Prince Caspian — Chapter 5

Narration Prompt

Summarize the chapter's argument or narrative arc, then identify the central tension and evaluate whether the author handles it honestly.

Discussion Questions

1. Lewis stages the novel's central ethical question — whether an individual can transcend the moral debts of his group — as a domestic argument between a badger and two dwarfs. Evaluate this choice. Does embedding the question in such a specific, even homely, dramatic situation strengthen or weaken its philosophical force?
2. Nikabrik functions in this chapter as the voice of historical memory and justified resentment. Lewis's narrative structure positions him as wrong. Is he wrong? And if Lewis needs him to be wrong for the plot to work, what does that dependency reveal about the limits of Lewis's moral argument?

+ 2 more questions in the complete study guide