The Searcher | ExploreHere

ARTSCULTURE · HISTORICAL MARKER

The Searcher

Historical Marker Database · William Fischer, Jr.

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Arts & Culture

THE STORY

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Narrated · Plays hands-free in Travel Mode

C.S. "Jack" Lewis, an Ulsterman, writer, scholar, teacher, and Christian, was born in 1898 and reborn in 1931. The Searcher, by sculptor Ross Wilson, represents Digory Kirke, the narrator of The Magician's Nephew, a literary character created by C.S. Lewis. In that story, Digory makes a wardrobe from a beautiful apple tree with magical properties, and through this wardrobe and the imagination of the heart, C.S. Lewis opens a pathway for children to see and enter Narnia. Ross Wilson connected the wardrobe with ideas of sacrifice, redemption, victory, and freedom for the Sons of Adam and the Daughters of Eve, presenting revelation within something ordinary and urging people not to stop looking because great things can be found in common places. In a letter of 5 March 1951 to Anne Waller, age 10, from Magdalene College, Cambridge, C.S. Lewis explained that the whole Narnian story is about Christ, imagining a world like Narnia that had gone wrong and in which Christ might enter to save it, becoming a lion there as he became a man here. He said The Magicians Nephew tells the creation of Narnia and how evil entered it; The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe tells the crucifixion and resurrection; Prince Caspian tells the restoration of the true religion after corruption; The Horse and his Boy tells the calling and conversion of a heathen; The Voyage of the Dawn Treader tells the spiritual life, especially in Reepicheep; The Silver Chair tells the continued way against the powers of darkness; and The Last Battle tells the coming of the Antichrist, the end of the world, and Last Judgement. C.S. Lewis also wrote that Christianity is about a world that is a great sculptor's shop, where people are the statues and there is a rumor that some of them are someday going to come to life.

PHOTOS

Photo: William Fischer, Jr.