What were some of the literary influences Lewis used to compose The White Witch?
Tracking down Lewis’s influences could be a book in itself. Certainly he used aspects from a number of literary sources to then create characters which were all his own. The White Witch has elements in common with Hans Christian Andersen’s Snow Queen. Both characters seem fair but feel foul, to borrow words from Frodo. Like Tolkien’s villain Sauron, the Witch desires to dominate everyone around her, to “rule them all.” Like Milton’s Satan, she will not be a subject, but must be a tyrant and have subjects of her own. In one sense, the creators of all of these villains drew upon the same source: real tyrants, who, despite great differences in time and place, all share similar motivations and a similar narrowness of perspective. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe contains several prophecies, mostly regarding the Pevensie children. Why did Lewis find it important to include such prophecies in his story? In his essay “On Stories” Lewis describes a class of stories which “turns on fulfille
