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53-511: The Great Divorce is a novel by the British author C. S. Lewis , published in 1945, based on a theological dream vision of his in which he reflects on the Christian conceptions of Heaven and Hell . The working title was Who Goes Home? but the final name was changed at the publisher's insistence. The title refers to William Blake 's poem The Marriage of Heaven and Hell . The Great Divorce

106-451: A theological novel as one which denotes a more idea driven plot, rather than a novel which is about people who happen to be interacting with religion, but the distinction often proves difficult to sustain when ideas and actions are closely interwoven, each influencing the other. Examples of the genre (also called novellae ) include: Examples of theological long fiction include: Individual stories can be linked in series to constitute

159-406: A composite novel or a short story cycle , where a group of stories interact to convey a richer or fuller story than any of the single elements can. Examples of linked series of theological fiction include: George MacDonald George MacDonald (10 December 1824 – 18 September 1905) was a Scottish author, poet and Christian Congregational minister . He became a pioneering figure in

212-707: A C. S. Lewis conference in Oxford and Cambridge, England, before securing permission to include it in their season a year later. In 2007 the Magis Theatre Company of New York City presented their adaptation in an off-Broadway run at Theatre 315 in the Theatre District with music by award-winning composer Elizabeth Swados and puppets by Ralph Lee . Lauded by the New York Times for its imagination, theatrical skill and daring, theatre critic Neil Genzlinger called

265-469: A book in which I did not quote from him. But it has not seemed to me that those who have received my books kindly take even now sufficient notice of the affiliation. Honesty drives me to emphasize it. Others he influenced include J. R. R. Tolkien and Madeleine L'Engle . MacDonald's non-fantasy novels, such as Alec Forbes , had their influence as well; they were among the first realistic Scottish novels, and as such MacDonald has been credited with founding

318-543: A career in the medical field but he speculated that lack of money put an end to this prospect. It was only in 1848 that MacDonald began theological training at Highbury College for the Congregational ministry. MacDonald was appointed minister of Trinity Congregational Church , Arundel , in 1850, after briefly serving as a locum minister in Ireland. However, his sermons—which preached God's universal love and that everyone

371-424: A character in the story, Dante , Prudentius and Jeremy Taylor are alluded to in the text of chapter 9. The narrator inexplicably finds himself in a grim and joyless city, the "grey town", where it rains continuously, even indoors, which is either Hell or Purgatory depending on whether or not one stays there. He eventually finds a bus stop for those who desire an excursion to some other place. ("The grey town"

424-430: A few, while his mother had received a classical education which included multiple languages. An account cited how the young George suffered lapses in health in his early years and was subject to problems with his lungs such as asthma , bronchitis and even a bout of tuberculosis . This last illness was considered a family disease and two of MacDonald's brothers, his mother, and later three of his own children died from

477-572: A film adaptation of The Great Divorce . Stephen McEveety was to lead the production team and author N. D. Wilson had been tapped to write the script. A first draft of the script was finalized by N.D. Wilson in 2011. A 2013 release was originally planned for the film. As of 2024 it has not yet been produced. Theological fiction The subject matter of theological novels often overlaps with philosophical novels , particularly when it deals with issues from natural theology (also called philosophy of religion ). For example, Roger Olsen notes that

530-485: A noted medical specialist, a pioneer of the Peasant Arts movement, wrote numerous fairy tales for children, and ensured that new editions of his father's works were published. Another son, Ronald, became a novelist. His daughter Mary was engaged to the artist Edward Robert Hughes until her death in 1878. Ronald's son, Philip MacDonald (George MacDonald's grandson), became a Hollywood screenwriter. Tuberculosis caused

583-670: A place much loved by British expatriates, the Riviera dei Fiori in Liguria , Italy, almost on the French border. In that locality there also was an Anglican church, All Saints, which he attended. Deeply enamoured of the Riviera, he spent 20 years there, writing almost half of his whole literary production, especially the fantasy work. MacDonald founded a literary studio in that Ligurian town, naming it Casa Coraggio (Bravery House). It soon became one of

