Continuing through The Great Divorce…
SUMMARY POINTS FROM LAST WEEK’S CLASS ON CHAPTER 1
Description of the place where the narrator is
–Raining, dreary, endless, mean, dismal, dingy, empty
Description of the people he encounters at the bus stop
–mix of social classes, waspish, scowling, loud, complaining, disfavouring, argumentative, violent, whining, cheating, bullying, excluding, fighting: some scholars posit a link with the seven deadly sins (Envy, Gluttony, Greed, Lust, Pride, Sloth, Wrath)
Description of the bus and driver
–wonderful, blazing, full of light, colorful, plenty of room, authoritative, responsible, focused—and the bus can fly!
Description of people are leaving the queue
–the arguing husband and wife, the short man who was punched, the trousered self-absorbed couple, the cheated woman
The tousle-headed youth and what we learn from him
–assumes instant intimacy with narrator based on looks, shares information
–he has been there a while, he believes he is in the wrong place, there has been more than one bus, the people are comfortable where they are and like it as much as they are capable of liking anything, he feels there is no intellectual life, he has been unsuccessful in trying to wake his peers or form a circle of them, he is a writer of some sort
Some of Lewis’s likely inspirations seen in Chapter One
The Refrigerium
“Did ye never hear of the Refrigerium? A man with your advantages might have read of it in Prudentius, not to mention Jeremy Taylor.” George MacDonald in Ch. 9 of The Great Divorce
Prudentius: an early Roman Christian poet, author of hymns like “Of the Father’s Love Begotten” and “Earth Has Many a Noble City”—Lewis knew his work well.
Jeremy Taylor: a 17th century Anglican divine whose 1650 sermon “Christ’s Advent to Judgment”talks about the Catholic idea of the Refrigerium mentioned in Prudentius– the idea that the damned are given occasional repose from the torments of Hell by being granted “days off” in other places.
“The Celestial Omnibus”—short story by E.M. Forster (1911)
Forster was a well-known and popular British author some twenty years older than Lewis. This short story focuses on a boy with a strong sense of wonder who sees a sign at a bus stop saying “To Heaven.” His pseudo-intellectual parents and their friends mock him. The boy actually finds the bus and travels to Heaven and is overcome with wonder at its beauty. One of his parents’ snobbish friends goes with the boy the next time but finds a different bus, where Dante is the guide and where there is a quotation from the Inferno slightly altered to say “Abandon self-importance” rather than “Abandon hope.”
MAJOR THEMES IN CHAPTER ONE
1. Bad choices can have lasting consequences. “I ought to have taken the first bus but I’ve fooled about trying to wake people up here. I found a few fellows I’d known before and tried to form a little circle, but they all seem to have sunk to the level of their surroundings.”
“But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.” (James 1:14-15) Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. (Galatians 5:19-23)
2. The children of darkness disdain the children of light. “A growl went up from the queue as he came in sight. “Looks as if he had a good time of it, eh? … Bloody pleased with himself, I bet. … My dear, why can’t he behave naturally? Thinks himself too good to look at us. … Who does he imagine he is? … All that gilding and purple, I call it a wicked waste. Why don’t they spend some of the money on their house property down here? God! I’d like to give him one in the ear-’ole.”
Don’t link up with unbelievers and try to work with them. What common interest can there be between goodness and evil? How can light and darkness share life together? How can there be harmony between Christ and the devil? What business can a believer have with an unbeliever? What common ground can idols hold with the temple of God? For we, remember, are ourselves living temples of the living God, as God has said: ‘I will dwell in them and walk among them. I will be their God, and they shall be my people’. (2 Cor. 6:14 JBP) And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God. (Jn. 3:19-21)
