As famous author, C.S. Lewis once said in his novel Mere Christianity, “every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different than it was before.” Humans always have a decision that has to be made, regardless how minor or severe the situation. In C.S. Lewis’s novel The Great Divorce, the characters become ghosts traveling through heaven and hell and are faced with the decision on where they will spend eternity. When readers go through Lewis’s novel, some might ask the question, why do the ghosts refuse to stay in heaven and choose to go to hell? When analyzing the novel on the surface, this question can ponder a reader with confusion. But the way to answer this …show more content…
Michael Raiger analysis titled “The Place of the Self in C.S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce,” looks at human identity and where sin is intertwined within it. The ghosts within The Great Divorce were living in different forms of sin, insecurity, greed, pride, or violence, which is what brought them to the decision on whether to go to heaven and hell and because of their sinful nature, they chose the path of sin, rather than the path of redemption. Gavin Ortlund touches on the sinful nature of man “On the Fall of Angels and the Falleness of Nature: An Evangelical Hypothesis Regarding Natural Evil” when concluding that the emotions of man are twisted and unreliable. He uses a quotation by Anne Dillard which states, “All right then. It is our emotions that are amiss. We are freaks, the world is fine, and let us all go have lobotomies to restore us to a natural state. We can leave the library then, go back to the creek lobotomized, and live on its banks as untroubled as any muskrat or reed.” In other words, the emotions of man are sick and twisted. This emphasis is important because of the fallen nature of man because of his sin and is shown repetitively in The Great Divorce. The character known as The Big Man was a very violent and deceitful character who made many mistakes, not only on earth, but on the bus on his way to heaven. He acted out of emotions and it can be determined that he also acted out of emotion when deciding to go back to hell. The sin that is in human nature has corrupted the nature to the core, and Orthlund and Raiger show the importance of understanding the nature of
Society considers divorce as a failure and a destruction to a family unit when in reality divorce should be considered normal considering that the majority of families are blended or single parent homes. Barbara Kingsolver, an american novelist and essayist states her thoughts about divorce, blended and broken families in her essay titled “Stone Soup.” She argues that no family is perfect and that all families have problems. She uses examples, statistics and metaphors to persuade her readers of what a true family is. She informs us based on her own life experiences: her values, changes, and choices which ended in her divorce.
In his novel The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis depicts two settings: one of a grey town where whatever you want is provided for you and another of grand pasture. These settings, in the book, represent Heaven in Hell in a way, depending on which character's perspective the places are viewed from. However, the places that the main character visits and the journey that he takes is one that can be used to model the journey of our spiritual walk. Similar to how the protagonist starts in a bleak town then travels through a beautiful but harsh pasture towards the mountains, our lives start in the darkness of sin, but then we travel through the treacherous but worthwhile journey of faith towards eternity with God.
The first character chosen is The Big Ghost. The Big Ghost represents the wayside, a quick sprout up and burn out, wanting to deflect the things of God, and extinguish them quickly. That is his temperament and his way of life, albeit hitting people without a second thought–––a big bully. Moreover, his belief is: it is his right to quickly be judge and hands out the sentence that he declares fit for the person he judged. Len, an ex-employee of the Big Ghost, explains some information about the Big Ghost; that during his earthly life [he was disgruntled, dominating his employees, and being a dictator to his wife, and children.] When the Big Ghost realized that Len was a murderer, who killed a man named Jack. The Big Ghost could not, and would not believe, or even try to understand that; Len the murderer was in heaven, and he was in hell. The big man being embittered from his idea of Heaven, he therefore, developed a wall to separate himself from God and Heaven because of ignorance, not looking beyond his pride to see that God is a forgiving God, and God loves the sinner, not the sin. The Big Ghost believed himself to be a favorable person when he said “I am an acceptable person”. In Hells Best Kept Secret, Ray Comfort, author, director, and the commentator said: “One function of God’s law is to stop the mouth. To stop sinners justifying themselves and saying, ‘There are plenty of people worse than me. I’m not a bad person, really.” David Clark, author of C.S. Lewis Goes to Heaven said: “Len does his best to persuade the Big Ghost to acknowledge his faults, but the Big Ghost wants no part of a Heaven that allows murders to become citizens of Heaven.” Thus, the Big Ghost freely and foolishly chose to reject heaven, a true decision of
The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis suggests that choices made on earth have a consequential effect towards our acceptance into heaven or our plummet into hell. In this book pride manifests itself in a hundred subtle ways as souls whine about perceived injustices or irrational motives. Thankfully, a few tourists do humble themselves, become transformed into marvelously real beings, and remain in heaven. But most don't, about which the great Scottish author George MacDonald, Lewis' heavenly guide, says, “They may not be rejecting the truth of heaven now. They may be reenacting the rejection they made while on earth”.
In the poem, “Divorce,” by Billy Collins is only four lines and is incredibly short, but this doesn’t mean this poem has no value within it. It was written in 2008, which is when the great recession was happening. This poem symbolizes the tragedy of a failing relationship between two partners and the impact the recession had on these relationships. This will be an essay on the analyzation of the poem, “Divorce,” by Mr. Collins.
Wicher, Andrzej. “The Image of Hell as a Great Hidden City in C.S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce.” USC Jan 2009. Print. P. 84-100.
