C.S. Lewis' Portrayal of Truth in Fiction

Reasearch Proposal

Abstract: Clive Staple Lewis, considered to be one of the most renowned in Christian apologetics, strove to illuminate certain truths about Christianity in his writing about Christ, death and resurrection, and Christian conversions.  What makes Lewis unique as a writer, however, is his use of fiction to illuminate these truths.  Lewis often wrote his fictional pieces in the manner of fairytales.  Through the use of allegories and imaginative stories in The Great Divorce, The Screwtape Letters, and The Pilgrim’s Regress, C.S. Lewis emphasized spiritual journeys and growth many Christians alike can relate to.  He emphasized each and every human’s need for God’s love and his salvation.

Research Questions: What truths does Lewis want to convey similarly throughout The Great Divorce, The Screwtape Letters, and The Pilgrim’s Regress, as well as other pieces of fiction?  What characteristics of Lewis’ writing style correspond with characteristics of myths and fairytales? 
How does his use of fiction create meaning and convey the truths he wishes to convey well?

Literature Review:

            “The Literary Bloke” about C.S. Lewis himself provides a cultural background for Lewis and his writing style.  As J. I. Packer writes, “[Lewis] was clever at finding the best literary forms for what he had to say, and rich in analogies that are both arguments and illustrations in one.”  This quote describes how Lewis used illustrations—i.e. fairytale worlds—to portray the truth about his theological views in a Christian’s life.  Lewis himself was a convert, and he discovered his truth about Christianity from that struggle, “allegorizing it, along with much else, in The Pilgrim’s Regress”.  This criticism highlights how “this crafting of myth as evangelistic persuasion is a unique excellence in Lewis’ work”, and, as he was an “accessible exponent of Christian truth and wisdom”, demonstrates that his writing style was one in which fairytale/myth was used to convey his beliefs (truths).

            “Finding the Permanent in the Political: C.S. Lewis as a Political Thinker” provides background about the truth Lewis wished to reveal in his writing, necessary for this research topic because one must understand the truth that Lewis illuminated through his writing style.  Per John G. West, “[Lewis’] concern was not policy but principle; political problems of the day were interesting to him only insofar as they involved matters that endured.”  He focused on subtle forms of oppression as related to tyranny and morality, especially.  Arguing “for the existence of a natural moral law known by all through human reason”, Lewis turned away from the conventional source of Christian morality as founded upon the Bible.  He relied upon the Bible but also strove to find an explanation for why those not called Christians could be good, moral citizens within society.

            “The Reluctant Convert in Surprised by Joy and The Great Divorce” analyzes how, within the topic of Christian conversions especially, C.S. Lewis wrote fictional pieces that mirrored the conversion in his own life.  As Allred writes, “The book The Great Divorce presents several fictional conversions that mirror the conversion Lewis relates in his autobiography”, as well as, “These common elements reveal Lewis’ perception of the essential details of conversion and show that his fiction mirrored his life.”  The truth Lewis discovered about Christianity was revealed through his fictional stories—an idea specific to the guiding topic of the research paper.  The truth Lewis discovered through his own conversion was that mentors always play a role in conversions, we must choose to accept God by our free will, and the conversion process includes pain.

            The previous three pieces of literary criticism provided a cultural background for the truth which C.S. Lewis wished to convey in his pieces of fiction especially.  In “The Platonic Foundation of The Great Divorce”, David Allred then argues that Lewis was an imitator, though not a carbon copy, of Plato’s method of writing, especially in The Great Divorce.  “The Great Divorce is founded on Plato’s ideas concerning universal forms, a world of shadows, the power of reason, even the use of imagination.”  However, according to the author, Plato didn’t think art improved morality.  C.S. Lewis, on the other hand, wrote The Great Divorce in a way that is “supernatural and extremely imaginative, all things that hint at where Lewis ceases to copy Plato”.  Both Lewis and Plato wanted to write about the truth that led to leaving the “shadowlands”, and both used allegories to understand the truth about reality (Lewis in his fictional novels; Plato in his Allegory of the Cave).  The truth they strove to illuminate, however, was different—“Lewis’ aim was a Christian people: Plato’s aim, an ideal society”.

            Finally, in “The Childlike in George MacDonald and C.S. Lewis”, Dr. Don W. King analyzes the childlike versus the childish in C.S. Lewis.  What is especially striking is what Dr. King quotes from Lewis.  He quotes that Lewis insists he “speaks to the adult, the child within the adult.  He speaks to everyone.”  This type of writing “writes for the child within the adult”—a writing style reminiscent of the purpose original fairytales had.  Original fairytales, too, were written to highlight a truth to a more adult audience, rather than the child audience fairytales today have come to be written for.

"Of Man by Nature" Synthesis

"Of Man by Nature" and C.S. Lewis

            In John Bunyan’s poem “Of Man by Nature”, John Bunyan emphasizes what he believes to be the nature of man through his use of syntax and informal language so the meaning of the poem is easier for less educated people to understand the topic’s importance.

            Bunyan, concerned essentially with the “inward” man rather than the “outward one”, wrote the poem “Of Man by Nature” reflecting on what the poem’s title implies: what man’s inherent nature is.  The syntax he uses points out the most important points he raises in his poem, the most important characteristics of man’s internal nature.  By using the capitalization of specific words throughout the poem, he places specific emphasis on what he believes to be man’s foundational nature.  He says, “Of Ways, he loves the wider;\ With Wickedness a Sider,\ More Venom than a Spider” (Bunyan 2-4).  By capitalizing words such as “ways”, “wickedness”, “sider”, “venom”, and “spider”, Bunyan makes it clear to all who read the poem that these are characteristics that describe man apart from the good of God, man who is inherently evil.  Even the most uneducated person who reads this poem can innately know that the capitalized words are what are most important within the poem.

            Furthermore, the language John Bunyan uses in “Of Man by Nature” is not formal language that may be difficult for all to understand but informal and colloquial language.  The deliberate use of contractions in the first lines of each quatrain is an example of Bunyan’s use of colloquial language.  In these lines he writes, “From God he’s a Back slider” (Bunyan 1) and, “In Sin he’s a Confider” (Bunyan 5).  The contraction “he’s” as opposed to the more formal writing “he is” demonstrates Bunyan’s use of colloquial and informal language.  Bunyan also uses informal language in his word choices throughout the poem.  Where formal language could be used to describe something as important as man’s foundational nature, Bunyan uses words such as “guider” (Bunyan 7), “spider” (Bunyan 4), and “a sider” (Bunyan 3) to describe man’s inherent nature.  The more formal rendering of “guider” and “a sider” would be “guide” and “sides” but by using these words to fulfill a rhyme scheme in which every line rhymes, Bunyan must resort to informal language.  Bunyan, though, does understand that something as important as man’s inherent sinfulness apart from God should be something every person understands, whether educated or uneducated, so by using colloquial language by means of contractions which are used daily in conversation and by means of his word choices, Bunyan gives his poem an easy rhythm and feel that common men can understand.  

Similarly to the depiction of how man is inherently sinful apart from God in “Of Man by Nature”, C.S. Lewis’ collection of fictional letters in The Screwtape Letters also depicts how apart from God, man will be in the presence of and manipulated by devils, exhibited by the very fact that the letters are written by a demon, Screwtape, to his nephew demon, Wormwood.  The novel shows how these devils rely on man’s tendency to sin (“the daily and hourly temptation” (Lewis 69)) to keep him from converting to “The Enemy’s” religion.  As Screwtape writes in his letter #1, man is not like God or demons.  He is not “a pure spirit” (Lewis 2).  If by nature “From God [man’s] a Back slider,\ Of Ways, he loves the wider” (Bunyan 2-3) and “The Devil is his Rider” (Bunyan 8), one of Lewis’s major purposes in The Screwtape Letters was to show just this—to show that man is easily manipulated because he is not that “pure spirit”.  Lewis, however, takes this idea one step further than Bunyan does in his poem.  While Bunyan never explicitly says that God man can be changed through a relationship with God, Lewis in The Screwtape Letters explicitly shows that in the end “The Enemy” (who is Christ) can change man’s soul.  As C.S. Lewis concludes in the last letter Screwtape writes to Wormwood, “You have let a soul slip through your fingers.  The howl of sharpened famine for that loss re-echoes at this moment through all the levels of the Kingdom of Noise down to the very Throne itself.  It makes me mad to think of it” (171).

"Of Man by Nature"

"Of Man by Nature": John Bunyan

"From God he's a Back slider,
Of Ways, he loves the wider;
With Wickedness a Sider,
More Venom than a Spider.
In Sin he's a Confider,
A Make-bate, and Divider;
Blind Reason is his Guider,
The Devil is his Rider."

"The Wanderer" Synthesis

"The Wanderer" and C.S. Lewis

            The Old English poem “The Wanderer” conveys characteristics of typical Anglo-Saxon oral poetry that would have made the poem easier to listen to, teaching those listening about the wanderer’s struggles and need for God in his life as he grows spiritually. 

