Death is one of the few things in life that we can be absolutely certain of. But the way we view death as humans, as rational agents, as mortal beings, changes with time and circumstance. Once a distant consideration, it becomes vital and all-consuming after a dismal diagnosis or after a few decades. Many characters, plots, and themes throughout literature explore the means by which human beings come to understand and accept (or refuse to accept) the inevitability of death through our development. This growing understanding is perhaps best encapsulated in coming-of-age stories, most notably the adolescent hero's journey. By examining The Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis and Harry Potter by JK Rowling, we can witness, through the characters and their quests, the adolescent mind's grappling with the concept of mortality. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Psychologically, metaphorically, and thematically, the adolescent heroes of these series are forced to confront and ultimately defeat death. Themes of renewal and redemption in religious and secular contexts characterize both works, and the fantastical settings of the wizarding world and the world of Narnia provide conditions for discussing and defining mortality that would not be available in a contemporary bildungsroman. Thus, the adolescent fantasy offers a particularly interesting perspective on the growing understanding of mortality in the adolescent mind. Additionally, the confrontations with death that appear throughout these works are ostensibly intended to bring comfort and enlightenment to young adolescent audiences through themes of resilience, renewal, and hope. The hero's journey monomyth, first outlined by Joseph Campbell, has been variably redefined and applied in recent decades. In our discussion of journeys to Narnia and Harry Potter, we will focus on what is classically called "the approach to the deepest cave" and "the ordeal." In comparative literature scholar David Leeming's story The Hero's Journey, he defines this more explicitly as the descent into hell. “In the descent into hell, the hero finds himself an explorer of the very kingdom of death. The hero, as man's agent, confronts in depth what man himself fears so much. The hero is our hope to overcome death and understand its meaning. This "decent" arguably appears in every volume of each of these series, but we will focus here on the trials of the final works of each series, because the descents that occur there thematically encompass those that occur earlier in the series . In The Last Battle, the young human heroes (in this case Eustace and Jill) face death literally and metaphorically in the stable episode. Like the wardrobe in Lewis's first published novel, the stable in The Last Battle acts as a portal to another, larger world – but unlike the wardrobe, the stable is not so much an initial threshold as 'a very final threshold. “The stable door becomes a metaphor for death,” explains author and theologian Paul Ford, “on this side of the door, death is terrifying, black, unknown; but on the other side is the glory of Aslan’s country.” Indeed, we discover during the heroes' passage to Aslan's country that they indeed died in a railway accident in the "real" world. However, before the heroes reach this understanding, they are forcedto face the fear of death and the unknown during the final and futile battle with the Calormenes. The theological threads of Lewis's earlier works make it easier for adolescent heroes to confront this unknown; they already know the concept of other worlds and the value of faith. The description of their final battle is almost light-hearted, almost heartwarming: "In a way, it wasn't quite as bad as you might think." When you use all your muscles to their fullest…you don’t have much time to feel scared or sad” (The Last Battle 148). Jill and Eustace's confrontation with death is described more as a departure for another adventure than as a terrifying finality. “All their life in this world and all their adventures had been only the cover and the title page: now they were finally beginning the first chapter of the Great History that no one on earth has read” (The Last Battle 211) . , although less theological, the theme appears in the Harry Potter books. Our hero Harry often receives direct wisdom on matters of inevitable mortality, usually from Albus Dumbledore. In addition to serving as Harry's guide, Dumbledore plays a special role in developing Harry's understanding and ultimate acceptance of death. Just as Aslan prepares the Narnian heroes for their final encounter with death, Dumbledore carefully and almost systematically prepares Harry throughout the series. In the very first novel, he tells Harry: "To a well-organized mind, death is only the next great adventure" (The Sorcerer's Stone, 240). Dumbledore reappears in Harry's most pivotal encounter with death in the final installment of the series, The Deathly Hallows. Equivalent to the Narnians' encounter with the stable, Harry also experiences a sort of supernatural afterlife in the chapter titled "King's Cross", in which he arrives at a heavenly version of King's Cross station after that Voldemort cast the killing curse on him. As in the stable door metaphor, the fear of death in Harry's case once again proves more problematic than its results. Dumbledore foreshadows the ordeal Harry faces during his final confrontation with death in the penultimate novel with some additional words of wisdom: "It is the unknown that we fear when we look upon death and darkness , nothing more” (The Half-Blood Prince 566). When Harry discovers that he must sacrifice himself to defeat Voldemort, he is simply terrified, but when he arrives in the other world of King's Cross, where it is "warm, light and peaceful" (The Deathly Hallows 609 ), his fears about death are allayed and he develops a greater concern for life's trials. “Thus, to some extent, the adolescent fantasy seems to negotiate with the power of death as the ultimate authority,” argues Vandana Saxena in her novel The Subversive Harry Potter. “Success lies in accepting continuity, in viewing death as the “next big adventure” in the series of events. » In addition to being structured as heroes' journeys with clear descents into the "underworld", these teen novels are further facilitated to explore mortality. through their fantastical contexts. Both the Wizarding World and the world of Narnia have the ability to play with time and physical existence in ways that make death potentially fleeting and/or reversible. In Narnia, the Pevensies live several lives, traveling to Narnia and then returning to "our world". In Prisoner of Azkaban, Hermione uses the Time Turner to almost double the length of each school day. In The Silver,.