Summer Challenge 2018: Eustace Sharing Thread

[Benisse]

During the 2018 The Lion's Call Summer Challenge, we will collaborate in a character study of Eustace between August 13-18, looking at selections from
• The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (August 13-14),
• The Silver Chair (August 15-16), and
• The Last Battle (August 17-18).

Specifically we welcome posts on your observations, impressions/interpretations of, or lessons regarding Eustace:
1. His growth arc - development (or not!) from passage to passage
2. How Eustace responds to a given crisis or issue - how he responds and what that shows about his values and character
3. What lessons (to follow or avoid) or principles can be learned from Eustace's example in a specific passage?
4. Feel free to add your favorite quotes about and by Eustace to the Quotable Eustace thread:
viewtopic.php?f=76&t=818

Your responses can be written comments in prose or poetry,
or your original artwork (like depictions of favorite scenes, or "before/after" artistic interpretations of his worldview, values, etc),
or any other modes of response that you think of

So get these three chronicles off your shelf or from the local library and let's delve into Eustace's adventures, character and values this month. Sounds like fun, yes?

The Voyage of the Dawntreader
August 13
Chapters 1-2 We are introduced to Eustace in these first chapters. Suggested additional reflection questions:
What details in these chapters reveal his character?
What does he like/dislike?
What are his gifts and his weaknesses?
What can you learn from this version of Eustace?

August 14
Chapters 5-7 These chapters focus on Eustace’s attitudes and behavior on board, and trace the beginning of his transformation. Suggested additional reflection questions:
What details in these chapters reveal his character?
What does he like/dislike?
What are his gifts and his weaknesses?
What can you learn from this version of Eustace?

The Silver Chair
August 15
Chapter 1 - Observe: “You think there has been a change, then?”

Chapter 5 - Observe: “I don’t think Aslan would have sent us if there was so little chance as all that.”

August 16
Chapter 8 - Observe: “The second and third signs muffed,” and “We must just own up.”


Chapter 15 - “I wonder am I small enough to get through where Jill did?”

The Last Battle
August 17
1. Eustace & Jill's arrival. Chapter 5
2. Eustace begs to stay. Chapter 9 paragraph 3 “Tirian nodded” to “So I was jolly glad to find ourselves here instead.”

August 18
3. Eustace's first full-scale battle. Chapter 11 paragraph 8 “It was so lovely it made you want to cry” to Chapter 12 paragraph 2 “It was Eustace.”
4. Reunion (and some dwarfs who refused to be taken in). Chapter 13 paragraph 8 “When they had eaten enough” to ”Well done last of the kings of Narnia who stood firm at the darkest hour.”

[Ariel.of.Narnia]

(Ugh, I had a nice, long reflection written up and then my phone flipped out....)

VDT: Chapter 1

I think it’s easy to pin Eustace as the whiny, selfish brat that he is. And to a point, that is an accurate assessment of him. However in this first chapter, I don’t think we can blame him for quite as much as we would like to. After all, he is pulled completely out of his element. A picture comes to life, he’s thrown into an ocean (and can’t swim, so we can’t blame him for panicking), he’s surrounded by a bunch of strangers, his cousins don’t understand what a quandary he’s in, he doesn’t see a way home, and there’s an obscenely huge Talking Mouse on top of that. That’s a lot to throw on any person in just a few minutes, whether or not they read adventure books or play make-believe.

A lot of his problems are based in the kind of life that he lives and the people he’s grown up with. His parents’ lifestyle comes off as being more snobbish in nature than because of frugal necessity. We know from SC that his school is a joke and run by bullies (of whom he is one). He’s mean and petty, selfish and rude.

Yet, even in chapter one, he’s not all bad attributes. Despite Lewis’ description of his being “stupid”, Eustace shows signs of intelligence. He is practical (later, he realizes before the rest that a dragon could not undress a man, which they all should have known), knowledgeable about a range of things (from art to steam engines!), and puts stock in real-world results (hence his opinion of make-believe). For good or ill, he’s also got a bit of tough skin: Edmund’s hostility doesn’t appear to faze him.

[Benisse]

I like your recasting Eustace in light of his family and upbringing, Ariel.

[Ariel.of.Narnia]

Thanks, Benisse!

