accompanied by Jill Pole
, a classmate from his school.
and Edmund
dislike visiting him and his parents, though that has mostly to do with Eustace's arrogant and unfriendly attitude. However, in the later books, Eustace is shown as an altogether better person, becoming a hero along with Jill Pole. It is mentioned in the Silver Chair that Eustace is afraid of heights, causing him to overreact when Jill goes too close to the edge of a cliff and in trying to stop her he falls.
He is the only child of what Lewis describes as "very up-to-date and advanced people," who send him to a progressive mixed school. Eustace calls his parents by their first names (Harold and Alberta); his parents are vegetarians
, nonsmokers
, teetotallers (lifestyles which were very rare in 1940s Britain), and wear a special kind of underclothes.
Much of the narrative of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader concerns the personal growth of Eustace, as he is drawn into Narnia and aboard the eponymous ship along with Lucy and Edmund, and into adventures that bring him to realize how self-centred his attitudes are. Part of the story is told with extracts from his diary, where we see how skewed his point of view is. He describes the ship sailing in perpetual storm (though the weather is fine), and portrays the others as foolishly denying the supposed rough seas and refusing to face the "truth" of the situation. He complains when Lucy is given Caspian
's cabin, and comments to the crew that giving girls special treatment is actually "putting them down, and making them weaker". Moreover, he cannot accept that he is in the Narnian universe: he imagines that he can "lodge a disposition" (or "bring an action") at a British consulate or a British court; and he is beaten by Reepicheep for treating the mouse as one might a circus animal.
Eustace wanders off by himself when the ship puts ashore on an unexplored island. He falls asleep on a dragon
's hoard and finds himself transformed into a dragon by "greedy, dragonish thoughts" in his heart (cf. Fafnir
). Worse, he is now in constant agony from Lord Octesian's arm bracelet, which he put on as a boy but is too small for a dragon's leg. Upon return to the Dawn Treader
, he is nearly attacked by the crew until Lucy asks if he is Eustace, to which he vigorously nods his head. Being a dragon changes Eustace; instead of behaving like his usual sulky self, he helps the travellers find food, shelter, and a tree to serve as a new mainmast. The problem comes when it is time to leave the island, as the ship cannot hold or maintain a dragon. Reepicheep displays sympathy to Eustace's plight despite the boy's prior cruelty to the mouse and they eventually become friends.
Eventually, Eustace meets Aslan
, who returns him to human form by peeling off his dragon skin and sending him into a refreshing bath. Edmund shares with Eustace his own redemption story, observing that "you were only an ass, but I was a traitor." Eustace improves after this, though he still exhibits bad habits. When Eustace returns home after his adventures, his mother thinks he has become tiresome and commonplace, blaming the change on the influence of "those Pevensie children"—though everyone else thinks he has become a much better person.
, and their joint desire to leave the school draws them into Narnia. This unlikely friendship (given that Eustace had bullied Jill before his experience in Narnia) is strengthened throughout the story.
The two journey through Narnia to recover the lost heir to the throne and to thwart the plan of the Lady of the Green Kirtle
to overthrow the kingdom. Though he still has his faults, mainly stubbornness and rash decision-making, Eustace displays little of his former odiousness, and he and Jill begin to develop affection towards one another. He wholeheartedly rejects the insipid philosophy offered by the Lady in favour of the Narnian life he has grown to love. He helps Prince Rilian to escape the underworld and return to Narnia, just in time to meet his aged father, who dies shortly afterwards; Caspian was now an elderly man as 50 years had passed since Eustace had first been in Narnia.
Eustace then meets Caspian in Aslan's Country, where Caspian is resurrected and restored to the youth and strength which Eustace remembered from half a century earlier in Narnia. At the very end of the story Caspian is briefly translated into Eustace's world, something he has wanted ever since he met Eustace's cousins 53 years earlier, to help the two friends scare off the gang of bullies in the grounds of the school and give the school the badly needed upheavals it needs to become a well-managed school.
Following the custom of their school, Eustace and Jill address each other by their respective surnames, "Scrubb" and "Pole".
As one of the "friends of Narnia" from Earth, who still believes in Narnia and follows the principles of that world and of Aslan, Eustace is spared from the end of Narnia. At the end of the novel it is revealed that he, along with Jill, Lucy, Edmund and Peter, has been killed in a railway accident and has been translated into Aslan's country to live in eternal happiness.
