Narnian Ba'alei Teshuva: Eustace (Part 1)

There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it

The second great penitent of the Narnian Chronicles is Eustace Clarence Scrubb. We are introduced to Eustace, the cousin of the four Pevensie children, at the very beginning of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader:

There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it… He didn't call his Father and Mother "Father" and "Mother", but Harold and Alberta. They were very up-to-date and advanced people. They were vegetarians, non-smokers and teetotallers and wore a special kind of underclothes.

Lewis’ disgust with Eustace and the environment in which he was raised is immediately obvious.

Continuing further in the first chapter we find that Eustace never read the right kind of books (he read books with information, not of adventure and fantasy), that deep-down he liked bullying people, and had little imagination. In The Silver Chair we learn that he would constantly curry favor and dance attendance for the school bullies.

Eustace’s behavior on the Dawn Treader reflects his upbringing and personality. He views himself as far superior to others, he is impossible to satisfy, and he is quick to point out what’s wrong in any situation but refuses any attempt to solve anything. Borrowing from our previous definitions, we would say he is the very opposite of valiant.

Despite these very negative characteristics it would be a stretch to say Eustace is evil. He is stuck-up, immature, a whiner (kvetch), and a spoiled brat, but not evil. In fact, in his own eyes he’s a pretty good guy. This point is underscored by contrasting Eustace with Edmund. In fact, it is Edmund himself who makes the contrast: “Between ourselves, you haven't been as bad as I was on my first trip to Narnia. You were only an ass, but I was a traitor.”

One might think being an ass rather than a traitor would make penitence easier for Eustace than it was for Edmund. Via Screwtape, Lewis tells us this is not so, “The great (and tooth- some) sinners are made out of the very same material as those horrible phenomena, the great Saints.” To turn from sinner to saint one needs a change of direction. But how does one create a saint from a soul that is small and flabby (paraphrasing Screwtape)? From those whose minds are so muddled they do not understand the source of character of the prohibitions they are breaking? And indeed, at the beginning of the Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Eustace considers himself a good person who tries to help others by showing them the facts.

How does one resurrect such a soul?