What does Reepicheep represent in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader?

The energy of Nature is play. It always plays — it never appears working. Even when the bee works like a bee, it still appears as playing and dancing. The earth rests in the embrace of heaven. It is relaxed. It has nothing better to do than to play. According to Johan Huizinga, the Dutch historian and author of Homo Ludens, the energy of play is the energy of relaxation.

He noticed that when a person is forced to do something, they can’t play. They can only march. Looking closely at Nazi Germany in the 1930s, he knew that this regime was doomed because it was based on forcing. He noticed that people in Germany were not playing. They were marching. Performing. Achieving. But not playing.

Play is something that is impossible to force. A person is simply unable to play when they don’t feel free. When there’s no play, there is no spirit of innovation. When there’s no spirit of innovation, there is no Life. Forcing people to march backfires. They forget what all nature knows instinctively — the Universe is playing all the time. Everything plays.

Sunlight plays on the leaves of the trees. Shadows play across the walls at dusk. Rain plays a gentle rhythm on the rooftop. Children play in the open field. Laughter plays in the air at the family gathering. Flames play in the fireplace on a cold night. Waves play along the shore. Stars play hide and seek behind the clouds.

Breezes play with the curtains in the open window. Reflections play on the surface of a pond. Fireflies play in the evening air. Moonlight plays on the rippling water. Words play in the mind of a poet. Whispers play between the leaves in the forest. Memories play in the heart, echoing through time. Silence plays in the wee hours of dawn.

The energy of play is the energy of God. Wisdom says in Proverbs 8:30,

“Then I was beside Him as a master craftsman; and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him, rejoicing in His inhabited world, and my delight was with the sons of men.”

The word often translated as “rejoicing” here is derived from the Hebrew verb ?????? (?ā?aq), which means “to laugh,” “to play,” “to rejoice,” or “to sport.”

Every dancing leaf embodies the mystery of this primordial play. It throbs in us too. When we don’t march, we know how it feels. It calls us to play. Often, we dismiss this gentle call and forgo the primordial pleasure of Divine Sophia. But it still calls us to participate in the mystery. Like Gandalf, it nudges us into the ultimate adventure.

Reepicheep in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader embodies the spirit of Divine Sophia when he says he will stay at Aslan’s table until dawn. The bewildered company asks, “But why?” “There’s too much magic here!”

“Because,” said the Mouse, “this is a very great adventure, and no danger seems to me so great as that of knowing when I get back to Narnia that I left a mystery behind me through fear.”

Mystery calls. And no mystery is worth leaving behind, whatever the price. It’s our only chance to play well in this life. How much are we willing to pay to partake of the mystery of life? It is Divine Sophia calling us to participate in the Great Dance.

Reepicheep is the one who can’t forgo the pleasure of participating in the real play — the only adventure worth having. He knows that life’s too short to forgo the only thing that makes you alive. At the end of the book, Reepicheep says:

“My own plans are made. While I can, I sail east in the Dawn Treader. When she fails me, I paddle east in my coracle. When she sinks, I shall swim east with my four paws. And when I can swim no longer, if I have not reached Aslan's country, or shot over the edge of the world in some vast cataract, I shall sink with my nose to the sunrise...”