The Great Divorce

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1945

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 1

Chapters 2-3

Chapters 4-5

Chapters 6-8

Chapter 9

Chapters 10-11

Chapters 12-14

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Themes

The Necessity of Death for Salvation

In Christian doctrine, salvation is a rebirth, and a rebirth can never happen unless a death precedes it. Christian doctrine teaches that Jesus’s sacrificial death made salvation possible for humankind; as the only sinless person to ever live, he was the only one who could make such a sacrifice. Additionally, the Bible teaches that each person’s sinful nature must be put to death in order for them to attain salvation. This doctrine does not mean that a redeemed person will never sin again after accepting God’s grace, but rather that they will experience a new orientation toward God and holiness and will be in the continuous process of trying to root sin out of their lives.

In The Great Divorce, every Ghost but one ultimately remains unwilling to put their sinful natures to death. Many seem to find certain elements of Heaven appealing, but they are not willing to sacrifice anything to get it. Lewis emphasizes the idea that choosing faith is the difficult choice, not the easy one. Laypeople and famous philosophers alike often discuss faith and religion as a coward’s choice, arguing that belief in a glorious afterlife can ease the burden of life’s difficulties and even prevent people from laboring to make the world better. Combating this notion, Lewis holds that faith is actually the difficult choice because of the sacrifice that it demands: the death of much (if not all) of what we take to be our selfhood so that we can be remade as something else.

Readers can observe this idea at work in every single Ghost-Spirit interaction the narrator witnesses other than the man with the lizard on his shoulder—the one Ghost who chooses Heaven. One Ghost will not give up his pride. Another will not give up her distorted devotion to her deceased son’s memory. Still another will not give up her desire to control her husband. Lewis expresses the centrality of this theme to his story in the Preface: He describes a belief, popular among a great deal of the world’s population, “that reality never presents us with an absolutely unavoidable ‘either-or’; […] that mere development or adjustment or refinement will somehow turn evil into good without our being called on for a final and total rejection of anything we should like to retain” (vii). “This belief,” he goes on, “I take to be a disastrous error” (vii). The pervasiveness of this theme throughout the narrator’s journey marks it as the novel’s chief concern.

Grace Versus Good Works

Throughout the novel, several of the Ghosts express irritation that the Spirit with whom they are interacting made it into Heaven while they did not. Their irritation rests in the idea that in life they certainly were at least as good as the Spirit. Because this way of thinking about how one gains entrance to Heaven is extremely popular, Lewis addresses it in the very first Ghost-Spirit interaction. The Spirit, a former murderer, explains that one cannot earn one’s way into Heaven. Salvation can only be received as a gift, not won as a reward.

This is the core tenet at the heart of orthodox Christian doctrine, but Lewis shows that many people find it distasteful or out of keeping with their sense of self-reliance. Many cultures frown upon the idea of receiving “charity” or “handouts”; they glorify those who work tirelessly and expect those who find themselves in need of a handout to produce proof that they deserve it and will work to be worthy of it. These social messages can make it difficult to accept the idea that salvation must be approached as a free gift from God, and that no amount of good behavior could override the sinful human nature with which every human is born, and which cannot enter Heaven.

For the first Ghost, this doctrine is unpalatable because he cannot bear the thought of accepting charity from anyone, even God. For others, like the grief-stricken mother, this doctrine is unpalatable because they are convinced of the holiness of their own natures and cannot conceive of themselves as sinners. The mother thinks that her love for her deceased son covers her in glory, and that no one who loves their son so much and mourns him so completely could possibly be sinful. Over and over throughout the book, the Spirits plead with the Ghosts to accept salvation and venture into the Mountains, but the very simplicity of their offer makes the Ghosts pause. They are used to systems built on rewards for good behavior and punishment for bad behavior and struggle to grasp the simplicity of grace as a free gift. Lewis suggests that the process of choosing to let go of one’s own pride and selfish desires may not be easy, but the process of accepting is simple. Difficulty, in this case, is not synonymous with complexity.

Humankind’s Capacity for Self-Deception

Throughout the book, the Ghosts demonstrate a remarkable capacity for self-deception. Many of them fail to recognize or acknowledge that the Grey Town is Hell or Purgatory. (See Chapter 9 Summary or the Symbols section for an explanation of how the Grey Town can be described as Hell or Purgatory.) For instance, on the bus ride to the Valley of the Shadow of Life, Ikey describes his fear that the Grey Town’s permanent evening will one day turn to night, but the apostate reprimands him for spreading “primitive superstitions.” “There is not a shred of evidence,” the apostate says, “that this twilight is ever going to turn into a night. There has been a revolution of opinion on that in educated circles” (16). Many of the Ghosts delude themselves about the very nature of their reality.

Similarly, most of the Ghosts delude themselves about their true motivations. The apostate thinks he rejects Heaven out of a noble love of free inquiry, whereas in reality he rejects Heaven out of fear of eternal consequences. The painter thinks he rejects Heaven out of a duty to artistic principles, whereas in reality he rejects Heaven because he worships the creations of his own mind rather than the creations of the Creator. The woman concerned about her appearance thinks she rejects Heaven out of an appropriate shame, whereas in reality she rejects Heaven because of vanity about her appearance. The majority of the Ghosts fail to recognize and name their actual deepest conflict with salvation’s requirements.

Lastly, many of the Ghosts deceive themselves about the simplicity of the Spirits’ proposals. The Spirits invariably communicate clearly and to the point, but the Ghosts often accuse them of not understanding all the nuances of a situation.

For instance, when the apostate indicates to his former friend, Dick, that the Grey Town, with its “field for indefinite progress” (35), can be a sort of Heaven if one chooses to think of it so, Dick replies, “Is it possible you don’t know where you’ve been?” (35). The apostate replies in the negative, and Dick answers, “We call it Hell” (35). Dick’s identification is clear and direct, but the apostate acts as if he’s telling a joke: “There is no need to be profane, my dear boy” (35). To evade making a choice, the Ghosts fool themselves into thinking simple situations are full of complication.

Related Titles

By C. S. Lewis

Study Guide

A Grief Observed

The Great Divorce

Themes

The Necessity of Death for Salvation

Grace Versus Good Works

Humankind’s Capacity for Self-Deception

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