Mrs. Macready

Mrs. Macready is the housekeeper of the old Professor who hosts the four Pevensie children during the war. She is introduced as a woman who is not fond of children and who runs the large, ancient house with three servants named Ivy, Margaret, and Betty. Her authority over the domestic space and her dislike of being interrupted establish her as a figure of adult order and restriction, a contrast to the magical freedom the children will later discover.

Role in the Children's Adventures

Mrs. Macready's most significant function in the story is as the unwitting catalyst for the children's collective entry into Narnia. She had instructed Peter and Susan on their first morning that they must "keep out of the way whenever I'm taking a party over the house." When a party of sightseers arrives, the children, trying to avoid her and her group, find themselves chased through the house. They flee from room to room, eventually taking refuge in the room with the wardrobe. As they hear voices in the passage and someone fumbling at the door, Peter flings open the wardrobe and all four bundle inside. This act of hiding from Mrs. Macready and her tour party is the immediate cause of their second, collective journey into the magical land.

Narrative Significance

Mrs. Macready represents the mundane, rule-bound world of the Professor's house, a world that the children must physically escape to begin their adventure. Her strictness and the inconvenience of her tours create the pressure that forces the children into the wardrobe. She is a threshold guardian of the ordinary world, whose very prohibition against being in the way paradoxically pushes the protagonists across the magical threshold. Her character is flat and functional, defined by her single trait of being a strict housekeeper who dislikes children, and she disappears from the narrative once her role in propelling the children into Narnia is complete.