This blog is in conjunction with the C.S. Lewis DeCal. We will deconstruct the works of one of the most influential writers and thinkers of the 20th century. The course objective is to discuss the following three questions:
1. What structures, images, themes, and plots does C.S. Lewis use? What purpose and effects are created?
2. How are the life and thoughts of C.S. Lewis reflected in these works? (to better answer this question, we will explore Lewis’ diary and literary criticism in addition to Surprised by Joy)
3. How do the books connect to each other; what overarching themes and messages do you draw from the works?
Students should come out of this course with well-formulated answers to the above questions, and an overall deeper appreciation and understanding of CS Lewis and his works.
Responses must be at least: 200 words.
Tips for responses:
1. Ask the above three questions during your reading.
2. Comment/discuss issues discussed by other classmates.
3. Pick and image or passage that stands out to you, and discuss. Keep in mind: passages from outside sources (books, diaries, journals, etc.) do not count as part of the word limit.
In this week's reading, we find out that the entire novel is essentially a dream. Perhaps “dream” is too flippant of a word; the narrator's encounters with ghosts and spirits and his evaluations of them are hinted to be more of a foreboding vision, than a mere dream. One of the more telling hints of this dream as more of a vision is that as the narrator is still dreaming, the teacher acknowledges this by telling him that “ye are only dreaming (361).” Because someone else in the vision is knowledgeable that the narrator is not dead, but merely experiencing something out of the ordinary, then the text suggests that there is a greater power at work to provoke this “dream.” Although the teacher claims that the narrator IS “dreaming,” he implies that this experience is more than a mere dream because the teacher later warns him that if he were to tell anyone about this vision, to make sure to emphasize that what he saw is only a dream so that he would “ give no poor fool the pretext to think ye are claiming knowledge of what no mortal knows (361).” The idea that “now mortal knows” what he saw except himself, suggests that the narrator's entire experience is not only a dream, but an allusion to something else, something that is divine.
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“There is but one good; that is God. Everything else is good when it looks to Him and bad when it turns from Him. And the higher and mightier it is in the natural order, the more demoniac it will be if it rebels. It’s not out of bad mice or bad fleas you make demons, but out of bad archangels.”
ReplyDeleteA common theme in the Great Divorce seems to be that of good things that become distorted into bad when people misuse or overuse them. The mother’s love for her son became poisonous when it became all that she focused on, when she didn’t love him enough to let him go, or love her husband and daughter enough to take care of them. Frank’s use of pity as a weapon to “hold joy up as ransom” took that which should be used to help misery become joy and made it a weapon of manipulation. One woman had so much self-image that she attempted to attract her way around, while another was so fearful of being seen that she couldn’t let herself be helped. When the Teacher explained that God is the only one good, it follows then that though all else may attempt to be good, it never can be when molded to the will of people. Apart from God, even His good gifts can be distorted. And the greater the gift, the worse it can be warped, as with the archangel turned demon.
Lewis's depiction of lust reminds me of his works Surprised by Joy and the Screwtape Letters. Lust, personified as a little red lizard sitting on a Ghost shoulder, whispers tempting lies into his ear. When an Angel offers to kill the lust, the Lizard hisses to the Ghost, "Be careful [...] Then you'll be without me for ever and ever. It's not natural. How could you live? You'd be only a sort of ghost, not a real man as you are now. [...] And I'll be so good. I admit I've sometimes gone too far in the past, but I promise I won't do it again. I'll give you nothing but really nice dreams--all sweet and fresh and almost innocent. You might say, quite innocent..." (11). As Lewis describes in Surprised by Joy, people often attempt to replace true joy with lust. They, like the Ghost, believe the promises of "nice dreams" and experiences that are "so good". The whispering of the Lizard is also comparable to the works of Screwtape and Wormwood: completely flipping the truth. In this case, the Lizard says that the Ghost is like a "real man as [he is] now" and that if he left his lust, he would be a ghost. The exact opposite is true. It lies that the Ghost could not live without it, and things with it would be "sweet and fresh and almost innocent". In reality, however, the Ghost is transformed once his lust is rid of. His radical change is so glorious (powerful imagery of his solidification into a golden man)!
