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.
I tried to tell how a certain frosty afternoon at Leatherhead Station when I first bought a copy of Phantastes (being then about sixteen years old) had been to me what the first sight of Beatrice had been to Dante: Here begins the New Life. I started to confess...:how slowly and reluctantly I had come to admit that his Christendom had more than an accidental connexion with it, how hard I had tried not to see that the true name of the quality which first met me in books is Holiness. (337)
ReplyDeleteOf the people who Lewis could portray in The Great Divorce, it is really no surprise that he portrays George MacDonald, the author of Phantastes. In this passage, the narrator meets MacDonald and reflects on how big of an impact his work has had on his spiritual life. This of course resonates with Lewis's own experience that he depicts in Surprised by Joy. In both works the narrator demonstrates a surprising fondness and epiphany after reading the book, reflected when the speaker in The Great Divorce mentions that the feeling of encountering the book is much like “the first sight of Beatrice had been to Dante.” Though in Surprised by Joy, Lewis does not convert automatically, but does seem to credit it for beginning “the New Life” of his, but this is reflected in the speaker in The Great Divorce when he admits that his religious conversion is more like an “accidental connexion” and that he at first refuses to take in the “Holiness” of MacDonald's book. At this moment that the passage captures, the resonance is very vibrant between Lewis's own experiences documented in Surprised by Joy and with the narrator in The Great Divorce, demonstrating the use of personal experience in his works.
I tried to tell how a certain frosty afternoon at Leatherhead Station when I first bought a copy of Phantastes (being then about sixteen years old) had been to me what the first sight of Beatrice had been to Dante: Here begins the New Life. I started to confess...:how slowly and reluctantly I had come to admit that his Christendom had more than an accidental connexion with it, how hard I had tried not to see that the true name of the quality which first met me in books is Holiness. (337)
ReplyDeleteOf the people who Lewis could portray in The Great Divorce, it is really no surprise that he portrays George MacDonald, the author of Phantastes. In this passage, the narrator meets MacDonald and reflects on how big of an impact his work has had on his spiritual life. This of course resonates with Lewis's own experience that he depicts in Surprised by Joy. In both works the narrator demonstrates a surprising fondness and epiphany after reading the book, reflected when the speaker in The Great Divorce mentions that the feeling of encountering the book is much like “the first sight of Beatrice had been to Dante.” Though in Surprised by Joy, Lewis does not convert automatically, but does seem to credit it for beginning “the New Life” of his, but this is reflected in the speaker in The Great Divorce when he admits that his religious conversion is more like an “accidental connexion” and that he at first refuses to take in the “Holiness” of MacDonald's book. At this moment that the passage captures, the resonance is very vibrant between Lewis's own experiences documented in Surprised by Joy and with the narrator in The Great Divorce, demonstrating the use of personal experience in his works.
Ginger
A quote that really grabbed my attention and caused me to think for a good while is "Same old lie. People have been telling me that sort of thing all my life. They told me in the nursery that if I were good I'd be happy. And they told me at school that Latin would get easier as I went on. After I'd been married a month some fool was telling me that there were always difficulties at first..." (pg 53).This quote really made me remember all of the things i was told as a child, all the advice (or regurgitated information they were told) elder people gave to me. They sometimes had no idea what they were telling me, but regardless some of the info they said were lies. The older i have gotten the more i realize how important truth is. The truth is what every person will search for. Few will take the journey to find it, I have found truth. When i found Jesus and experienced His love,joy,peace,etc. He gave me satisfaction that could not be found anywhere else. He has become my sole passion and aim in life.
ReplyDelete“There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done.” All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. To those who knock it is opened.”
ReplyDeleteThis idea, that Hell is a created, chosen place that is decided on by its inhabitants, is an intriguing idea. Though I am unsure just how plausible it is, I yearn towards the idea that it is not God “sending” sinners to Hell, it is the sinners’ choice to not accept Heaven in all it has to offer. Though I suppose that that is just what The Great Divorce is about, mirroring the journey that people go through while on earth. While it seems ridiculous when it is happening in a very real though fantastic place, the acceptance or rejection process goes in much the same way while people are on earth. The narrator feels sympathy for those who may never have had the opportunity to see the Deep Countries, to get on the bus and leave, which is a similar feeling to what many Christians today feel for people in distant countries or unsympathetic friends. Yet according to Lewis’ MacDonald, all are given the opportunity to get on the bus, to again make a decision for or against Christ. It is a thought both full of hope and full of trepidation.
“ ‘Milton was right,’ said my Teacher. ‘The choice of every lost soul can be expressed in the words “Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.”’” (The Great Divorce Pg. 71)
ReplyDeleteThe above quote caught my attention and I felt it really encapsulated the book’s idea of hell being closed from the inside. The narrator find himself questioning God’s love and man’s free will, questions that still stir up vicious debates to this day. I found Lewis’ idea of that the saved will have looked back and see heaven while the lost will discover that their very lives on earth was merely and extension of hell. Although Lewis does present his idea of heaven and hell as fictional, it was a very creative way of showing that although people claim to want happiness, when presented with the truth, they rather hold onto the lie. The quote above reminded me of a Bible verse that speaks from a saved soul’s perspective: “Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere; I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked” (Psalm 84:10).
Here we find David saying the exact opposite to that of ‘every lost soul’. He values God’s sanctuary so much that he’d rather be the lowliest in the Kingdom of God a doorkeeper, than be with the wicked. Each ghost that the narrator comes across really forces the reader to ask his/herself the important question: Is there a sin I don’t want to let go of?
PRESENTATION MATERIAL:
ReplyDeleteI will summarize each chapter (6-10), and focus on the metaphors of each chapter.
The moment I heard this quote, I was really intrigued. "Same old lie. People have been telling me that sort of thing all my life. They told me in the nursery that if I were good I'd be happy. And they told me at school that Latin would get easier as I went on. After I'd been married a month some fool was telling me that there were always difficulties at first..." (pg 53). As Brandon had stated, it really did bring some memories back to me. In my experience, I was always unsure of what to believe with religion because I felt that people were always telling so many lies. When you grow up, your parents either take you to church and tell you to listen to what your adults teach you there and basically regurgitate, or they don’t take you to church and don’t teach you religion. But then you start making more friends and getting more into the outside world, and you start to hear different things about religion than your parents and adults around you taught. This makes you question who is or isn’t lying. But that isn’t a simple question because in the end, no one actually really knows the truth. No one actually knows who is lying or not. My life was pretty interesting growing up because half my family was very religious as Mormon, and half was absolutely non-religious. I felt like I was always being told different things, that I felt could be lies. And these things don’t have to do with religion. They can deal with other things in life, such as what Lewis stated, with Latin or with the nursery.
ReplyDeleteThis week I decided to look at the ghost in chapter 7. He is described as a “lean hard-bitten man with grey hair and a gruff, but not uneducated voice” and who the narrator thinks is “the kind of man I have always instinctively felt to be reliable”. This description sets up the feeling of someone who can be listen to. He seems a little less foolish as the ghosts that came before. And you can see this in the narrator, who starts to question the intentions of the Spirits for the first time. The ghost proclaims he has “seen all there is to see” and that this trip from Hell to the more solid plane is “propaganda” and that a “human being could not live here”. The ghost seems to think that he has more knowledge then he actually has. He explains about his experiences moving around the world before and how no matter where he went everything was the same and run by the same people. In the end he says that there would be nothing to do if he stayed, that he refused to alter himself for “them” and then says “they wouldn’t catch me that way.” The ghost is very cynical and seems to resent authority. He doesn’t appreciate the wonders/beauties that he says and instead finds something to complain about them. He had been criticized in the past for lacking “Tact” and “Patience”. Overall I think he illustrates someone who is close-minded yet will not humble himself to learn. Someone who is arrogant enough to think “he has seen all there is to see” and will not trust in or be patient enough about staying in one place to so that he may be changed by his environment. He also presents a danger in that he brings other people along with him. He is persuasive and turns people against what he calls the “management”, when really it seems like the best thing to do would be to open yourself up to what’s going on and be willing to change for the better. A close-minded nature and an unwillingness to change seem to characterize all the ghosts.
ReplyDeleteI found chapter nine very interesting, as here there are some very overt references to Dante’s divine comedy. George Macdonald appears as Lewis’s (later in this chapter it is explicitly stated that the narrator figure is Lewis) version of Virgil, his teacher and guide. He states that first reading of phantastes was to him “what the first of Beatrice was to Dante: here begins a new life”. Macdonald clarifies Lewis’s picture of heaven and hell. The part of this dialogue I found most interesting was the discussion of choice. Macdonald states that; “ Milton was right the choice of every lost soul can be expressed in the words, ”better to reign in hell than serve in heaven”. He goes on to say that ghosts express this through 'the sulks' clinging on to elements of hell or purgatory by holding fast to their “revenge and injured merit and self-respect and tragic greatness an proper pride”. This seems to apply to all of the ghosts seen so far. It made me wonder though, what part of hell is Lewis as narrator holding on to? I find it odd as up until chapter mine he seems to have been a blank, and his discussion with MacDonald focuses largely on externals, the explanation of heaven and hell and a discussion of various other ghosts. There is very little explanation here, about why he is there.
ReplyDeleteIt is also interesting that, in this chapter the beginning of the comedy can be seen to be reflected in reverse. Lewis starts out at the mountain/ high country, and then ends up in the forest. He meets his spiritual guide in this forest rather in the high country area. This made me wonder, what did Lewis intend by doing this?
The passage that stood out to me the most in our readings this week comes from chapter six. Lewis writes, “Near the place where the fall plunged into the like there grew a tree. Wet with the spray, half-veiled in foam-bows, flashing with the bright, innumerable birds that flew among its branches, it rose in many shapes of billowy foliage, huge as a fen-land could. From every point apples of gold gleamed through the leaves.” I found this passage interesting mainly because of the very last bit, and to be honest, I’m not entirely sure what to make of it. At first glance, I thought that the tree represented the Tree of Knowledge. This tree has the same appeal for the narrator as the Tree of Knowledge had for Adam and Eve. The gold apples that grow on it would be just as tempting as the snake tempted Eve. The rest of the chapter makes other allusions to the dangerousness of the tree. The narrator’s bowler-hatted friend seems to be taking cover with other foliage as if something that the narrator cannot see is watching him. From these references, I cannot help but see the almost uncanny resemblance of this tree to the tree found in the Garden of Eden. There is an unsightly creature in the tree that seems to be beckoning people towards it. But I’m not sure what Lewis is suggesting by placing this tree in his novel. My best guess is that he is suggesting that the devil actively seeks to tempt people even in this purgatory that the narrator finds himself in.
ReplyDeleteSarah Vaughan
Presentation:
ReplyDeleteI would like to focus on the topic of choices that are offered to the ghosts and the decisions they make.
"The Ghost which had towered up like a dying candle-flame snapped suddenly. A sour, dry smell lingered in the air for a moment and then there was no Ghost to be seen" (10).
ReplyDelete"The question is whether she is a grumbler, or only a grumble [...] if there's nothing but ashes we'll not go on blowing them in our own eyes forever. They must be swept up" (9).
The end of the conversation in chapter 10, or rather the monologue of that chapter, struck me the most -- the way that C.S. Lewis describes how a person could vanish into her own vice is quite unsettling. He introduces the idea with the imagery of ashes when the narrator asks George McDonald why the Ghosts couldn't be saved easily. After Hell (or Purgatory), he explains, a woman could be either a "grumbler," meaning a person who grumbles, or just a "grumble." The grumble would be like ashes, with no person inside able to control it, and never able to fan into a flame again. Lewis continues the image and this notion in the next chapter, in which a controlling wife spews all her complaints and claims to self-righteousness. She does not have a conversation with the Spirit but rather speaks in chunks of paragraphs, not allowing anyone else to add anything. This situation depicts the idea of a "grumble" instead of a "grumbler"-- she doesn't seem to have any personality but instead a long list of ranting. And at last, the Ghost herself degrades "like a dying candle-flame". Her humanness completely snaps and she becomes the ashes (sour, dry smell) that only lingers in the air. Lewis shows that sin, death, and rejection of God is strong and horrible that a person could not only become a ghost-like being, but also completely disappear.
I found the scene with the Tree and the Ghost at the end of Chapter 6 to be very interesting. At first, I was confused as to what this "Tree" could be. My confusion continued when the "bright angel who stood, like one crucified, against the rocks and poured himself perpetually down towards the forest with loud joy" appeared. Upon reading it again and analyzing it, I feel that the Tree is indicative of life. We even see that this tree has given fruit to more life (i.e. apples). The Ghost's futility in trying to "fill his pockets with the apples" is contrasted with the Tree and the angel that later appears. The Ghost is a representation of sorts for mankind. The Ghost constantly tries to find a way to take an apple despite the constant frustration and pain it causes him. Similarly, we all try to take our individual lives into our own hands. Whether it be by trying to make right the wrongs, living with the ramifications of sin or trying to constantly seek things on this earth that will give us meaning. However, we see that in this chapter the Ghost "was lame from his hurts, and the weight bent him double. Yet even so, inch by inch, still availing himself of every scrap of cover, he set out on his via dolorosa to the bus, carrying his torture" (page 163). In the end, as much as the Ghost tried to take from this Tree of life it was futile and the apples did nothing for him but simply bring upon him more hurt. It did nothing for him even with his constant effort and struggle because he was going about trying to receive "life," if you will, incorrectly.