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636-412: A start, had committed suicide by throwing himself under a train, whereas one of the final spirits had died peacefully in bed in a nursing home.) Almost all of the ghosts choose to return to the grey town instead, giving various reasons and excuses. Much of the interest of the book lies in the recognition it awakens of the plausibility and familiarity–and the thinness and self-deception–of the excuses which

689-506: A writer when alive, is met by the writer George MacDonald ; the narrator hails MacDonald as his mentor, just as Dante did when first meeting Virgil in the Divine Comedy ; and MacDonald becomes the narrator's guide in his journey, just as Virgil became Dante's. MacDonald explains that it is possible for a soul to choose to remain in Heaven despite having been in the grey town; for such souls,

742-422: Is a dream! " Toward this end, the narrator expresses his terror of remaining a ghost in the advent of full daybreak in Heaven, comparing the weight of the sunlight on a ghost as like having large blocks fall on one's body –at which point his falling books awaken him at his desk during The Blitz . The framing of the dream follows that of The Pilgrim's Progress in which the protagonist dreams of judgment day in

795-407: Is a trick; a bully ("Big Man") is offended that people he believes beneath him are there; a nagging wife is angry that she will not be allowed to dominate her husband in Heaven. However one man corrupted on Earth by lust, which rides on his ghost in the form of an ugly lizard, permits an angel to kill the lizard and becomes a little more solid, and journeys forward, out of the narrative. The narrator,

848-452: Is actually minuscule to the point of being invisible compared with the immensity of Heaven and reality. An inconclusive dialogue about the unfathomable mysteries of eschatology and soteriology ensues in which the visions of Swedenbourg and Hildegard of Bingen , the crux of the matter being eternity vis-à-vis time . In answer to the narrator's question, MacDonald confirms that when he writes about it " Of course you should tell them it

901-419: Is only called such; the destination later turns out to be the foothills of Heaven ). He waits in line for the bus and listens to the arguments between his fellow passengers. As they await the bus's arrival, many of them quit the line in disgust before the bus pulls up. The driver is an angel who casually shields his face from the passengers. Once the few remaining passengers have boarded, the bus flies upward, off

954-476: Is the most beautiful they have ever seen, every feature of the landscape, including streams of water and blades of grass, is unyieldingly solid compared to themselves: It causes them immense pain even to walk on the grass, whose blades pierce their shadowy feet, and even a single leaf is far too heavy for any to lift. Shining figures, men and women whom they have known on Earth, come to meet them and to urge them to repent and walk into Heaven proper. They promise as

1007-588: The Clan MacDonald of Glen Coe and a direct descendant of one of the families that suffered in the massacre of 1692 . MacDonald grew up in an unusually literate environment: one of his maternal uncles, Mackintosh MacKay , was a notable Celtic scholar, editor of the Gaelic Highland Dictionary and collector of fairy tales and Celtic oral poetry . His paternal grandfather had supported the publication of an edition of James Macpherson 's Ossian ,

1060-406: The problem of evil is a feature of some significant theological fiction. Theological fiction also overlaps with religious fiction or Christian novels (also called inspirational fiction ), especially when dealing with complex ideas such as redemption , salvation and predestination , which have a direct bearing on attitudes towards religious practices. Some authors try to distinguish

1113-565: The " kailyard school " of Scottish writing. Chesterton cited The Princess and the Goblin as a book that had "made a difference to my whole existence, ... in showing "how near both the best and the worst things are to us from the first ... and making all the ordinary staircases and doors and windows into magical things." In 1877 he was given a civil list (monastic poverty/civil duty) pension. From 1879 he and his family lived in Bordighera , in

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1166-450: The Bible and their perception of nature." MacDonald's oft-mentioned universalism is not the idea that everyone will automatically be saved, but is closer to Gregory of Nyssa in the view that all will ultimately repent and be restored to God. MacDonald appears to have never felt comfortable with some aspects of Calvinist doctrine, feeling that its principles were inherently "unfair"; when