            The poem “The Wanderer” contains literary devices of repetition, caesura, and alliteration, all of which were literary devices characteristic of Anglo-Saxon oral poetry.  These three literary devices draw listeners in without causing them to become bored with the topic at hand.  The unknown author of “The Wanderer” used repetition in lines 66-70 of the poem.  He writes, “The wise man is patient,\ not too hot-hearted, nor too quick tongued,\ nor a warrior too weak, nor too foolhardy,\ neither frightened nor fain, nor yet too wealth-greedy, nor ever of boasts too eager, before he knows enough” (“The Wanderer” 66-70).  The use of repetition allows the audience to follow along easily with the list of characteristics of things a wise man knows not to do, as the audience anticipates what will come next in the list.

            Moreover, caesura appears again and again throughout the poem (similar to Beowulf).  For example, the poet writes, “So the earth-stepper spoke, mindful of hardships,\ Of fierce slaughter, the fall of kin:\ Oft must I, alone, the hour before dawn\ lament my care” (“The Wanderer 6-9).  The breaks between “spoke” and “mindful”, “slaughter” and “the fall”, “alone” and “the hour” are the caesura.  Caesura by definition is a pause in a line of verse dictated by natural speech rhythm.  Because Anglo-Saxon poetry was spoken orally as a recitation to an audience, by using Caesura, the audience could easily understand what was being said because the poem’s rhythm sounded like conversation they might have in daily life.

            And lastly, alliteration gives this poem a rhythmic feel while quickening the pace at which the poem would be spoken.  In the Old English, alliteration was always better preserved, but alliteration can still be found in this translation of the poem.  Phrases and lines such as “Far from kin—fasten with fetters” (“The Wanderer 21) and “Spirits of seafarers bring but seldom\ known speech and song” (“The Wanderer 55-56) give the poem variety in pace that does not allow one reciting this poem to recite it in a monotonous tone but in a manner that creates excitement and retains the interest of the audience.

            Repetition, caesura, and alliteration are all necessary to hold the rapture of the audience because the plot line of “The Wanderer” is one of importance to all Christians who lived during the Middle Ages or even today, as the poet is elaborating upon one man’s understanding of his need for spiritual growth and need for God Himself—needs most Christians struggle with.  In both The Pilgrim’s Regress and “The Wanderer”, John and the speaker respectively are on journeys in which they are searching for something to fill the void in their lives.  As the speaker in “The Wanderer” concludes, “Well will it be\ to him who seeks favor, refuge and comfort,\ from the Father in heaven, where all fastness stands” (“The Wanderer” 115-117).  The speaker has been exiled and is searching for something that can provide him with the comforts he wants to live a better life.  The only thing that can fulfill this wish, he concludes, is a faith in God himself.  Similarly in The Pilgrim’s Regress, John goes on a physical journey in which he comes to the conclusion that God and Christianity is the only thing that can fill the void he has been feeling since he first saw the island in the distance as a young boy (“It seemed to him that a mist which hung at the far end of the wood had parted for a moment, and through the rift he had seen a calm sea, and in the sea an island” (Lewis 8)).  This glimpse of the island is what he wants forever, though he learns through his journey that “the pain and longing were changed and all unlike what they had been of old: for humility was mixed with their wildness” (Lewis 170).  As he says, “it began to seem well to him that the Island should be different from his desires, and so different that, if he had known it, he would not have sought it” (Lewis 170). 

            The Great Divorce also contains a physical journey that represents spiritual growth as “The Wanderer” and The Pilgrim’s Regress do.  The narrator in The Great Divorce, a ghost, takes a journey to the outskirts of heaven.  There he realizes that he doesn’t want to return to what the other ghosts consider the safety of the limbo they currently reside in.  He wants the spiritual security being with God provides.  This spiritual growth is represented by Carroll’s use of imagery as opposed reflections of the poet of “The Wanderer” on the speaker’s thoughts to demonstrate the speaker’s spiritual growth.  In The Great Divorce, the speaker has an easier time walking on the sharp grass and becoming accustomed to the bright light as he learns more about how he wants God.  He also grows larger.  As Lewis writes, “He went down on his hands and knees.  I did the same (how it hurt my knees!) and presently saw that he had plucked a blade of grass.  Using its thin end as a pointer, he made me see…a crack in the soil so small that I could not have identified it without this aid… ‘But through a crack no bigger than that ye certainly came.’” (Lewis 137).  

"The Wanderer"

"The Wanderer": