In order to understand the action, it is helpful to review one of the pioneer works of language analysis - The Meaning of Meaning by Ogden and Richards. It posits two kinds of language, the referential and the emotive. Referential language refers to facts and objects; emotive language merely expresses feelings. Theological, moral, and esthetic judgments are by definition emotive, since they do not refer to physical facts and objects. The Green Witch tries to restore Prince Rilian's mental imprisonment, his confusion, by denying that words can point to anything outside of her kingdom, to anything transcendent. Rilian and the others tell her that something-the sun-exists outside her closed universe, but when they try to describe it by comparing it to a lamp she replies, "When you try to think out clearly what this sun must be, you cannot tell me. You can only tell me it is like the lamp. Your sun is a dream; and there is nothing in that dream that was not copied from the lamp". She almost convinces them that their language refers only to make-believe, that it is derived from her closed world, the empirical world of the senses(see comment by CH for origin of this).

But there are senses and senses. Puddleglum breaks the enchantment by treading out the fire and burning his foot. As Lewis comments, "There is nothing like a good shock of pain for dissolving certain kinds of magic". Puddleglum's pain helps him to realize that the Queen's underground world is dull. He says to the queen: "Suppose we have made up a dream world by playing a language game. Then all I can say is that... the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones." He adds, "We're leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland."