The Great Divorce

"'There are no private affairs'" (30).
C. S. Lewis's The Great Divorce (1945)

Points for Reflection

1. How does Time function in the grey town, relative to the progress of time at their later destination?
2. How densely populated is the grey town?
3. Are the inhabitants of hell ready and eager to leave it?
4. What troubles has the tousle-headed fellow faced, and do they differ from those of Napoleon?
5. What does the “Intelligent Man” identify as the real problem with the grey town, and what does he dismiss as not the real problem?
6. How much mass and density do the visitors have themselves?
7. What mix of feelings does our narrator experience after arriving in the new land?
8. Does time in the new land function as time in the grey town?
9. What process begins following one of the bright people’s having murdered someone on Earth?
10. Why does one of the bright people tell the Big guy he should stop thinking about justice as we understand it on Earth (27)?
11. In what ways was the Big man a “decent chap,” and how was he not this?
12. What casual, commonplaces phrases does Lewis deploy to entirely new ends in this novel?
13. What does the ghost who committed murder confess was even worse than killing old Jack?
14. Why does the visiting spirit of the man who was once a boss over the man who committed murder refuse to stay in this new world he’s visiting?
15. To what different purposes does Lewis deploy the words “spirit” and “ghost”?
16. Why might Lewis suggest that Hell could, if let behind, be reformulated as Purgatory for some (35)?
17. What apostasy did the “fat ghost” commit?  Why does the bright spirit confronting his old friend declare that he actually took no real risk in making such radical claims?
18. What fears does the bright spirit suggest that he and his old fellow academic were actually driven by when students, and following graduation?
19. Does Lewis believes that “honest opinions” are “innocent” when genuinely held?
20. Why might Lewis identify the actual denomination of the academic ghost?  Is this relevant?
21. Are the “fat ghost” and his fellow, former academic speaking the same language?
22. What Biblical principle underlies the bright spirit’s recommendation that the ghost recall the mode of inquiry pursued in his youth?
23. What does the ghost want God to be?
24. Why do you think Ikey is attempting to take a golden apple (48-49)?  To what end?
25. Why does the lean, hard-bitten ghost think heaven and hell are in cahoots (54-55)?
26. What explains the narrator’s descent from fascination to misery?
27. What does misery soon become?
28. The female ghost running from a bright, solid acquaintance justifies her desire to be left alone by invoking what?  Why?
29. What is the remedy for the female ghost’s dilemma?
30. Can you imagine a likely conclusion to the interview between female ghost and bright acquaintance, as our narrator did not witness it himself (62-63)?
31. Why might Lewis choose to suggest visitors to the heavenly realm see things in two different ways simultaneously?
32. At some point (66-67), it becomes clear the narrator is supposed to be the author himself, C. S. Lewis.  Any ideas as to why he would place himself as a sojourner in Hell? 
33. How does Lewis go about stretching and contracting the words “Hell” and “Heaven”?
34. Does George MacDonald believe the afterlife is a state of mind?
35. Why does the narrator wish to change the subject when MacDonald is talking about those whose interest in proving God’s existence, or spreading Christianity, overwhelms any actual, personal interest in God (74)?
36. What limitations does Lewis put around the notion of the bright, solid ones actually helping those ghosts who visit the enlightened realms?
37. What does MacDonald mean by the observation that it’s difficult to understand Hell because “the thing to be understood is so nearly Nothing” (77)?
38. Can you unpack MacDonald’s assertion that those who “hate goodness are sometimes nearer” to it than those who think themselves already good (82 mid)?
39. Why does Lewis suggest that the artistic impulse to capture beauty could become an obstacle to redemption instead of merely a conduit?
40. What is the core theme of the many words uttered by Robert’s ghostly wife, and does her theme change at any point?
41. What does a bright spirit tell Pam are the benefits of losing someone to death?
42. Why does this solid/bright individual declare that "Nothing can be yours by nature' (103), that even "natural love" must be buried before it can rise (103)?
43. With what tone of voice does the man with lizard on his shoulder finally given the angel permission to kill the lizard?
44. What does Lewis suggest about the nature of tears in this transcendent country?
45. What might it mean for "all natures that were your enemies [to] becomes slaves to dance before you and backs for you to ride" (113)? Lewis dramatizes this transfomration in the figure of the lizard, of course, but what is he getting at in a metaphysical sense?
46. How does Lewis go about realizing the concept of the "spiritual body" (114)?
47. Do you agree that the mother encountered earlier loved her son "too little" (114)? What does the angel mean by this claim?
48. How does the kind of family generated by Sarah Smith differ from what we saw in chapters 10 & 11?
49. Does the ultimate fate of the dwarf and tragedian--remnants of a single human soul--suggest that the line between salvation and damnation is ultra-thin, that ones destiny can be determined in an instant, or by a single word? Or, is this dramatic setup merely for the sake of generating dramatic tension?
50. A couple times, Lewis suggests that whatever love we know on Earth is primarily a desire to be loved, as Sarah Smith points out to her husband (125). Does this ring true?
51. What aspect of Frank does the tragedian represent?
52. What role does laughter play in recemptive processes, in Lewis's works?
53. Can you imagine someone preferring to be "miserable than [to] have their self-will crossed" (132)?
54. What does "in love" now mean in the transcendent realm?
55. Why would it be inappropriate for Sarah Smith’s joy to be vulnerable to injury when encountering her husband’s misery?
56. Lewis posits that the redeemed not only grow denser, but larger too.  How, then, do Hell itself and its vast reaches compare to heaven?
57. What benefits, and limits, does Lewis find in the doctrine of predestination and that of universalism?
58. Do you believe that visions, dreams, and the "vision in a dream" (144) can convey deep truth?

Dr. Paul Marchbanks
pmarchba@calpoly.edu