The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis
"The Great Divorce" by C.S. Lewis is a fantasy work that explores themes of morality, choice, and the stark contrast between heaven and hell. Presented as a dream narrated by an anonymous character, the story opens with the narrator standing in a queue in a dreary, twilight town. The narrative unfolds as he boards a bus that transports passengers to a vibrant, heavenly land, where encounters between ghosts and benevolent spirits highlight the struggles of souls seeking redemption. Each ghost represents various human flaws and struggles, such as egotism, possessiveness, and despair, while the spirits strive to guide them toward transformation and acceptance of divine grace.
The book also draws on Christian concepts, particularly the idea of moral choice and the consequences of one’s actions in both earthly and afterlife contexts. As the narrator learns from the Spirit of George MacDonald, these choices have a profound impact on one's eternal state. Despite its allegorical richness, the text notably does not delve into the necessity of faith in Christ for salvation, focusing instead on personal transformation and the moral implications of one's life choices. "The Great Divorce" stands as a thought-provoking exploration of the human condition and the possibilities of redemption, inviting readers to reflect on their own moral dilemmas and beliefs.
The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis
First published: 1945
Edition(s) used:The Great Divorce: A Dream. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001
Genre(s): Novella
Subgenre(s): Allegory; fantasy
Core issue(s): Conversion; death; time
Principal characters
Anonymous narrator Spirit of George MacDonald , the narrator’s teacherGhost of the Tousle-Headed Poet , a ghost who had committed suicideThe Big Ghost , a bullyThe Episcopal Ghost , a liberal theologianGhost of the Intelligent Man , a business entrepreneurThe Hard-Bitten Ghost , a cynicGhost of an egocentric woman Ghost of a grumbling woman Ghost of a seductress Ghost of an egotistical artist Ghost of a domineering wife Ghost of a possessive mother Ghost of a lustful man Spirit of Sarah Smith , spirit who is obscure on Earth but great in HeavenThe Dwarf-Tragedian , ghost of Sarah’s self-tormenting husband
Overview
The Great Divorce, as C. S. Lewis emphasizes in its Preface, is a fantasy about “trans-mortal” existence. This fantasy is cast in the form of a dream told by an anonymous narrator, the only character who has a dramatic existence both within and without the dream. It is not until the end of the work that the narrator openly discloses that his story was only a dream—although his opening words (“I seemed to be standing in a busy queue”) hint at that fact. His story, however, is replete with qualities of order, cohesion, intellectual depth, and narrative length that actual dreams never possess. As a vision of the “after-world,” The Great Divorce bears comparison with the vision of Er at the end of Plato’s Republic (388-368 b.c.e.), the New Testament book of Revelation (late first century c.e.), and Dante’s La divina commedia, c. 1320 (3 volumes; The Divine Comedy, 1802). As a novel, it is episodic and lacks a traditional plot.
Numerous autobiographical references in the narrator’s story clearly identify him as a fictional version of Lewis himself: The effect, for example, that the narrator claims (chapter 9) George MacDonald’s novel Phantastes (1858) had on him is the same effect that Lewis states (chapter 11) this novel had on him in his autobiographical Surprised by Joy (1955). Lewis, as author, portrays the narrator as pupil and employs MacDonald as a surrogate character for the expression of his own thought.
After his opening words, the narrator explains that he had been wandering through a dingy town under an evening twilight, which never turned into night, and had joined a queue at a bus stop, the only place he encountered people. Amidst a flurry of quarrels and scuffles, some drop out of the queue and the remainder take seats on an omnibus, which begins to ascend. By the time it has disembarked its noxious passengers onto a land ever on the brink of sunrise, the Tousle-Headed Poet had told the narrator of his suicide in response to a world too unenlightened to appreciate his talents. The Intelligent Man had explained the emptiness of the grey town: The inhabitants settle their constant quarrels by moving farther and farther apart.
In the light of the sunrise land, the narrator notices that the passengers, he included, are mere ghosts. Eventually there appears a throng of bright spirits, who undertake to persuade the ghosts to relinquish the hellish qualities that will exclude them from heaven. The narrator observes several encounters between ghosts representing common forms of hellishness and spirits or angels come to save them. The Big Ghost, a self-righteous bully, spurns the guidance of a spirit now reconciled in heaven with the man he murdered and therefore a model of what the Big Ghost must become. Such a model also is the spirit who vainly urges repentance and orthodoxy on the Episcopal Ghost, who returns to the grey town to propagate his liberal theology. The ghost of the Intelligent Man, who intends to open a business in the grey town, ignores the command of an angel to put down the golden apple he is painfully struggling to carry to the omnibus. Then the Hard-Bitten Ghost infects the narrator with doubts about the benevolence of the spirits; and an interview between a spirit and the ghost of an egocentric woman fails to allay these doubts.