, he argues that modern education is producing "men without chests" – people whose lives are divided between the purely cerebral and the purely visceral, without any middle ground of sentiment or imagination—and Eustace (in his initial state) is clearly intended to be one of these. In the same essay, however, Lewis denies the suggestion that he is attacking intellect as such, and in his book on Miracles he even argues for the scholastic
belief that the intellect is our participation in the supernatural world. Similarly, he was not against progress in the sense of objectively justifiable social improvement, but did oppose purely fashionable progressivism, and in particular what he called "chronological snobbery
", the view that the superiority of modern values can always be assumed automatically and without investigation.
.
Will Poulter
plays Eustace in the Walden Media film adaptation
, directed by Michael Apted. Among the alterations for the film is that when Eustace is turned into a dragon, he proves his true identity to Edmund by flying him to where he has used his fire breath to carve the sentence, "I am Eustace" on the ground. Once establishing his identity, the agonizingly undersized bracelet Eustace was wearing when he was transformed into a dragon is quickly removed with Lucy's help. Afterward and still in his dragon form Eustace accompanies the Dawn Treader on its quest to the next islands and earns the respect of the crew first by towing the ship when it is caught in magically imposed doldrums and later aiding the crew in battle against the sea serpent
on the Dark Island, but gets injured. It is here that Aslan restores Eustace to normal, but only by scratching off the dragon's skin. Eustace's final redemption comes when he races to lay the seventh magic sword at Aslan's Table, unleashing the swords' power to defeat the evil of Dark Island and saving his friends.
C. S. Lewis
Clive Staples Lewis , commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as "Jack", was a novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist from Belfast, Ireland...
' Chronicles of Narnia. He appears in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is a fantasy novel for children by C. S. Lewis. Written in 1950, it was published in 1952 as the third book of The Chronicles of Narnia...
, The Silver Chair
The Silver Chair
The Silver Chair is part of The Chronicles of Narnia, a series of seven fantasy novels written by C. S. Lewis. It was the fourth book published and is the sixth book chronologically. It is the first book published in the series in which the Pevensie children do not appear. The main characters are...
, and The Last Battle
The Last Battle
The Last Battle is the seventh and final novel in The Chronicles of Narnia series by C. S. Lewis. It won the prestigious Carnegie Medal in Literature in 1956.-Plot summary:In The Last Battle, Lewis brings The Chronicles of Narnia to an end...
. In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, he is accompanied by Edmund
Edmund Pevensie
Edmund "Ed" Pevensie is a major fictional character in C. S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia. He is a principal character in three of the seven books , and a lesser character in two others .In the live-action films, The...
and Lucy Pevensie
Lucy Pevensie
Lucy Pevensie is a fictional character in C. S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia. She is the youngest of the four Pevensie children, and the first to find the Wardrobe entrance to Narnia in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Of all the Pevensie children, Lucy is the closest to Aslan...
, his cousins. In The Silver Chair and The Last Battle, he is accompanied by Jill Pole
Jill Pole
Jill Pole is a major character from C. S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia series. She appears in The Silver Chair and The Last Battle.-Prior story:Very little is known about Jill's family or her life before she becomes friends with Eustace...
, a classmate from his school.
Personality
Eustace is portrayed at first as arrogant, whiny, and self-centered. It can be gathered from Eustace's behavior, and the tone that Lewis used in describing his family and school, that Lewis thought such behavior silly and disliked it a great deal. In fact, at the beginning of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, LucyLucy Pevensie
Lucy Pevensie is a fictional character in C. S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia. She is the youngest of the four Pevensie children, and the first to find the Wardrobe entrance to Narnia in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Of all the Pevensie children, Lucy is the closest to Aslan...
and Edmund
Edmund Pevensie
Edmund "Ed" Pevensie is a major fictional character in C. S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia. He is a principal character in three of the seven books , and a lesser character in two others .In the live-action films, The...
dislike visiting him and his parents, though that has mostly to do with Eustace's arrogant and unfriendly attitude. However, in the later books, Eustace is shown as an altogether better person, becoming a hero along with Jill Pole. It is mentioned in the Silver Chair that Eustace is afraid of heights, causing him to overreact when Jill goes too close to the edge of a cliff and in trying to stop her he falls.
Prior story
According to Lewis's Narnian timeline, Eustace was born in 1933 and is 10 years old when he appears in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader; and by The Last Battle he is 16 years old.The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
We meet Eustace at the beginning of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader with the memorable opening line, "There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it."Vegetarianism
Vegetarianism encompasses the practice of following plant-based diets , with or without the inclusion of dairy products or eggs, and with the exclusion of meat...
, nonsmokers
Tobacco smoking
Tobacco smoking is the practice where tobacco is burned and the resulting smoke is inhaled. The practice may have begun as early as 5000–3000 BCE. Tobacco was introduced to Eurasia in the late 16th century where it followed common trade routes...
