The Manifestation of Pride in The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis
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The Manifestation of Pride in The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis
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”. George MacDonald the narrator/teacher, from whom Lewis…show more content…
Adoption has brought me through the hands of my birth mother to a mother who has now raised me for 16 years. Conversations with my birth mother result in dramatic feelings for her and for me, “tyranny of the past” (p.102). But, Lewis suggests in the book that the past is all she (the ghost) “chose to have” and that “it was the wrong way to deal with sorrow”. My birth mother could very well be the ghost as I was even an ‘accident’. As her memory of me is deceiving and still consuming her thoughts. This maternal or instinctual love is preventing my mother from moving on in her own life.
A material mind set is a reality of many entrepreneurs and is well represented in this book through the man with the bowler hat, Ikey. This mans thoughts revolve around providing necessity, “But if I can come back with some real commodities…why, at once you’d get a demand down in our town” (p.13). For a real world entrepreneur, such as Ikey, it would be simple for thoughts to be consumed by opportunism. If thoughts are consumed by need, it leaves less time to reflect on choices and can cause Acedia (restlessness or despair). Lewis makes this point later in chapter six while referring to Ikey, “…still availing himself of every scrap of cover, he set out on his Via dolorosa to the bus, carrying his torture” (p.49). Ikey’s refusal to rest denies him an opportunity, which any entrepreneur would never give up, but in this instance his
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”. George MacDonald the narrator/teacher, from whom Lewis…show more content…
Adoption has brought me through the hands of my birth mother to a mother who has now raised me for 16 years. Conversations with my birth mother result in dramatic feelings for her and for me, “tyranny of the past” (p.102). But, Lewis suggests in the book that the past is all she (the ghost) “chose to have” and that “it was the wrong way to deal with sorrow”. My birth mother could very well be the ghost as I was even an ‘accident’. As her memory of me is deceiving and still consuming her thoughts. This maternal or instinctual love is preventing my mother from moving on in her own life.
A material mind set is a reality of many entrepreneurs and is well represented in this book through the man with the bowler hat, Ikey. This mans thoughts revolve around providing necessity, “But if I can come back with some real commodities…why, at once you’d get a demand down in our town” (p.13). For a real world entrepreneur, such as Ikey, it would be simple for thoughts to be consumed by opportunism. If thoughts are consumed by need, it leaves less time to reflect on choices and can cause Acedia (restlessness or despair). Lewis makes this point later in chapter six while referring to Ikey, “…still availing himself of every scrap of cover, he set out on his Via dolorosa to the bus, carrying his torture” (p.49). Ikey’s refusal to rest denies him an opportunity, which any entrepreneur would never give up, but in this instance his
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