In the preface to The Great Divorce, C. S. Lewis presents his allegory  as a kind of counterpoint to William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.  Blake, a celebrated artist and poet, supported the idea of ‘spirituality,’ and was a fierce critic of organized religion. According to the British Library, in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell,  Blake develops the idea that the sensual world can lead to the spiritual, and that the repression of desire destroys the spirit. He says, ‘Man has no Body distinct from his Soul … Energy is the only life, and is from the Body.’ [1]

Lewis declines to  launch a full frontal attack on Blake’s ideas–he isn’t even convinced that he knew what Blake meant [2] — but he does take issue with the idea that there may be a direct path between carnal desire and the spiritual, and by extension, between Heaven and Hell–that there is a way by which both alternatives can somehow be reconciled without a rejection of past sinful behavior, where ‘mere development or adjustment or refinement will somehow turn evil into good without being called on for a final and total rejection of anything we should like to retain.’ [3] Lewis categorically rejects these ideas. He argues we live in a world  where all roads do not eventually lead to a common destination, a centre if you will, where some degree of good coexists with a tinge of evil; instead, all roads diverge, leading to distinct destinations of  good or evil—where good and evil continually diverge, grow farther and farther apart: ‘Good, as it ripens, becomes continually more different not only from evil but from other good’ [4], that is, where Good is definitively and categorically  divorced from Evil—where Heaven is divorced from Hell. 

This does not mean that those who chose the wrong roads inevitably perish, but to be put back on the right path requires finding one’s errors and correcting them. ‘Evil can be undone, but it cannot develop into good.’ [5]

At the centre of The Great Divorce is the idea of  a second chance, that those in Hell (or Purgatory, depending on their life choices)  are given an opportunity to reject  the wrong path, and return to the correct one.  Lewis accomplishes this through the idea of the Refrigerium,  an idea propagated in a sermon by the English clergyman Jeremy Taylor. The Refrigerium describes a brief respite from Hell, where  the departed are allowed a day in  Heaven. Lewis takes this idea  and introduces us to a group of the Departed, who take a bus ride to the outskirts of  Heaven and are met by former  family and colleagues, who offer them the opportunity to reject their ways and accept the opportunity to join them in Heaven.

Through these encounters, we learn about  former  relationships: relationships with family and colleagues, and with God. Lewis uses these events to examine several themes, including, self-interest, selfishness, pride, lust, love—love for self disguised as love for others—reliance on self vs. reliance on God.  Underlying many of these encounters however is Milton’s theme in Paradise Lost: ‘It is better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.’ [6]

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