The Nature Of Hell In C. S. Lewis The Great Divorce

In C. S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce, Lewis is arguing that Hell is not merely 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.
The structure and organization of The Great Divorce can initially appear confusing and nonsensical, yet with a closer investigation, …show more content…
The first Ghost’s self-interested wishes are for justice and his rights, and these seemingly harmless desires are revealed to be destructive in the interview. If the Big Ghost, who demands his rights and claims that he has done no wrong, is damned to the Grey Town, he will indeed receive his rights that he so longs for. The Ghost declares, “I never asked for anything that wasn’t mine by rights,” yet he does not understand that complete surrender to God is the surrender of one’s rights (Lewis 480). His demands for his rights is a call for justice, yet true justice will indeed trap this Ghost in Grey Town forever. Big Ghost does not realize that mercy is his only hope, but in the interview, he refuses grace because God’s forgiveness would require the Ghost to humble himself and forget his “rights.” The proper response to sin is damnation according to the Bible. Jesus dying on the cross allows for people to accept unwarranted forgiveness and an undeserved pardon from Hell. This Ghost’s issue seems to be anger, but anger acts as merely a manifestation of the Ghost’s pride, which is the root of his sin (Christopher 90). His pride attributes to him being self-centered (Gibson 116). Because of his anger and pride, the Big Ghost may reside in Grey Town forever, rejoicing in the fact that he was able to maintain his …show more content…
The other nine interviews were more focused on “the conditions and attitudes which influenced [the Ghosts’] choice,” while the interview with the Dwarf and his Tragedian is more focused on the Ghost’s relationship with the Solid Being, Sarah Smith (Gibson 125). Sarah Smith was the Ghost’s wife and is a well-known saint in Heaven. The interview is placed last because it allows Lewis to show the “limits of the reach of love” (Gibson 126). Throughout his earthly life, the Dwarf has roleplayed different parts to force people to pity him and give him exactly what he wants. Despite the Dwarf’s games, Sarah still loves her husband and would have gone to Hell to save him; however, George MacDonald states that the truth that Hell would never accept her because of the great divorce between Heaven and Hell. When Sarah demands for the Dwarf and Tragedian to stop acting, the Ghost plays dumb, pretending not to know his shortfall (Lewis 534). “Using pity, other people’s pity, in the wrong way…. You used [pity] to blackmail…” (Lewis 534). At his wife’s accusations, the Dwarf tries to defend himself with his corrupt view of love. In the end, the Dwarf is damned and receives exactly what he wanted. He turns away from joy because one cannot receive pity when one is in paradise. The narrator states, “I do not know that I ever saw anything more