, teetotallers (lifestyles which were very rare in 1940s Britain), and wear a special kind of underclothes.
Much of the narrative of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader concerns the personal growth of Eustace, as he is drawn into Narnia and aboard the eponymous ship along with Lucy and Edmund, and into adventures that bring him to realize how self-centred his attitudes are. Part of the story is told with extracts from his diary, where we see how skewed his point of view is. He describes the ship sailing in perpetual storm (though the weather is fine), and portrays the others as foolishly denying the supposed rough seas and refusing to face the "truth" of the situation. He complains when Lucy is given Caspian
Caspian X
Caspian X, King of Narnia, Lord of Cair Paravel and Emperor of The Lone Islands, also called Caspian the Seafarer and Caspian the Navigator, is a fictional character in The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis. He is featured in three books in the series: Prince Caspian, The Voyage of the Dawn...
's cabin, and comments to the crew that giving girls special treatment is actually "putting them down, and making them weaker". Moreover, he cannot accept that he is in the Narnian universe: he imagines that he can "lodge a disposition" (or "bring an action") at a British consulate or a British court; and he is beaten by Reepicheep for treating the mouse as one might a circus animal.
Eustace wanders off by himself when the ship puts ashore on an unexplored island. He falls asleep on a dragon
Dragon
A dragon is a legendary creature, typically with serpentine or reptilian traits, that feature in the myths of many cultures. There are two distinct cultural traditions of dragons: the European dragon, derived from European folk traditions and ultimately related to Greek and Middle Eastern...
's hoard and finds himself transformed into a dragon by "greedy, dragonish thoughts" in his heart (cf. Fafnir
Fafnir
In Norse mythology, Fáfnir or Frænir was a son of the dwarf king Hreidmar and brother of Regin and Ótr. In the Volsunga saga, Fáfnir was a dwarf gifted with a powerful arm and fearless soul. He guarded his father's house of glittering gold and flashing gems...
). Worse, he is now in constant agony from Lord Octesian's arm bracelet, which he put on as a boy but is too small for a dragon's leg. Upon return to the Dawn Treader
Dawn Treader
The Dawn Treader was a Narnian ship in the fictional world of The Chronicles of Narnia. It was built by King Caspian X and is featured primarily in the book The Voyage of the Dawn Treader...
, he is nearly attacked by the crew until Lucy asks if he is Eustace, to which he vigorously nods his head. Being a dragon changes Eustace; instead of behaving like his usual sulky self, he helps the travellers find food, shelter, and a tree to serve as a new mainmast. The problem comes when it is time to leave the island, as the ship cannot hold or maintain a dragon. Reepicheep displays sympathy to Eustace's plight despite the boy's prior cruelty to the mouse and they eventually become friends.
Eventually, Eustace meets Aslan
Aslan
Aslan, the "Great Lion," is the central character in The Chronicles of Narnia, a series of seven fantasy novels for children written by C. S. Lewis. He is the eponymous lion of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and his role in Narnia is developed throughout the remaining books...
, who returns him to human form by peeling off his dragon skin and sending him into a refreshing bath. Edmund shares with Eustace his own redemption story, observing that "you were only an ass, but I was a traitor." Eustace improves after this, though he still exhibits bad habits. When Eustace returns home after his adventures, his mother thinks he has become tiresome and commonplace, blaming the change on the influence of "those Pevensie children"—though everyone else thinks he has become a much better person.
The Silver Chair
Eustace returns to his progressive school where he is now labelled a misfit, due to the changes in him wrought during The Voyage of The Dawn Treader; where before, he was a crony and tale-bearer for the gang of bullies who are given free rein at the school, he is now one of their targets, but has the courage to withstand it; he keeps Spivvens' secret under torture. He befriends fellow misfit Jill PoleJill Pole
Jill Pole is a major character from C. S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia series. She appears in The Silver Chair and The Last Battle.-Prior story:Very little is known about Jill's family or her life before she becomes friends with Eustace...
, and their joint desire to leave the school draws them into Narnia. This unlikely friendship (given that Eustace had bullied Jill before his experience in Narnia) is strengthened throughout the story.
The two journey through Narnia to recover the lost heir to the throne and to thwart the plan of the Lady of the Green Kirtle
Lady of the Green Kirtle
The Lady of the Green Kirtle, also called Queen of Underland and Queen of the Deep Realm, is the main villain in The Silver Chair by C. S. Lewis. She is sometimes called briefly the Green Lady , and she is known also as the Emerald Witch; neither name, however, appears in Lewis's text...
to overthrow the kingdom. Though he still has his faults, mainly stubbornness and rash decision-making, Eustace displays little of his former odiousness, and he and Jill begin to develop affection towards one another. He wholeheartedly rejects the insipid philosophy offered by the Lady in favour of the Narnian life he has grown to love. He helps Prince Rilian to escape the underworld and return to Narnia, just in time to meet his aged father, who dies shortly afterwards; Caspian was now an elderly man as 50 years had passed since Eustace had first been in Narnia.