VDT: Chapter 2

And now we come to the part where I really can’t defend Eustace, apart from being irritable while sick. Indeed, Lewis says that as soon as he stopped wailing about the “storm”, Eustace proceeds to make demands, threats against Caspian and Reepicheep, a diary in which to grouse, and a spot of “fun” at the expense of Reep. If he was rude and selfish before, it’s just got worse. His bullying escalates to physical tormenting (and he either hasn’t got it through his head that Reep is his own person, or he simply doesn’t care). He walks about with his nose in the air, taking no consideration for the fact that these people wouldn’t know about things in his world any more than he knows theirs (and, frankly, he only knows so much himself about the things he’s spouting off). He makes no effort at all to connect with, understand, or even care about anybody on the ship. This makes things miserable for him, as we all know.
Also of note, he mentions to his diary that it’s lucky he’s not seasick. Even to his private booklet (and therefore himself), he lies about Lucy’s involvement in that piece of “luck”, preferring to chalk it up to his own body and good fortune.

[Ajnos]

Thanks for sharing, Ariel. I think Eustace is an intersting combination of having a bad upbringing/context and having inherrently bad attitudes (something we all have when we are unsaved, but that manifests itself differentky in different people). I guess he's an interesting contrast to Edmund in the first half of LWW in that respect. He had more favourable circumstances (brought up by the same parents as Lucy and Peter) but was a brat in his own way.

Ajjie is very busy at the moment. I'm preparing for a three week trip to Europe where I'll be speaking at 2 conferences and I'm moving to another city and starting a new job in the next 2 month and a half so I'm a little overwhelmed but I'll try take part as best I can.

Day 1
I was struck by the following quote:
“He thought of course that they were making it all up; and as he was far too stupid to make anything up himself, he did not approve of that.” ((p.s. wrote this before seeing Ariel's comments on the same quote))

It's interesting that Lewis refers to Eustace as stupid because, given the other information we know about him, he is anything but. He loves to read books of “information” and knows about insects like beetles. He apparently knows a whole lot about art theory, because Edmund is worried that Lucy's comment on the picture will “get him started about Art and all that” and later we're told that “he knew a lot of answers” to Lucy's comments that it looked like the waves were really moving. He also shows off a detailed political knowledge for someone his age when he threatens to “lodge a disposition” with the “British consul”. He also knows about limericks and poetic devices like assonance (another thing Edmund is worried he will give them a lecture on). In fact, it seems like Eustace makes a habit of lecturing his cousins about things he has stores of knowledge on.

So why does Lewis call him “stupid”? Well the context of the description is that he is “too stupid to make anything up for himself” so I think Lewis is pointing to the difference between knowledge and wisdom. Eustace is full of random head-knowledge and apparently loves to rattle off what he knows to other people (something which really annoys Edmund). But he has no imagination and doesn't know how to apply the things he knows. This is evidenced by his reaction to the painting “coming to life”. He assumes Lucy and Edmund are playing a “silly trick” on him. He can't deal with the possibility that what he is seeing mig be real and so he tries to rationalise what he is experiencing.

And I think this is the crux of what Lewis is trying to teach us. Head-knowledge is not enough if it is not applied with wisdom and imagination. It doesn't matter if you know all sorts of random theoretical stuff if all you can so with it is show off and annoy people. If you act like that, you might think you are very clever but actually you're being rather foolish. And that kind of attitude can close your mind to truths that don't fit in nicely with your rational way of thinking.

This is a lesson I need to keep in mind working in Academia.

Three proverbs about fools:
“The tongue of the wise uses knowledge rightly, but the mouth of fools pours forth foolishness.” Proverbs‬ ‭15:2‬‬

“A fool has no delight in understanding, but in expressing his own heart.” Proverbs‬ ‭18:2‬

“A fool’s mouth is his destruction, and his lips are the snare of his soul.” ‭‭Proverbs‬ ‭18:7‬ ‭(NKJV‬‬)

[Swanwhite]

Chapter 1 & 2

I was also noting how much of his outlook is learned from his parents. He has clearly inherited a great deal of their conceit and habits. (I'm not sure though whether Eustace for himself has the obsession with new trends that his parents have. He's not necessarily keen on newness for his own part.) The other thing I noticed was how much stock he puts in academic success. I think C. S. Lewis writes Eustace as almost a parody of himself. Eustace's flaws are mostly an exaggeration of Lewis's flaws. As an academic prodigy of sorts Lewis must have been tempted to be a snob about that at times, and I think Lewis too had a tendency towards self-pity.


Eustace Scrubb
built a castle from
numbers in a notebook
that could prove his worth,

but sadly knowledge of geography
is not the earth
and a limerick
is not the same as mirth.