ReplyDeleteI read this book for the first time about 3 years ago, and the one thing that irritates me about it is the fact that it’s a dream. It does make some of the inaccuracies more understandable (such as people from hell being able to make it into heaven anyway), but irksome nevertheless. That being said, I respect the story for how it relates disbelief in the faith to the faith itself. This seems to be the connecting thread throughout all of the works. In Surprised By Joy, we saw why Lewis did not want to believe in God, but eventually was convinced otherwise. In The Screwtape Letters, we saw the methods that devils can use to make God seem unappealing or nonexistent. Now, however, Lewis shows us how many blatantly refuse to believe even when the evidence is staring them in the face. For some reason, the third of these results is even more frightening to me than the demons of Screwtape. Obviously, we cannot walk around in Heaven as the people in The Great Divorce did, but we do see evidence of God’s existence daily, everywhere we look. It’s a good reminder to keep that knowledge present constantly in the front of our minds so that we do not forget it.
ReplyDelete“I believe in a God of love…mine, mine, mine, for ever and ever.” (Pg. 103)
ReplyDeleteI found chapters 11 and 12 very interesting. C.S. Lewis contrasts two different types of love: unholy love and divine love. We hear so often in our modern society the word love as if all one needs is “love” or tolerance for everyone and everything. But, The Great Divorce introduces the somewhat offensive concept that certain kinds of “love” may not be righteous and in fact selfish. In chapter 11, C.S. Lewis describes a mother’s “love” for her child and man’s struggle with lust. It was interesting to contrast these two versions of love because so often we think of a mother’s love as being the most holy while the gross sins of lust deserving hell. However, C.S. Lewis tries to show that any “love” placed above loving God in not love at all revealing its true self – selfishness. Chapter 12, then beautifully portrays a “divine love” that is rooted in God that causes others to obey God and love others even more so. Chapters 11 and 12 reminded me that even the godliest characteristics such as “love,” if not found in God, can be a tool of the devil.
Q: I was wondering if we could unpack pages 141 and 143 Monday because I found it very confusing and feel very unsure how to understand it since the whole book was a dream.
"Screaming I buried my face in the fold of my teachers robe. ‘The morning! The morning! I cried, ’I am caught by the morning and I am a ghost,’ but it was too late. The light, like solid blocks, intolerable of edge and weight, came thundering upon my head."
ReplyDeleteMuch earlier on, in chapter two of the divorce, the figures on the bus had a rather paranoid conversation about the transitional sate of evening twilight through which they were travelling. Here Ikey the ghost thought that this present twilight would lead to nightfall. Incidentally, Ikey was also a character who gives information about a ghost to the narrator in one of Dickens ghost stories. Another ghost challenged this stating that, in educated circles there had been a recent change of opinion and it was now believed that the current state of twilight would lead to dawn. In the context of chapter I initially thought that these differences of opinion were meant to reflect the changing dogmas and practises of religion, a sort of a old testament v. New testament debate. In the very last chapter of the book this twilight does indeed turn into dawn. It is intimated that this light is God or some great holy presence, the residents of the high country call to each other in anticipatory Joy. The account of this oncoming Joy ends rather ambiguously. The ghost seems to fear for his safety, sheltering like a child in MacDonald’s robe. At the same time, the thing is revealed as a dream; the transcendental light becomes the real light of morning. The high countries and this terrifying light are revealed to be a dream. The world the narrator wakes to, though, is not described in t host edifying terms, ‘I awoke in a child room, hunched on the floor beside a black and empty grate, the clock striking three, and the siren howling overhead’. The description of his surroundings seems to show the narrator’s waking world as also rather hellish.
