Reading Log 3: The Silver Chair

Chapter 3: The Sailing of the King

Comprehension Questions

1. What did the old man look like? What did the dwarf look like?

• The old man was wearing a scarlet with a silver shirt which made him look rich. He got a gold circlet on his head and his beard was falling to his waist. His clothes seemed younger for his age, but his face and body was showing his oldness.
• The dwarf looked as rich as a King, yet, his body shape — fat and little — made him look like a bundle with fancy cover. He was old but looked so energetic as a young man. Also, he had a humongous bald head.

2. What did the courtiers look like? What were they?

• They looked too different from each other so Jill barely called them a crowd of people. Only one in five was a human. There were various of creatures that Jill could not name. The ones she managed to name were fauns, satyrs, centaurs, and dwarfs. Also, the animals she knew was there as well; bears, leopards, mice, and birds, etc. But, they were not exactly as same as the ones she saw in ordinary world. The size of some animals in Narnia was relatively bigger and they can stand on their foot and even can talk and think like a human.

3. Why couldn’t Jill understand the King’s speech?

• The King was stuttering and muttering because he was too old to speak properly.

4. Who was the King? Why did Eustace react to the information the way he did?

• The old man was the King Caspian and was an old friend of Eustace. He was miserable and sad to hear this news because the last time he met him, his friend was young. Now that he saw him as an old man, it was dreadful.

5. Why did Eustace wish he’d never come?

• Seeing the King Caspian who was his friend once as an old man was hard to endure for him.

6. What was supper in the great hall like?

• It was a grand event that they had ever seen in their lives. There were all the types of food and drinks along with fancy utensils and high courtesy, which impressed them greatly.

7. What happened when all the serious eating and drinking was over?

• After the supper, a blind poet stood up and told an old tale of Narnia during the age of the King Peter, called “The Horse and His Boy”.

Reflection

There were several things that I was a bit surprised or interested when I read this chapter. One is how Jill reacted when she came in a new place. There were a lot of strange and looking dangerous creatures, yet, she did not seem intimated or scared. Maybe those creatures were not as scary as lion that she met before. Another thing I found interesting was a mentioning about Experimental House that children study there do not know anything about Adam and Eve. I wondered that what the author of this book tried to express by this whole Experimental House, after all. It stayed a bit mysterious in my mind. Needless to say, meeting an old version of Prince Caspian was surely shocking. For the next chapter, I hope Jill and Eustace will meet many great people and interesting journey.