1219-566: The Christian faith. ... I know hardly any other writer who seems to be closer, or more continually close, to the Spirit of Christ Himself. Hence his Christ-like union of tenderness and severity. Nowhere else outside the New Testament have I found terror and comfort so intertwined. ... In making this collection I was discharging a debt of justice. I have never concealed the fact that I regarded him as my master; indeed I fancy I have never written

1272-598: The Free Church, while his step-mother, to whom he was also very close, was the daughter of a priest of the Scottish Episcopal Church . MacDonald graduated from the King's College, Aberdeen in 1845 with a degree in chemistry and physics. He spent the next several years struggling with matters of faith and deciding what to do with his life. His son, biographer Greville MacDonald, stated that his father could have pursued

1325-650: The House of the Interpreter. The ( metaphysical ) use of chess imagery as well as the correspondence of dream elements to aspects of the narrator's waking life is reminiscent of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass . The book ends with the narrator awakening from his dream of Heaven into the unpleasant reality of wartime Britain, in conscious imitation of the "First Part" of The Pilgrim's Progress ,

1378-711: The Magis adaptation in its 2010–2011 season. In late 2012, the Fellowship for the Performing Arts received permission from the C. S. Lewis estate to produce a stage version of The Great Divorce . The production premiered in Phoenix on 14 December 2013, toured throughout the United States from 2014 to 2016, opened briefly in 2020 and resumed in 2021. In 2010, Mpower Pictures and Beloved Pictures announced that they were working on

1431-787: The University of London. MacDonald was also for a time editor of Good Words for the Young . MacDonald's first realistic novel David Elginbrod was published in 1863. MacDonald is often regarded as the founding father of modern fantasy writing. His best-known works are Phantastes (1858), The Princess and the Goblin (1872), At the Back of the North Wind (1868–1871), and Lilith (1895), all fantasy novels, and fairy tales such as " The Light Princess ", " The Golden Key ", and " The Wise Woman ". MacDonald claimed that "I write, not for children, but for

1484-445: The cherished evils (repentance) that took them to Hell in the first place; or, as is characterized by Lewis, embracing ultimate and unceasing joy itself. This is most grossly and strikingly illustrated in an encounter of a blessed woman who had come to meet her husband: She is surrounded by gleaming attendants whilst he shrinks down to invisibility as he uses a collared tragedian who is chained to him—representative of his persistent use of

1537-656: The child-like, whether they be of five, or fifty, or seventy-five." MacDonald also published some volumes of sermons, the pulpit not having proved an unreservedly successful venue. After his literary success, MacDonald went on to do a lecture tour in the United States in 1872–1873, after being invited to do so by a lecture company, the Boston Lyceum Bureau . On the tour, MacDonald lectured about other poets such as Robert Burns , Shakespeare, and Tom Hood . He performed this lecture to great acclaim, speaking in Boston to crowds in

1590-484: The controversial epic poem based on the Fenian Cycle of Celtic Mythology and which contributed to the starting of European Romanticism . MacDonald's step-uncle was a Shakespeare scholar, and his paternal cousin another Celtic academic. Both his parents were readers, his father harbouring predilections for Isaac Newton , Robert Burns , William Cowper , Chalmers, Samuel Taylor Coleridge , and Charles Darwin , to quote

1643-539: The death of several family members, including Lilia, Mary Josephine, Grace, and Maurice, as well as one granddaughter and a daughter-in-law. MacDonald was said to have been particularly affected by the death of Lilia, his eldest. There is a blue plaque on his home at 20 Albert Street, Camden, London. According to biographer William Raeper, MacDonald's theology "celebrated the rediscovery of God as Father, and sought to encourage an intuitive response to God and Christ through quickening his readers' spirits in their reading of

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1696-409: The doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement as developed by John Calvin , which argues that Christ has taken the place of sinners and is punished by the wrath of God in their place, believing that in turn it raised serious questions about the character and nature of God. Instead, he taught that Christ had come to save people from their sins, and not from a Divine penalty for their sins: the problem

