Digory Kirke's Impossible Choice: Why He Chose to Trust Aslan Over the White Witch
Every encounter with ultimate Beauty is a call to discover a perfect world.
Professor Digory Kirke whose house “housed” Narnia was that very Digory from The Magician’s Nephew who had to face the most difficult choice a human could face. By some twist of fate, he was holding a magical apple of eternal youth that could heal his mother in an instant. And yet, he knew that Aslan had told him not to eat it but to bring it to him. Why trust Aslan?
He could put on the magical ring and return home in an instant. His mother would eat the apple and be well. Everything was in his hands. That’s exactly what Jadis, the White Witch, was trying to impress on him:
“But what about this Mother of yours whom you pretend to love so? Do you not see, Fool, that one bite of that apple would heal her? You have it in your pocket. We are here by ourselves and the Lion is far away. Use your Magic and go back to your own world.”
She was a master of persuasion. She knew exactly what to say and how to say it. “Oh,” gasped Digory, knowing that the most difficult choice lay before him. The Witch’s arguments were impeccable:
“‘What has the Lion ever done for you that you should be his slave?’ said the Witch. ‘What can he do to you once you are back in your own world? And what would your Mother think if she knew that you could have taken her pain away and given her back her life and saved your Father’s heart from being broken, and that you wouldn’t — that you’d rather run messages for a wild animal in a strange world that is no business of yours?”
Oh, what a choice! Digory was torn. But then Jadis overplayed her hand by saying that he could leave Polly behind. Digory woke up — her meanness was written all over her face. And he still remembered the face of the Lion when he had told him about his mother.
“…in his despair, he looked up at its face. What he saw surprised him as much as anything in his whole life. For the tawny face was bent down near his own and (wonder of wonders) great shining tears stood in the Lion’s eyes. They were such big, bright tears compared with Digory’s own that for a moment he felt as if the Lion must really be sorrier about his mother than he was himself.”
He saw something behind those eyes. He saw a whole world reflected in those tears. It was a call of Ultimate Beauty and a call to trust. It was a moment of Platonic anamnesis — re-collection. His soul remembered something it had always known. Behind these eyes, he saw a perfect world, a Narnia in Narnia where he would one day be. It was just a flash, but it was enough.
Years later, when everyone was pulled into the new Narnia, Professor Digory said to Tirian of the magical Stable, “Yes, the inside is bigger than the outside.” Every encounter with ultimate Beauty is a call to discover a perfect world. Digory had seen that perfect world in the Lion’s eyes when he was little. That face and those eyes helped him make the most difficult choice in a person’s life — the choice to let go.
He had carried this Platonic anamnesis throughout his life, and when Peter asked him in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe,
“But do you really mean, sir,” said Peter, “that there could be other worlds — all over the place, just round the corner — like that?”
he replied:
“Nothing is more probable,” said the Professor, taking off his spectacles and beginning to polish them, while he muttered to himself, “I wonder what they do teach them at these schools.”