ReplyDeleteLater, we see that an angel appears and tells him "Fool. Put it down. You cannot take it back...Stay here and learn to eat such apples." I believe that C.S. Lewis is using this angel to stand as a symbol for Christ because of the language that is used to describe this angel. It seems that the only way for this Ghost to receive life and be able to eat of the Tree is if he stops all he is doing, stops going down his own self-made "via dolorosa" and simply stays there and learns to "eat such apples." The remedy for the Ghost, like the remedy for each and every one of us, is to come before the only one that can truly supply us with our every need and provide for us the forgiveness of sin that we are all so desperately in need of. There is no need for us to pave our own way of suffering because Christ has already endured and paid the ultimate cost. Christ says "Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden and I will give you rest" (Matt 11:28) and likewise the Ghost was also called a fool and to "put it down." But, the Ghost, regardless of whether he heard or not, "braced itself anew for its agonies and continued...till I [the narrator] lost sight of it." And, just like that, each and every one of us will likewise be lost if we continue striving in vain.
“I forgave him as a Christian” said the Ghost. “But there are some things one can never forget…it was I who had to drive him every step of the way… he hadn’t spark of ambition” (344). In a discussion between the female Ghost and the brighter woman (another ghost), the first describes her feelings about her husband Robert. In the discussion, the latter spirit tells the first that if she had truly forgiven her husband than she would not have the type of pint up aggression towards him. The female ghost gave so much of herself for her husband and in return he did not give her the props of the recognition that she felt like she desired. In this I reflect on the motives behind the things that we do. Do I do things for the betterment of others or for self recognition and praise? For me, this has been a battle because I too have dealt with giving my best to the people that I love and feeling like my efforts have been unnoticed. What I am learning is to love others the way in which God loves me and how to balance this with spiritual discernment. Though God asks that we continue his work on earth, I realize that it is not my job to try and change of fix a person. Though I am here to encourage those around I should not focus on a reward from the imperfect but allow my good works to place a smile on Jesus’ face. In this I will always come out victorious because I am investing in God’s perfect kingdom.
ReplyDeleteOne story that really stood out to me was in Chapter 10, where a female Ghost was talking about meeting with her husband. She stated that she was “ready to forgive him…But anything more is quite impossible” (p. 344). She said that she could forgive him as a Christian but that she could not forget all the trouble she went through while married to him. Then she goes on to describe her married life, and all the things about her husband, Robert, that made her upset and angry. She rants about all the things she did to make their lives better and how he never tried to do the same. But it seems that she is not truly forgiving him, and that she is holding a lot of her bitterness and resentment towards him. She even says that if she meets him, she wants to take charge of him once more to make something of him. True forgiveness would mean forgetting everything as well, and letting things go. It reminded me once again how great God’s mercy is and how awesome His forgiveness is, because He truly forgives us for our faults and sins. Human forgiveness pales in comparison, and so much of our own selfish desires prevent us from forgetting how other people have wronged us.
ReplyDeleteA few quotes stood out to me in our reading this week. Coincidentally, they all have to do with happiness, and what worldly happiness vs. eternal happiness really means.
ReplyDelete“They told me in the nursery that if I were good I’d be happy. And they told me at school that Latin would get easier as I went on.” (333)
“’I wish I’d never been born,’ it said. ‘What are we born for?’ ‘For infinite happiness,’ said the Spirit. ‘You can step out into it at any moment…’” (335)
The problem with the speaker in the first quote is he is focusing on his idea of happiness as success, and what humans define as success. In example, obeying orders in nursery school, learning a second language with ease, having the ‘perfect’ marriage where there are no disagreements. This person is not seeing the greater sense of happiness that the Lord gives us, and that does not come from being ‘perfect’. God accepts us just the way we are. In the second quote, the speaker states that they wish they were never born and is wondering what the purpose of life really is. The Solid Person assures the distraught ghost that there IS a purpose for life, and that the purpose IS to find infinite happiness. The Solid Person emphasizes that one can CHOOSE to have this happiness at any moment.
I will be doing my presentation on the different depictions of hell/purgatory in the Christian beliefs and Catholic beliefs and then compare it to what we see in the Great Divorce
ReplyDelete“There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done.” This quote really grabbed my attention in the idea that it represents (and this is my own interpretation of the quote). This quote presents the idea of two kinds of people, the ones who say to God “thy will be done” are those who give their lives totally to God and submit to His will. And then there are those that IN THE END, the Lord’s will be done no matter what we do to go against God. Whether we choose to submit ourselves to the will of God and truly experience his love for us, His will is going to be done. The greatest experience and satisfaction is my life is dwelling in the presence of God and submitting to His will. A life given up for a cause greater than your own is the greatest experience that a person can experience.
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ReplyDelete