Week 1: Preface — Lewis Sets the Stage

1.Lewis opens the Preface by warning readers not to mistake his fictional geography for a literal map of the afterlife. Why do you think he feels the need to issue this disclaimer before a single page of narrative? What does it tell you about the purpose of the allegory?

2.The book's title, The Great Divorce, is a direct reply to William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Lewis insists Heaven and Hell cannot be 'married' — that ultimately there is no comfortable middle ground between them. Does that claim strike you as harsh, or as honest? What in your own experience resonates with — or resists — it?

3.Lewis quotes George MacDonald as a guiding influence and will later introduce him as a character. What do you already know about MacDonald, and what does Lewis's choice of him as a mentor figure suggest about the kind of Christianity this book will present?

4.Lewis says his purpose is not to speculate about the actual geography of the afterlife but to think clearly about choices made in this life. How does framing an afterlife story as being 'really about this life' change the way you approach it as a reader?

5.The Preface insists that time in Hell may be experienced as both an eternal past and an eternal present — that what the damned experience as 'a long time ago' is still now. How does this concept of time begin to shape the moral logic of the book?

6.Lewis's central thesis might be summarized as: 'You cannot take your sin into Heaven, but you may bring your repentance.' How does that statement connect to what you understand about the gospel? Where does it feel like grace, and where does it feel like demand?