Reading Through Pictures: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

Pictures as the visual elements of the narrative have become one of the commonest features in fantastic fiction. Boundless imaginative landscapes offered by this genre are transferred into visual ele¬ments in varied forms and shape, complex or simple. Though the mere existence of such illustrations or pictures strengthen the idea that the fantastic is children's literature, the obvious and intricate relationship between the pictures and the narration provides an interesting point that deserves analysis. As the use of illustrations has become traditionalized, inter-pictural relations can be established similar to intertextuality. Pictural traces among the texts may help to reveal fresh insights concerning the nature of the narration in the fantastic. C. S. Lewis' The Lion, the Witch and the Wadrobe as one of the most important fantastic novels of English literature serves as a well example to such enterprise. In this study, the inter-pictural relations in The Lion, the Witch and the Wadrobe, with regard to Caroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Le Guin's The Wizard of Earthsea will be established and their contribution to the meaning and the narration will be discussed.