I found the ending to the Great Divorce to be very interesting. The narrator writes, “I awoke in a cold room, hunched on the floor beside a black and empty grate, the clock striking three, and the siren howling overhead.” With the last chapter of the book we learn that his whole journey has been a dream, and he is awoken from this dream by books. The fact that books have literally fallen on his head and brought him out of his slumber is interesting. It is as if books can wake one up from darkness; Lewis suggests that reading can bring a person to light. Light and darkness are very big symbols for Lewis as he writes about both of them in all of his works that we have read. He suggests that through knowledge and enlightenment we can become better focused on God and His plans for our lives. The ending is also interesting because even though Lewis suggests to us that books can lead the way to the Kingdom of Heaven, is also ends with the narrator hearing sirens from the War. But I don’t understand why Lewis ends the book with the reference to the War. I’m not sure what he’s suggesting with that reference.
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I just got done reading the story and for some reason I interpreted the ending differently in terms of the falling off the chair and books that fell on him. My first reaction is that he passed out because the books hit him in the head and it made him fall and somehow this could change the entire meaning of vision and dream. Where as, he may have had a vision but was told that he should state it as dream because the first is forbidden. Just thinking:) Im unsure that you will get this since your post was 2010 and my post is 2016 but thought I would try. Evelyn
DeleteThe above comment says from Meagan, but it's really from me Sarah.
ReplyDeleteWhile the ending of the Great Divorce cleared some questions up, it also left me with many more questions. I remember when we read the first couple chapters I found myself confused because the story opens up in this grey town. It wasn't until a few chapters later that I began to realize that this grey town was supposed to be hell and this people dead. As the story neared it's ending I thought that the narrator would become a solid person because he was shown so many Ghosts that did not want to turn away from their ungodly ways. However, in the last chapter we learn that all of this was only a dream. So, once again, the Great Divorce left me feeling uneasy because I am trying to understand why C.S. Lewis ended it by telling us of a "siren howling overhead." Perhaps, he was trying to remind us of what we have just heard. Even though it was depicted as a dream, and even if this depiction of heaven and hell are "solely an imaginative supposal" (page 146) we should take the lessons that were taught. The narrator has been awakened to reality and reminded, through this siren of the dangers and warnings that he has just dreamt about. The siren is like a reminder of the chaos and plethora of choices that confronts us each day, and with it the reality that each and every choice we make will have a consequence associated with it. Some of these choices will have minor consequences, while others (seemingly innocent and unimportant) will have far-reaching implications that will echo throughout eternity.
ReplyDeleteOne of the questions I had while reading the Great Divorce was "Yes, I know C.S. Lewis told us in the Preface that all of this is a fantasy. Yet, why would he write about something that portrays the idea of purgatory?" However, after reading the final chapter it seems to make more sense because the narrator's teacher tells him "Give no poor fool the pretext to think ye are claiming knowledge of what no mortal knows. I'll have no Swedenborgs and no Vale Owens among my children" (page 193). I googled this two individuals and it appears that they claimed to have experiences with the afterlife. For example, Swedenborgs claimed to have gone to heaven and hell and that God had allowed him to travel freely to either and interact with the people there whenever he desired. So it seems that in a way C.S. Lewis is calling out the heresy in these beliefs and at the same time reminding the reader that this was but a dream. Unlike the narrator's dream, after death there are no more choices for us, no more opportunities for us to go to heaven. The choices made now have eternal consequences.
After reading the final chapters of the Great Divorce, I noticed that C.S. Lewis does a very good job of portraying the people that enter heaven and the people that do not enter heaven. All of his characters seem to portray the idea in Ephesians 2:8-9; “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not as a result of works so that no one may boast”. Looking at the many characters we run into in the Great Divorce, we see that the ones that end up in Hell tend to be the self-righteous people who look at their lives and wonder why they didn’t get to heaven. They look at their achievements, their morality, they righteousness, in a futile attempt to save themselves. Because of what they have done, they don’t see any need for a savior. In contrast to this, we see those that have entered in to heaven. These are the ones who have committed evil things during their lifetime causing them to realize that they have no righteousness of their own and that they truly need a savior to save them from themselves. These are the ones that have humbled themselves and looked to God rather than themselves. Lewis clearly portrays this and shows the readers that it is God who saves and not man.