Eustace then meets Caspian in Aslan's Country, where Caspian is resurrected and restored to the youth and strength which Eustace remembered from half a century earlier in Narnia. At the very end of the story Caspian is briefly translated into Eustace's world, something he has wanted ever since he met Eustace's cousins 53 years earlier, to help the two friends scare off the gang of bullies in the grounds of the school and give the school the badly needed upheavals it needs to become a well-managed school.
Following the custom of their school, Eustace and Jill address each other by their respective surnames, "Scrubb" and "Pole".
The Last Battle
Eustace and Jill are sent to Narnia shortly before its destruction to help young King Tirian rally supporters for one last battle to save Narnia. The friends show great courage and wisdom but the Narnian forces ultimately go down to defeat.As one of the "friends of Narnia" from Earth, who still believes in Narnia and follows the principles of that world and of Aslan, Eustace is spared from the end of Narnia. At the end of the novel it is revealed that he, along with Jill, Lucy, Edmund and Peter, has been killed in a railway accident and has been translated into Aslan's country to live in eternal happiness.
Themes
In Lewis' essay The Abolition of ManThe Abolition of Man
The Abolition of Man is a 1943 book by C. S. Lewis. It is subtitled "Reflections on education with special reference to the teaching of English in the upper forms of schools," and uses that as a starting point for a defense of objective value and natural law, and a warning of the consequences of...
, he argues that modern education is producing "men without chests" – people whose lives are divided between the purely cerebral and the purely visceral, without any middle ground of sentiment or imagination—and Eustace (in his initial state) is clearly intended to be one of these. In the same essay, however, Lewis denies the suggestion that he is attacking intellect as such, and in his book on Miracles he even argues for the scholastic
Scholasticism
Scholasticism is a method of critical thought which dominated teaching by the academics of medieval universities in Europe from about 1100–1500, and a program of employing that method in articulating and defending orthodoxy in an increasingly pluralistic context...
belief that the intellect is our participation in the supernatural world. Similarly, he was not against progress in the sense of objectively justifiable social improvement, but did oppose purely fashionable progressivism, and in particular what he called "chronological snobbery
Chronological snobbery
Chronological snobbery, a term coined by friends C. S. Lewis and Owen Barfield, is a logical argument describing the erroneous argument that the thinking, art, or science of an earlier time is inherently inferior when compared to that of the present...
", the view that the superiority of modern values can always be assumed automatically and without investigation.
Portrayal
In the BBC production, Eustace was portrayed by David ThwaitesDavid Thwaites
David Barry Thwaites is a British actor and producer. He is most notable for his television appearances as a teenager.In 1989, aged 13, he appeared as Eustace Scrubb in the BBC's adaptation of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. A year later he reprised this role in The Silver Chair ...
.
Will Poulter
Will Poulter
William Jack Poulter is an English actor, most notable for his roles as Lee Carter in Son of Rambow, and as Eustace Scrubb in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.-Career:...
plays Eustace in the Walden Media film adaptation
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is a 2010 3D fantasy-adventure film based on The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the third novel in C. S. Lewis's epic fantasy series The Chronicles of Narnia . It is the third installment in The Chronicles of Narnia film series from Walden Media...
, directed by Michael Apted. Among the alterations for the film is that when Eustace is turned into a dragon, he proves his true identity to Edmund by flying him to where he has used his fire breath to carve the sentence, "I am Eustace" on the ground. Once establishing his identity, the agonizingly undersized bracelet Eustace was wearing when he was transformed into a dragon is quickly removed with Lucy's help. Afterward and still in his dragon form Eustace accompanies the Dawn Treader on its quest to the next islands and earns the respect of the crew first by towing the ship when it is caught in magically imposed doldrums and later aiding the crew in battle against the sea serpent
Sea serpent
A sea serpent or sea dragon is a type of sea monster either wholly or partly serpentine.Sightings of sea serpents have been reported for hundreds of years, and continue to be claimed today. Cryptozoologist Bruce Champagne identified more than 1,200 purported sea serpent sightings...
on the Dark Island, but gets injured. It is here that Aslan restores Eustace to normal, but only by scratching off the dragon's skin. Eustace's final redemption comes when he races to lay the seventh magic sword at Aslan's Table, unleashing the swords' power to defeat the evil of Dark Island and saving his friends.