1749-428: The doctrine of predestination was first explained to him, he burst into tears (although assured that he was one of the elect ). Later novels, such as Robert Falconer and Lilith , show a distaste for the idea that God's electing love is limited to some and denied to others. Chesterton noted that only a man who had "escaped" Calvinism could say that God is easy to please and hard to satisfy. MacDonald rejected

1802-461: The field of modern fantasy literature and the mentor of fellow-writer Lewis Carroll . In addition to his fairy tales , MacDonald wrote several works of Christian theology , including several collections of sermons . George MacDonald was born on 10 December 1824 in Huntly , Aberdeenshire , Scotland, to George MacDonald, manufacturer, and Helen McCay or MacKay. His father, a farmer, was descended from

1855-477: The ghosts realize that the grey town is, in fact, Hell. Indeed, it is not that much different from the life they led on Earth –joyless, friendless, monotonous and uncomfortable. It merely expand its sprawl forever with its new occupants, and becomes more and more isolating, with some characters whispering their fear of the "night" that is eventually to come. According to MacDonald, whilst it is possible to leave Hell and enter Heaven, doing so requires turning away from

1908-400: The ghosts travel onward and upward that they will become more solid and thus feel less and less discomfort, and more truly real; this process is also in an aside called "thickening". These luminous psychopomps , deemed "spirits" to distinguish them from the insubstantial ghosts, offer to help them journey toward the mountains and the sunrise. (One of the earlier ghosts, the narrator learns with

1961-460: The ghosts ultimately refuse to abandon, even though to do so would bring them to "reality" and "joy forevermore". A former bishop refuses, having grown so used to framing his faith in abstract, pseudo-intellectual terms that he can no longer definitively say whether he believes in God; an artist refuses, arguing that he must preserve the reputation of his school of painting; a bitter cynic predicts that Heaven

2014-415: The goodness of Heaven will work backwards into their lives, turning even their worst sorrows into joy, and changing their experience on Earth to an extension of Heaven. Conversely, the evil of Hell works so that if a soul remains in, or returns to, the grey town, even any remembered happiness from life on Earth will lose its meaning, and the soul's experience on Earth would retrospectively become Hell. Few of

2067-564: The illness. Even in his adult life, he was constantly traveling in search of purer air for his lungs. MacDonald grew up in the Congregational Church , with an atmosphere of Calvinism . However, his family was atypical, with his paternal grandfather a Catholic -born, fiddle-playing, Presbyterian elder; his paternal grandmother an Independent church rebel; his mother was a sister to the Gaelic-speaking radical who became moderator of

2120-563: The last sentence of which is: "So I awoke, and behold: It was a Dream." Philadelphia playwright and actor Anthony Lawton's original adaptation of The Great Divorce has been staged several times by Lantern Theater Company , including a weeklong run in February 2012. It also was adapted by Robert Smyth at Lamb's Players Theatre in San Diego, California, in 2004, and was included in their mainstage season for that year. Smyth originally adapted it for

2173-495: The most renowned cultural centres of that period, well attended by British and Italian travellers, and by locals, with presentations of classic plays and readings of Dante and Shakespeare often being held. In 1900 he moved into St George's Wood, Haslemere , a house designed for him by his son, Robert, its building overseen by his eldest son, Greville . George MacDonald died on 18 September 1905 in Ashtead , Surrey, England. He

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2226-454: The neighbourhood of three thousand people. MacDonald served as a mentor to Lewis Carroll ; it was MacDonald's advice, and the enthusiastic reception of Alice by MacDonald's many sons and daughters, that convinced Carroll to submit Alice for publication. Carroll, one of the finest Victorian photographers, also created photographic portraits of several of the MacDonald children. MacDonald

2279-400: The pavement into the grey, rainy sky. The ascending bus breaks out of the rain clouds into a clear, pre-dawn sky, and as it rises its occupants' bodies change from being normal and solid into being transparent, faint, and vapor-like. When it reaches its destination the passengers on the bus— including the narrator—are gradually revealed to be ghosts . Although the country they disembark into

