Lewis suggested that he did not directly intend to write his Narnia stories as Christian tales, but that these aspects appeared subconsciously as he wrote, although the books did become Christian as they progressed. He thought that the tales were not direct representations or allegory, but that they might evoke or remind readers of Biblical stories.
The Magician’s Nephew has reflecting aspects of The Book of Genesis such as the creation, original sin and temptation.
Parallels with events in Genesis include the forbidden fruit represented by an Apple of Life. Queen Jadis resembles the Biblical Satan, as Aslan describes her as the first evil brought into the Narnia and Jadis later tempts Digory to eat one of the forbidden apples in the garden, as does Satan, disguised as a serpent, tempt Adam and Eve into eating a forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. Unlike Adam and Eve however, Digory rejects Jadis’s offer.
While the creation of Narnia closely echoes the creation of the Earth in the Book of Genesis, there are a number of important differences. In Narnia the fall takes place before the creation and human beings are not created in Narnia by Aslan, they are brought into Narnia from our own world.
On a number of occasions in the Chronicles of Narnia, Aslan uses his breath to give strength to characters, demonstrating his benevolent power or bringing life. He specifically does so in The Magician’s Nephew when a ‘long warm breath’ gives life to Narnia.
Lewis used the symbol of the breath to represent the Holy Spirit, also known as the Holy Ghost. The flash from the stars when the Narnian animals are given the ability to talk also most probably represents the Holy Spirit.
The Magician’s Nephew suggests two opposing approaches to nature, a good approach associated with Aslan as creator and an evil approach associated with human deviation from divine intentions and the harmony of a natural order. On the one hand there is the beauty of Aslan’s creation of Narnia, which is suggested as having a natural order by the use of musical harmony to bring landscapes and living things into being. Lewis himself was a strong believer in the intrinsic value of nature for itself, rather than as a resource to be exploited. This is perhaps reflected in how Aslan also gives speech to spiritual aspects of nature, such naiads in the water and dryads in the trees. Andrew Ketterley and Jadis represent an opposite, evil approach of bending the forces of nature to human will for the purpose of self gain. They see nature solely as a resource to use for their plans and thus disturb and destroy the natural order.