ReplyDelete“I don’t believe in a God who keeps mother and son apart. I believe in a God of love. No one had a right to come between me and my son. Not even God. Tell Him that to His face. He is mine, do you understand?” (p. 349)
ReplyDeleteI think this chapter about the mother and son hit me really hard. I can relate to what the mother is saying – she lost her son, and blames God for it. She feels that the God she believes in would never separate her from the one she loves, and she can’t forgive it. There have been many times in my life when I felt the same way…discouraged by the events in my life, clinging to the past and being angry at God for allowing these kinds of things to happen to me. But something my friend said to me this past weekend made me think about my own perspective. This whole time, I’ve been trying to understand what God was doing in my life and trying to analyze specific events in my life as I struggle through them. And I would become frustrated because I could not understand. But it’s not about figuring things out, it’s about taking these hardships and getting through them, and being able to look back on it with more wisdom and understanding. As hard as I might try to find wisdom now, it won’t come to me until after I’ve survived the difficulties that God has put in my life. It’s about finding peace in God in this moment, and having faith. Only then can my eyes be really opened.
I found this to be an interesting concept in chapter 11. In this part the Teacher explains to the narrator that “natural affection” can lead to eternal love of God more easily than “natural appetite”, but it also can be more easily mistaken for the heavenly. He further illustrates this point by saying it is easier to mistake brass for gold then it is to mistake clay. This made me think of what sort of things people find the easiest to give up in their lives. I think that people can be made to realize that their appetites for things that hurt them or other people are harmful, but it’s harder to convince a person that what they perceive as love is something that needs to be given up. In the case of the grieving mother (Pam) I could see how her love could be harmful. She spoke only of possessing her son (Michael), saying he was hers and that she lived only for his memory for years. This kind of obsessive love is harmful becomes it comes at the expense of people around her. She chose to live in a past that did not exist and in turn pushed away her living daughter and husband. This does not seem so much “love” as “possession”.
ReplyDeleteIn reading the last part of The Great Divorce, I noticed a lot of similarities between the reading and texts from my other classes, which I will be discussing in my presentation. Namely, the idea of Divine Love.
ReplyDeleteIn the work, C. S. Lewis talks about how in order to be able to enter into Heaven, one must embrace the joy and love of God, rather than that the counterfeit pleasures found on earth, such as obsessive love, lust, and vanity. The author communicates to us that Hell causes the events in our lives to become perverted, and even those things which we hold to be sacred (such as the love of a mother for her son) can become twisted if it is not founded in the sacred love for God, but rather selfish, obsessive reasons. On the other hand, Heaven would perform the opposite, and purify the events of an earthly existence.
It is interesting and ironic to note that the ghosts are not willing to embrace the Joy and enter Heaven, even though the benefits (which far outweigh anything else) were explained to them. Even though this sounds counter-intuitive, I applied it to real life and realized how true it is; it is shocking how many people are unwilling to pursue Joy, to reach for something better. Is it fear that causes this?
This reading brought to mind much of the Sufi poetry that I have been reading in my History of Persian Lit class. The most famous Sufi poet, Rumi, is often referred to as the greatest love poet. Most people read this as being romantic love, but upon examining his works, it is understood that he is in fact referring to a divine love. Far from being an aesthetic, Rumi embraces the earthly beauties, but enjoys them with the understanding and appreciation of their divine origins.
At the start of Chapter 11, we are introduced to a woman who refuses to let go of the death of her son Michael. She spent her whole life mourning the loss of Michael, rather than coming to terms with what happened and rejoicing in the life that God had given to her. While my first instinct was to feel a sense of sorrow and sympathy towards this woman, a conversation at the end of the chapter made me think differently. In this conversation, a ghost explains, “’Excess of love, did ye say? There was no excess, there was defect. She loved her son too little, not too much.’” The woman loved her son more than she cared to love God, even though God is the very reason her son existed. The ghost raises an interesting point when he claims that perhaps this woman would rather have her son with her in Hell than living a happy life in Heaven. If this is how the woman really thinks, than clearly her love for her son is selfish love. I think Lewis is trying to show that our primary love needs to be for the Lord above all else.
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