Similarities Between Out Of The Silent Planet And Narnia

Out of the Silent Planet is a Science Fiction novel written by C.S. Lewis. This genre of writing holds a mix of different and similar characteristics as Lewis’ Narnia books. Differences including direct mentioning of religion, and similarities such as the narrating style. These show that though it is a different genre Lewis still leaves similar pieces in each book or set of books. A major difference in Out of the Silent Planet compared to the Narnia novels is the direct religious references. In Narnia because it is not a religious allegory there are few a direct references to religion. Direct meaning characters praying, mentioning God or mentioning anything religious in general. These direct references to religion come up several times in

Lewis either breaks the fourth wall to mention the books in general or to comment to the audience. By commenting to the audience in both books it gives sort of this storyteller feel to it. This comes up in Out of the Silent Planet as the narrator says, “as anyone who has ‘kept house’ will understand, he found that his preparations for the morning had been even more incomplete than he supposed.” It also comes up in the Narnia books several times such as, “It was his own fault, and you can read about it in the other book.” The narrator also achieves the storyteller style in Narnia when he refers to himself saying, “I never heard of a dwarf who was a fool.” It becomes a sort of storyteller narration because he is adding on to the story as if he was telling to you right then and there. This narration also comes up when he mentions his book that the reader is currently reading. In Out of the Silent Planet the narrator says, “bearing on the events recorded in this book or whether it was merely an irresponsible dream.” This also happens in the Narnia book several times. Since Narnia is a children’s book it makes since that the story is a storyteller narrator because keeps the storytelling that children are used to from other figures in there life. Now Out of the Silent Planet is not written for a child audience so why does the narrating style stick. It could be purely accidental or it could be that Lewis did it on purpose for this book as well. Either way it shows that authors can employ the same writing techniques in vastly different