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Heaven And Hell In C. S. Lewis The Great Divorce

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Have you ever wondered what heaven and hell really look like? Depictions of heaven and hell is something that everyone has in their head, no matter what religion you are or even if you believe in an afterlife or not. Unfortunately, nobody knows for one hundred percent certainty what they both truly look like because no one has been there and came back to earth to tell us about it. Many theories have been constructed to try and describe these places in terms that we as humans living on this earth can understand, and I believe C.S Lewis does a pretty good job of that. Through his book, The Great Divorce, Lewis explains his vision of heaven and hell and why people are held back from every truly experiencing heaven. Lewis describes heaven as being fully present with God and as even more real then earth, and hell is being dull and grey because we are completely separated from God. He does …show more content…

Once the narrator gets to heaven he sees a beautiful landscape full of happy, joyful people. He steps off the bus and says, “the light and coolness that drenched me were like those of a summer morning a minuet or two before the sunrise” (Lewis 19). Already heaven sounds like a much better place than the grey town he was in. Lewis describes heaven as more real that hell and even more real than earth. It is a place where we are truly present with God and it is and ultimate reality. We are free from the bondage of sin and sorrow and stress, and we are free to fully experience and enjoy Gods everlasting grace and love. The people in heaven also look more real that those from the grey town. The people from the grey town are describes as ghosts, they are not fully present. The people in heaven on the other hand are solid an have a sense of meaning and purpose. According to Lewis, heaven is a place where we find true meaning and everlasting joy because we are fully present with

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According to C.S. Lewis heaven and hell are very different because from the way that we see the world. In the book he talks to different people who all have different views of what they think heaven and hell are like. For example, the tousle headed poet who says that society has vulgarized intellect. He says that they don’t want new geniuses because intellectuals aren’t appreciated anymore. He also goes into detail about how his parents never appreciated him and how a former girlfriend hurt him.

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In C. S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce, Lewis is arguing that Hell is not necessarily a place where wicked people who detest God end up; Hell is a place that offers people exactly what they want. The Great Divorce presents “the reason for Hell,” which is people choosing their own wishes over God (Gibson 110). This novel reveals that the self-imprisonment of one’s greatest dreams can lead to infernal results (Gibson 113). In The Great Divorce, Lewis uses Dantean structure, the nature of Grey Town, and the various Ghosts’ interviews to prove that to live in Hell is to receive and accept everything except God and his will.

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