finding God’s existence and His role in changing the life of the author as it is expressed above. Therefore, there is a close and inseparable relation between the
authors and their literary work. It is like the author’s life experiences become the cause of the creation of the literary work. As a consequence, it is important to
examine the life of the author as profound material in making literary research where we can find a basic foundation in our effort to understand and appreciate a
particular literary work. By looking at the prominent connection, the writer finds it important to
make a review of the biography of the author in this research to reveal how symbols are used as the medium to express
author’s life, especially as a Christian. The review mostly cites from the autobiography of C.S Lewis entitled Surprised
by Joy: the shape of my early life. However, the writer will also refer to secondary data gotten from reviews by Clyde.S. Kilby’s The Christian World of C.S. Lewis,
Veronica Heley’s The Lion, The Witch The Wardrobe by CS Lewis, and Vicente Forés
López’s C.S Lewis.
1. Early life and interest in literature
C. S Lewis was born at Belfast, Northern Ireland, in November, 29
th
1989. His father, Albert J. Lewis, was a solicitor and his mother, Flora Augusta
Hamilton Lewis, was a descendant of clergyman, lawyers, and sailors. They were both keen readers. His father was very fond of Trollope’s political novels, poetry
provided with the elements of rhetoric and pathos or both. His mother was a voracious reader of good novels; especially those from Meredith and Tolstoy.
Those interests were inherited by him. At about three years old, He and his brother, Warren, who had been like very close friends, started to share their
similar interests in drawing and in writing their imaginative literature as it is expressed in Surprised by Joy
Our earliest pictures reveal it. His were of ships and trains and battles; mine, when not intimated from his, were of what we both called “dressed
animals”- and the anthropomorphized beasts of nursery literature. His earlier story-as my elder he preceded me in the transition from drawing to writing-
was called The Young Rajah . He already made India “his country”; Animal-
Land was mine Lewis, 1955:6. This imaginary country combined both modern life and medieval chivalry
was continuously developed until it became Warren’s Kingdom of India and was
Christened Boxen. They consistently spent their time in chronicling the adventures of Boxonians which as a consequence unified the brothers unified for
years to come. Lewis 1955:6 stated that most of their early literary activity is characterized by the shocking ignorance of natural form so that “Trees appear as
balls of cotton wool stuck on posts. As their parents were fond of reading their house was also rich in books arousing their interest in reading and writing. It also
encouraged their illustrations for their private pleasure in childish fantasies; which made them frequently live in their imagination. He recorded one of the most
imaginative experiences; something he said as the first beauty he had ever known which would later gave such a prominent influence on his life.
Once in those very early days my brother brought me into the nursery the lid of a biscuit tin which he had covered with moss and garnished with twigs
and flowers so as to make it a toy garden or a toy forest 1955:7.
2. Early experience in Christianity