The Spirit of George MacDonald suddenly appears, relieves the narrator of his doubts, explains how it is that the ghosts are visiting Heaven, and becomes his teacher in matters moral and theological. MacDonald’s instruction continues until the end of the dream and includes a warning to the narrator about men so dedicated to proving the existence of God that they ignore God himself. The instruction is facilitated by ghost-spirit encounters, which MacDonald sometimes interprets. They involve: a grumbling woman, whose ghost may have become a mere grumble; a seductress, whose hideous ghost tries to attract the spirits; an egotistical artist, whose ghost ignores the pleas of an artist spirit and rushes back to the grey town to save himself from obscurity; a domineering wife, whose ghost yearns to mold the spirit of her husband even in heaven; the ghost of a mother, whose natural love for her son has degenerated into possessiveness; the ghost of a lustful man, who alone among the visitors is surely saved, when he allows an angel to kill the red lizard of lust on his shoulder, and ghost and dead lizard are transformed into master and stallion; and the Spirit of Sarah Smith, who arrives amidst a throng of heavenly attendants and vainly attempts to persuade the Dwarf of the composite ghost of her husband to relinquish the self-tormenting Tragedian who is dominating him.
During the ghost-spirit encounters and in their aftermath, MacDonald instructs the narrator concerning the nature of heaven and hell, the joy of heaven, the necessity of moral choice, the inadequacy of natural love, the corruption of pity, Christ’s descent into hell, time and eternity, freedom and predestination. Such instruction leads to MacDonald’s informing the narrator that he has not seen reality but has had “a vision in a dream.” The dream ends with sunrise in heaven, and the narrator finds himself fallen on the floor beside his study table, an air-raid siren howling overhead.
Christian Themes
The primary themes of The Great Divorce are moral choice and the absolute disunion of heaven and hell. These themes are developed within a narrative framework provided by an obscure Christian concept, the Refrigerium (the Holiday of the Damned), which includes in Lewis’s version the efforts of the Blessed Spirits to convert those ghosts who have chosen to spend their holiday in the Valley of the Shadow of Life rather than on Earth. The behavior of the ghosts and their encounters with the denizens of heaven unfold the nature of the choices required.
MacDonald’s retrospective interpretation of those choices discloses their transforming quality: For the ghosts who relinquish their hellishness, the grey town will have been purgatory; but those who return to the omnibus will have been in hell both on Earth and in the grey town. Such interpretation emanates from the difference MacDonald perceives between the sequential time humans experience and the eternal present of heaven. As here, logical and temporal contraries of the former become compatible in the latter: Choices become permanent states, past and future become present during Christ’s descent into hell, predestination and freedom of choice become a single verity. The difference between the two time frames is encapsulated in an allegorical image: gigantic forms representing immortal souls stand about a silver table representing time on which chessmen representing humans act out the inmost nature of the souls.
Orthodoxy prevails in the case of the Episcopal Ghost: To be saved, he must repent of his intellectual sins and express belief in the Resurrection, a literal heaven and hell, and the existence of God. Noticeably absent from explicit consideration in The Great Divorce is the fundamental Christian doctrine of faith in Christ as necessary for salvation, much less its formulation by Saint Paul, which so influenced Martin Luther, as justification by faith.
Sources for Further Study
Como, James T., ed. Remembering C. S. Lewis: Recollections of Those Who Knew Him. 3d ed. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2005. Recollections about Lewis by twenty-four people who knew him. Includes a chronology of Lewis’s life and a bibliography of his writings.
Gibson, Evan K. C. S. Lewis, Spinner of Tales: A Guide to His Fiction. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Christian University Press, 1980. Chapter 5 of this study of Lewis’s fiction includes insightful analysis of The Great Divorce in conjunction with The Screwtape Letters.
Green, Roger Lancelyn, and Walter Hooper. C. S. Lewis: A Biography. Rev. ed. San Diego: Harcourt Brace, 1994. The most thorough account of Lewis’s life and works. Discusses (pp. 220-221) the sources for Lewis’s Refrigerium.
Lewis, C. S. Surprised by Joy. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1956. An autobiographical account of Lewis’s journey from atheism to theism. Elucidates the references to the joy of heaven in The Great Divorce.
Nicholi, Armand M., Jr. The Question of God: C. S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud Debate God, Love, Sex, and the Meaning of Life. New York: Free Press, 2002. A comparison of the worldviews of Lewis and Sigmund Freud. Elucidates the cultural subtext of The Great Divorce.