Stained glass at St John the Baptist's Anglican Church http://www.stjohnsashfield.org.au, Ashfield, New South Wales. Illustrates Jesus' description of himself "I am the Good Shepherd" (from the Gospel of John, chapter 10, verse 11). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Today,
reviewed homework questions,
read part of chapter 9, where Edmund arrives at the Witch’s house. A theme of chapter 9 is “fear”. The theme for chapter 4 is “temptation”.
What are the themes for chapters 7 and 8?
The themes for chapter 7 and 8 are “hospitality” and “the wisdom of the past”.
Mini-lecture on C.S. Lewis’ ideas:
“enemy-occupied territory”:
(from Book II. What Christians Believe, in “Mere Christianity“「 キリスト教の精髄」. This has been translated into Japanese, but I cannot find an online version of it. If you find one, please tell me the URL.)
* 2. The Invasion
* “Christianity thinks this Dark Power was created by God, and was good when he was created, and went wrong. Christianity agrees with Dualism that this universe is at war. But it does not think this is a war between independent powers. It thinks it is a civil war, a rebellion, and that we are living in a part of the universe occupied by the rebel. Enemy-occupied territory-that is what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage.
* Christians, then, believe that an evil power has made himself for the present the Prince of this World.”
“Better to rule in hell than to serve in heaven” (spoken by Satan in “Paradise Lost” by John Milton).
Homework:
Vocabulary – what is the meaning in context of the following words from chapters 9-10?
cold shoulder
flask
scheme
grave
spire
solemn
lithe
sluice gate
cordial
What makes Edmund afraid (list as many examples as you can find in chapters 9-10)?
How does he respond?
What does this tell us about his character?
Find examples of jealousy in chapters 9-10.
What items do the Beavers pack?
List the presents Father Christmas gives to the children.
What do the presents tell us about the children’s characters?
Father Christmas says, the girls are not to fight in the battle. Why not? Do you agree?
(The picture on the right is the cover of Lewis’ “The Screwtape Letters”. My father had this book on his bookshelf when I was a child. He recommended it to me, but I was not interested in it. I am reading this book now, thirty years later. I felt nostalgic when I saw this picture, so I used it here.)
Homework #1: Please type your comments to last week’s book reports on the blog.
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Reading and checking homework: chapter 10 and 11.
Book reports: we had the last two book reports today: The Last Battle and The Screwtape Letters. The Screwtape Letters was a very popular book, and was read by many people. Before that, Lewis was not well known except to other academics (professors) and students of English Literature. His BBC broadcasts (1944) were so popular that he was asked to do more. He collected his talks into a book called Mere Christianity キリスト教の世界。In these talks, he talked to ordinary people about Christianity.
Homework #2: I assigned each student 2 words or phrases from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Please check the Japanese meaning of your words. Next week, bring to class the meaning, a picture or photograph to illustrate the words/phrases, and (if you got the illustration from the Internet) the URL (web address) where you got the illustration.
