The Abdication of Queen Susan (Part 3)

Quick note: I updated Part 2 on February 11 so you should read the updated version before reading this. 

Building off of our last post, we are trying to understand why Lewis is unhappy with Susan striving to reach, and then freeze at, the age of about 21. Most likely the reason is already found in Lewis' first words about Narnia, the dedication to his goddaughter.

I wrote this story for you, but when I began it, I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books. As a result, you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.

Here, Lewis makes the point that people at a certain age are (hopefully, temporarily) not interested in fairytales. What the consequences are for not reading fairytales is not stated, but we have some further evidence elsewhere in his writings:

When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.

OK, so here Lewis hints at the maturation of people. Humans are born as babies and become children. While sometimes children may be difficult to deal with, they are generally blessed with certain very positive characteristics. As discussed here, Lewis includes in that list simplicity, single-mindedness, affection, and teachable. R' Soloveitchik recognized similar characteristics including: simplicity, fiery enthusiasm, ingenuousness, gracefulness, tremors of fear, and devotion to their vivid experiences.

As humans mature, they tend to look down on their previous lack of maturity. However, doing so may include a dismissal of some of these very positive traits in an effort to prove to themselves and others that they are really "grown up." It is only the truly grown up who can reclaim the positive aspects of childhood. This process is almost Hegelian, the thesis of childhood, the antithesis expressed by those wanting to feel and be thought of as grown up, and, finally, the synthesis of the truly mature. 

There are of course, the rare few, like Lucy, who can keep the positive characteristics of children through the maturation process. But the rest of us may spend quite some time acting childish in our fear of being seen as children. There are also humans (in our times perhaps too many humans) who relinquish all aspects of childhood and never recover its positive aspects. Even worse, some do not even see the point in trying to recover those traits. This is (at the end of the Chronicles of Narnia) the current lot of Susan.

One characteristic noted by R' Soloveitchik stands out: a child's vivid experiences and their devotion to them. This is exactly Susan's failure. She, with her siblings, went through the most vivid of experiences when they were young. They were teleported to another world, set on a great quest, were victorious through bravery, kindness, and faith and were rewarded by royal crowns. 

Lucy and her brothers remained devoted to those experiences even as growing older. 

Susan dismissed her childhood as playing games.