User:Lsommerer/Shift

Shift is a fictional character in the children's fantasy series The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis. Shift only appears in The Last Battle, the conclusion of the the seven series, where he is a main character. Shift is an ape who, like many animals in Lewis' work can talk. At the beginning of the book, he lives near his friend/servant Puzzle the donkey at the base of the Great Waterfall, next to the Cauldron Pool where the Great River starts its course to the sea. Lewis describes Shift as, "the cleverest, ugliest, most wrinkled Ape you can imagine."

Name
The name Shift may be a typical Narnian animal name, but it can also be viewed as a description of the character in the same manner as other characters in The Last Battle such as Jewel and Puzzle. In the case of Shift, his name picks up on the two themes of shiftiness (deception) and development (change/shift).

Prior story
Nothing is knows of Shift's history before he appears in chapter 1 of The Last battle. There Lewis says that he is so old that no one remembers when he came to live at the base of the great waterfall.

Character development

 * See also: The Last Battle: Plot summary

Throughout the book, Shift's greed serves as his primary motivation. Shift's actions to satisfy his greed increase in vileness as the story progresses. From lying to his "friend" Puzzle, he moves to manipulating the other talking animals of Narnia. In the end he has no problem murdering them and selling them into slavery to increase his own wealth and power. As Shift's actions become increasingly evil, he also becomes increasingly human in his appearance and in the way he presents himself. He dons human clothing and explains that he is not an ape, and that if he appears as one, it is only because he is "so very old: hundreds and hundreds of years old."

Shift gains the power to pursue these actions by tricking Puzzle into impersonating Aslan, the true leader of Narnia. Later, to secure the assistance of the neighboring country Colorman, he insists that their god Tash and Aslan are one in the same. Shift meets his end when he is forced to confront Tash and is eaten.

Christian elements
Lewis, himself an expert on allegory, did not consider The Chronicles of Narnia allegory. He saw them as "suppositional" answering the question, "What might Christ become like, if there really were a world like Narnia and He chose to be incarnate and die and rise again in that world as He actually has done in ours?' This is not allegory at all." While not allegorical, Narnia does present significant parallels with elements from Christianity.

Shift is most often compared to the antichrist from the biblical book of Book of Revelation.


 * Revelation 13:15 can be seen as a passable description of Shift's hold over the Narnians: "And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed." Shift's ability to present his false Aslan is what compels the Narnians to obey him, and the Calormenes kill those who resist.

John J. Miller writing for National Review suggests that Shift is intended as a type of the Catholic Church: "I find it hard to see the ape Shift in The Last Battle, for example, as anything other than a satire of Roman Catholicism in general and the papacy in particular."

Quotations
"Now attend to me. I want--I mean, Aslan wants--some more nuts. These you've brought aren't anything near enough."