2332-447: The production thought provoking "with plenty to say to those interested in matters of the spirit." In the following years Magis worked closely with the C. S. Lewis estate to make its adaptation available to over a dozen theatre companies from Canada to Ecuador. The Taproot Theatre of Seattle chose the Magis adaptation to open its new Theater Space in 2010 and extended the run due to popular demand. The Pacific Theatre Company presented

2385-554: The rhetorical question, "When we say that God is Love, do we teach men that their fear of Him is groundless?" He replied, "No. As much as they were will come upon them, possibly far more. ... The wrath will consume what they call themselves; so that the selves God made shall appear." However, true repentance, in the sense of freely chosen moral growth, is essential to this process, and, in MacDonald's optimistic view, inevitable for all beings (see universal reconciliation ). MacDonald states his theological views most distinctly in

2438-412: The self-punishing emotional blackmail of others—to speak for him. The narrator is unsure whether her husband had become an insect crawling on this chain, or if his sin had, ultimately, consumed him. Penultimately MacDonald has the narrator crouch down to look at a tiny crack in the soil, and tells him that the bus came up through a crack no bigger than that, which contained the once vast grey town, which

2491-636: Was also friends with John Ruskin and served as a go-between in Ruskin's long courtship with Rose La Touche . While in America he was befriended by Longfellow and Walt Whitman . MacDonald's use of fantasy as a literary medium for exploring the human condition greatly influenced a generation of notable authors, including C. S. Lewis , who featured him as a character in his The Great Divorce . In his introduction to his MacDonald anthology, Lewis speaks highly of MacDonald's views: This collection, as I have said,

2544-599: Was capable of redemption—met with little favour and his stipend was cut in half. In May 1853, MacDonald tendered his resignation from his pastoral duties at Arundel. Later he was engaged in ministerial work in Manchester , leaving that because of poor health. An account cited the role of Lady Byron in convincing MacDonald to travel to Algiers in 1856 with the hope that the sojourn would help turn his health around. When he got back, he settled in London and taught for some time at

2597-410: Was convinced that God does not punish except to amend, and that the sole end of His greatest anger is the amelioration of the guilty. As the doctor uses fire and steel in certain deep-seated diseases, so God may use hell-fire if necessary to heal the hardened sinner. MacDonald declared, "I believe that no hell will be lacking which would help the just mercy of God to redeem his children." MacDonald posed

2650-728: Was cremated in Woking , Surrey, and his ashes were buried in Bordighera , in the English cemetery, along with his wife Louisa and daughters Lilia and Grace. MacDonald married Louisa Powell in Hackney in 1851, with whom he raised a family of eleven children: Lilia Scott (1852–1891), Mary Josephine (1853–1878), Caroline Grace (1854–1884), Greville Matheson (1856–1944), Irene (1857–1939), Winifred Louise (1858–1946), Ronald (1860–1933), Robert Falconer (1862–1913), Maurice (1864–1879), Bernard Powell (1865–1928), and George Mackay (1867–1909). His son Greville became

2703-420: Was designed not to revive MacDonald's literary reputation but to spread his religious teaching. Hence most of my extracts are taken from the three volumes of Unspoken Sermons . My own debt to this book is almost as great as one man can owe to another: and nearly all serious inquirers to whom I have introduced it acknowledge that it has given them great help—sometimes indispensable help toward the very acceptance of

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2756-499: Was first printed as a serial in an Anglican newspaper called The Guardian in 1944 and 1945 and soon thereafter in book form. Lewis's diverse sources for this work include the works of St. Augustine , Dante Aligheri , John Milton , John Bunyan , Emanuel Swedenborg and Lewis Carroll , as well as an American science fiction author whose name Lewis had forgotten but whose work he mentions in his preface (The Man Who Lived Backwards). George MacDonald , whom Lewis utilizes as

2809-504: Was not the need to appease a wrathful God, but the disease of cosmic evil itself. MacDonald frequently described the atonement in terms similar to the Christus Victor theory. MacDonald posed the rhetorical question, "Did he not foil and slay evil by letting all the waves and billows of its horrid sea break upon him, go over him, and die without rebound—spend their rage, fall defeated, and cease? Verily, he made atonement!" MacDonald

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