Over the past decades, the patterns of family structure have changed dramatically in the United States. The typical nuclear family, two married parents with children living together in one household, is no longer the structure of the majority of the families today. The percentage of single-parent families, step-families and adopted families has increased significantly over the years. The nuclear family is a thing of the past. Family situations have tremendous influence upon a child’s academic achievement, behavior and social growth.
Not only does Asch prove that we are still bound to the social conducts that bounded our ancestors, but also that the independence that many claim to posses, is not prevalent when faced against a crowd. Asch’s findings are explained in even simpler terms in Frank O’Connor’s short story, “First Confession”. The story revolves around Jackie, the protagonist, and his misbelief of confession. Influenced by the ideas and beliefs of others, Jackie rues the day in which he must go to confession, believing that he will be eternally damned and confined within the depths of Hell. Nevertheless, it is daunting to believe that a child, who has not entered his teen years, is led to believe that he is destined to enter Hell, if he, or thinks, of breaking one of the Ten Commandments. This fear haunts Jackie, and does not have the courage to go against a popular opinion, essentially conforming to what others believe. Although it may seem exorbitant to believe that one is destined to Hell because of a mortal sin, Jackie’s submission to a popular consensus reflects a prevalent scenario in human
No matter who you are one day in life you are going to meet someone who takes your breath away. Someone who you feel you could just simply not live without and when that day comes so will the day that you decide between marriage or cohabitation. In James Q. Wilson’s article “Cohabitation Instead of Marriage” and Andrew J. Cherlin’s article “The Origins of the Ambivalent Acceptance of Divorce.” cover many marital relationship topics such as history, money, children, and culture.
There was a man by the name of Thomas of Elderfield who had a life full of ups and downs, but who never lost his faith in Christianity. He came from a poor family and worked his way up the social ladder to a successful business man. This climb up the social ladder was beneficial to him, but soon led to trouble as he attracted a suitor. After several years of infidelity with the suitor, Thomas’s conscious got to him and he discontinued seeing the married woman. His faith in God kept him from returning to her despite her repeated attempts at pulling him into sin. Thomas could not live with the weight of the sin on his shoulders so he went to a priest to confess what was causing him anguish and repent for his sins. “Eventually God's grace intervened and remorse stung him; so he presented himself to a priest and took his healthy advice to do proper penance for his offence,” (Malmesbury, par. 2). The woman remarried a man named George years after her first husband had passed away. In time George found out about his new wife’s previous infidelity...
Time and again, Lewis sees the ghosts fail, but they still will not let go of what is holding them back. While Lewis is walking he meets George MacDonald who aids him in his journey through heaven. MacDonald tells Lewis that this journey is a dream, which will make clear to him that souls have a choice between Heaven and Hell and what that choice is. Lewis, at first, is unable to understand why the lost souls must be damned. However, he is finally persuaded that Hell is the only merciful solution for the lost souls. Passing by many sad spectacles of people from Hell, Lewis begins to understand, with the help of MacDonald, that these people must throw away everything and commit their lives to Christ.
Many families in the United States are separated or divorced. My family is a part of the divorce statistics. My mother and father divorced in 2001. I was four years old and my brother was two. My brother and I have to deal with the packing and the repacking of the bags every week. There was plenty of personal and social reasons behind the divorce. Some personal reasons were lack of commitment, too much arguing, marrying too young, and having kids at a young age. My parents got married at the age of 18. My mother had me at the age of 19, and she had my brother at the age of 21. That put a strain on their marriage, and that caused my parents to argue all the time. My father also worked all the time to support us. He was the only one with a job
Sociological Analysis of Divorce as a Social Problem and Proposed Solutions Every year approximately 2.4 million marriages occur. Out of those,2.1 millionwill file for divorce in the United States. These marriage and divorce rates have significantly increased since the years past(Coltrane and Adams, 364).According to Schoen, in the 1950’s, 15 out of 1,000 marriages ended in divorce. In the 1970’s, the rates of divorcedoubled,increasing to 40 per 1,000 marriages. Currently, the rate of marriages resulting in divorce remains the same.
The beginning of the book The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis was difficult to understand and hard to figure out, but as you read on, you come to find out that this book is about heaven and hell and the people that go there. The narrator who is the main character in the book tells the story on what he sees from his eyes. The author describes hell as a dark cold town with alleys that people live in and no one to be seen on the streets, and heaven as this place that looks beautiful with green grass, mountains, rivers, and animals running around. C.S. Lewis uses different characters throughout the book to help understand the scene and the situations that are going on. The ghosts that go with him to heaven from hell are all different and play a big role in this novel. The other characters in the novel are the spirits who live in heaven and talk to the ghosts. Through the conversations going on between the ghosts and the spirits you learn more and more about what is going on, how characters got there, and their problems. The narrator listens to the two talk and from the conversation does he learn more about himself. I believe Lewis made this book so the reader can put themselves in the narrator's position and also think about their own lives and circumstances.
Recent studies have shown that divorce rates among the United States have steadily increased across demographics which may be contributed by shifts if divorce culture. Marriage culture includes, “the belief, assumption, and practice that marriage is a given and forever,” whereas divorce culture, “is a set of beliefs and practices that define marriage as optional and conditional, with diverse being an option if the marriage does not work.” Additionally, it has been shown that individuals who marry likeminded characteristics, such as those with similar education levels, intelligence, social background, race, and religion are better matches and therefore contribute to marriage success. Other causes to divorce rates have been related to factors