[Ariel.of.Narnia]

@Ajjie: Thanks for bringing up what you did about Eustace’s “stupid” nature. That’s some good thought there!

@Swan: Your poem sums up Eustace quite well and even has a lesson in it.


I got distracted and used up all my time, so I only read one chapter today.

VDT: Chapters 5

Though any of us would complain about a storm, how tired we were as a result, the poor rations, and the question of what to do and where to go, Eustace spends most of his time complaining about /people/. So much so, that he fails to recognize that they did ask for his opinion, but he merely labelled it as “instead of producing a better plan, they had the cheek to ask what I proposed.” It also doesn’t cross his mind that Lucy took pity on him when she offered to share her ration; to him, she did it for “some reason”.

Interesting that he justifies his attempt for extra water by declaring himself unselfish by not waking the others and asking for more water. Even more interesting is his statement, “I always try to consider others whether they are nice to me or not.” Again, he is lying to his diary (and therefore himself), choosing to take it easy on himself and to villainize the rest.

Again, he casts everyone as out to get him when he fears they’ve left him behind. I wonder if this is something instinctual gained by his school experience. As a bullying victim, he’s always had to be careful about Them; as a bully himself, he may have feared retaliation from his victims. If he’s ever had friends, he doesn’t seem to remember what that’s like, and his cousins aren’t his biggest fans either, so behaviour other than what he’s accustomed to is entirely foreign to him.

I think a takeaway is wrapped up in a single word: perspective. He never once puts himself in someone else’s shoes. Even though he knows about unselfishness and being kind when someone doesn’t deserve it, he’s oblivious to the unselfishness and kindness of others, and particularly toward himself. He refuses to see anything in any way other than his preferred version of the tale, however false it may be.

[Ariel.of.Narnia]

VDT: Chapters 6-7

Curious that Eustace thought the old dragon as "sad". I really have no explanation for that.

It's amazing how quickly Eustace's attitude changes after his transformation. Though he harbours dragonish thoughts for at least a moment, he does realize that being a dragon is an awful thing. Which is perhaps in itself amazing since he knows nothing about dragons apart from his short observation of the old one and checking out the cave, and yet he is able to come to that conclusion.

I hadn't thought of this till this time around: Eustace grew up as a vegetarian, but apart from that factoid at the very beginning of chapter one, it never comes up again. How well did he adjust to eating meat on the Dawn Treader? Did he even eat it onboard? Maybe, since he mentions that all the poultry was washed overboard by the storm, and the eggs were a bit of an afterthought in his diary? At any rate, if he had any shock at eating almost a whole dragon's worth of meat here, he at least had the dragonish tastes and digestion to filter it for him.

Imagine the impact it would have had on Eustace to hear everyone, not just his cousins and Caspian, say that they had his back and would try to find a way to free him of his enchantment! There's not been any indication of any of the crew being rude directly to him, and we know for certain that Rhince didn't like him, but still. That's a lot of sudden support from a whole bunch of people he knows don't like him. And, as Lewis states, it does greatly affect him: liking people and being liked is the only thing keeping him from despair.
That said, he still feels shame. A rightful one, I believe. He is sorry for the way he's been and what he's become, even though he's getting along with the others so well now. Despite his immense usefulness and his eagerness to help, he doesn't puff up with pride (at least, not the hurtful sort). He is humbled by his time as a dragon.

I could wax poetic about the un-dragoning. In fact, I have. I went through a period of my own during which I became a dragon of my own and, yes, tried to "undress" myself till I eventually did as Eustace did and let the Lion do it. This poem, though it looks at Eustace specifically, reflects myself during that time as well. I'll just leave this link here, since it covers most of what I'd want to say and because it's late and I need to get to bed.... (fanfiction.net is not affiliated with TLC; click at your own risk) https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8094871/1/Dragon

[Swanwhite]

VDT Chapters 5 & 6
I think seeing the old dragon sad and dying alone is a picture of what could be Eustace's fate if he doesn't change. It's like the tombstone in A Christmas Carol.
I hadn't noticed before how much like a dragon Eustace has already behaved. In The Hobbit, I think there's a line about Smaug not really enjoying the treasure for its quality or beauty, but having a rough idea of its current market value, and clinging to it on that account. That sounds just like Eustace doing his school work for marks without caring about any subject for its own merit.
Also dragons are very isolated creatures because they, like Eustace, make enemies out of anyone they come in contact with (even other dragons). Dragons and Eustace are both entirely self-interested and quite inconvenient to have around.

[Swanwhite]

Oh, and I love your Dragon poem, Ariel!