The Great Divorce
The Great Divorce, a novel by British author C.S. Lewis, explores his concept of purgatory. The ideas presented in the novel draw upon the writings of St. Augustine, Dante Alighieri, John Milton, John Bunyan, Emanuel Swedenborg, William Blake, Lewis Carroll, and George MacDonald.
According to Dante Alighieri, C.S. Lewis, and others, purgatory represents a spiritual sphere between heaven and hell. Individuals remain in purgatory until their souls are sanctified, allowing them to enter heaven. This belief rejects the doctrine of salvation through faith alone (sola fide), as Luther and other Reformed theologians advocate.
According to John Wesley, justifying grace—accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior—must precede sanctification, the process that leads to holiness. Both faith and sanctified love are essential for salvation.
To be in the presence of a holy God, we must become holy ourselves. Lewis believed that sanctification cannot be fully achieved on earth but can only be completed in purgatory, where people are cleansed from the sins that separate them from God. Purgatory allusions can also be found in Till We Have Faces, the Narnia series, his three science fiction novels, and many of his essays.
The Great Divorce begins with the narrator finding himself in a vast, gray town reminiscent of limbo in The Divine Comedy. A continuous rain, both inside and outside, plagues this grim and joyless city. Disguised as Lewis, the narrator discovers a bus stop. While waiting in line, he listens to fellow passengers argue, many of whom leave before the bus arrives. The few remaining passengers board the bus, which soars upward, driven by an angel who shields his face from them.
The ascending bus breaks through the rain clouds into a clear predawn sky. As the bus rises, passengers transform from solid figures into faint, transparent forms. When the bus reaches its destination, the ghostly travelers disembark into a beautiful landscape, which feels unyieldingly solid compared to their vaporous state. They experience immense pain walking on the grass as the sharp blades pierce their shadowy feet. The solid environment prevents these transparent beings from lifting even a single leaf, far too heavy for them to manage.
Radiant male and female angels, whom the spirits had known on Earth, come to greet them, urging them to repent and journey toward Heaven. The angels promise the ghosts that as they travel onward and upward, they will feel less discomfort as they become more solid. Although the angels offer to help the ghosts on their journey, most of the ghosts refuse to repent, choosing self-imposed hell over the march toward Heaven.
Lewis encounters Scottish writer and theologian George MacDonald, who acts as his mentor, much like Virgil guiding Dante in The Divine Comedy. Along the way, they encounter several ghosts:
- The large ghost, a bully, rejects heaven because he is offended by angels that he believed were beneath him when he knew them on earth.
- A ghost meets an associate, a former fellow employee. The ghost feels offended because his friend has entered heaven while he has not. The angel explains that the ghost cannot enter heaven by relying on his goodness. He must, instead, depend on God’s mercy. The ghost, unwilling to repent, heads back to the bus.
- A man attempts to carry a handful of apples—representing salvation—back to the bus, but he finds them too heavy to manage. An angel offers to carry the apples as they climb the mountain toward heaven.
- A cynic, suspicious of everything, rejects heaven, believing it to be a trick.
- A woman turns down the offer of heaven because she feels ashamed of her appearance. An angel offers to help her replace narcissism with God’s love.
- A constant grumbler, complaining frequently, eventually transforms into Mrs. Grumble.
- A nagging wife becomes angry when she realizes she cannot dominate her husband in heaven.
- A woman who separated herself from others by unremitting grief over her daughter’s death chooses remorse rather than heaven.
- A ghost encounters his wife, now a stunningly bright and beautiful woman accompanied by a chorus of angels. Despite her encouragement, the husband refuses to join her in heaven, resenting that she no longer needs him.
- A former bishop has grown so accustomed to writing about his faith in abstract, pseudo-intellectual terms that he can no longer believe in God. Many scholars love theology more than they love God.
- A woman encounters her husband, tied to an actor of tragedy. This encounter symbolizes her persistent use of emotional blackmail: “You must demonstrate your love for me by sacrificing all your other pursuits.” Her whining demands are similar to a tragic drama.
- An artist refuses heaven, arguing that he must defend his reputation as a critique of a particular school of painting.
- A man is corrupted on earth by lust, a dangerous and seductive force that can distract human beings from God. The ghost has an ugly lizard riding on his shoulder. He eventually allows an angel to kill the lizard. Death transforms the lizard into a majestic horse that carries the ghost toward heaven.
After encountering ghosts, MacDonald and Lewis engage in a complex and inconclusive dialogue about the mysteries of eschatology—the concept of last things. This conversation evokes Emanuel Swedenborg, best known for his book on the afterlife, Heaven and Hell whose central theme is the confrontation of time with eternity. Knowledge of quantum physics and Einstein’s relativity can further illuminate these concepts.
Near the novel’s conclusion, the narrator crouches down to examine a tiny crack in the soil. McDonald tells him that the bus emerged from the crack. The gray town became unfathomably minuscule when compared to the vastness of heaven.
The novel concludes with MacDonald advising Lewis to describe their encounter as a dream. Lewis contends that the weight of heavenly sunlight feels as heavy to a sinning ghost as large blocks falling onto one’s body. At that moment, his books topple over, awakening him at his desk during The Blitz.