The Great Divorce

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The Great Divorce is a work of fantasy by C. S. Lewis (ultimately deriving its impetus from his Christian beliefs). Although not one of Lewis' better-known works, many perceptive readers consider it to be one of his finest. It is speculative fiction, frankly presented as such, and the specific details of the fantasy do not tally with the beliefs of any known Church, nor did Lewis regard it as other than an imaginative attempt at depicting realities which can otherwise not be expressed at all.

As with many of Lewis' works, it is of particular interest to Christians.

The working title was Who Goes Home? but the name (a response to William Blake's poem The Marriage of Heaven and Hell) was changed at the publisher's insistence. In Lewis' opinion, such a marriage was impossible. It was first printed as a serial in a religious publication called The Guardian (not connected in any way to the British newspaper of the same name), in 1944 and 1945, and soon thereafter in book form.

In The Great Divorce, the narrator suddenly, and inexplicably, finds himself in a grim and joyless City (the "grey town", a depiction of Hell). He eventually finds a bus for those who desire an excursion to some other place (and which eventually turns out to be the foothills of Heaven). He enters the bus and converses with his fellow passengers as they travel. When the bus reaches its destination, the "people" on the bus - including the narrator - gradually realize that they are ghosts. Although the country is the most beautiful they have ever seen, every feature of the landscape (including drops of water and blades of grass) is unbearably solid compared to themselves, and it causes them immense pain to be struck by the raindrops, or to walk on the grass.

Shining figures, like men and women whom they have known on Earth, come to meet them, and to persuade them to repent and enter Heaven proper. They promise that as the ghosts travel onward and upward, they will become acclimated to the country and will feel no discomfort. Almost all of the ghosts choose to return instead to the grey town, giving various reasons and excuses. Much of the interest of the book lies in the recognition it awakens of the plausibility and familiarity, along with the thinness and self-deception, of the excuses that the ghosts refuse to abandon, even though to do so would bring them to Reality and 'joy forevermore'.

The narrator is met by the writer George MacDonald, whom he hails as his mentor, just as Dante did when encountering Virgil in the Divine Comedy; and MacDonald becomes the narrator's guide in his journey, just as Virgil became Dante's. MacDonald explains that it is possible for a soul to choose to remain in Heaven despite having been in the grey town; for such souls, their time in Hell has been purgatory, and the goodness of Heaven will work backwards into their lives, turning even their worst sorrows into Joy. Conversely, the evil of Hell works backwards also, so that if a soul remains in, or returns to, the grey town, even its happiness on Earth will lose its meaning. None of the ghosts realise that the grey town is, in fact, Hell. Indeed it is not that much different from the life they led on Earth: joyless, friendless and uncomfortable. It just goes on forever, and gets worse and worse, with many characters whispering their fear of the "night" that is to eventually come.

According to "MacDonald", Heaven and Hell cannot coexist in a single soul, and while it is possible to leave Hell and enter Heaven, doing so implies turning away (repentance); or as depicted by Lewis, giving up paltry worldly pleasures - which have become impossible for the dead anyway - and embracing ultimate and unceasing Joy itself.

The book ends with Lewis' awakening from his dream of Heaven, into the unpleasant reality of wartime Britain, in conscious imitation of the Pilgrim's Progress, the last sentence of which is "And I awoke, and behold, it was all a Dream".

Literary Influences

Lewis consciously draws elements of the plot from Dante (The Divine Comedy) and Bunyan; for example, comparing his meeting with MacDonald to "the first sight of Beatrice." He also credits a "scientifiction" (science fiction) story of unknown title and authorship with the idea for an "extrasolid" world. Where the original work used it to embody an unchangeable past, Lewis uses it to show the permanence and strength of the divine world compared to earth or Hell. He also credits the idea that Hell exists within Heaven but is "smaller than one atom" of it to his scientifiction readings; travel by shrinking or enlargement is a common theme in speculative fiction, and the narrator alludes to its presence in Alice in Wonderland.pt:O grande abismo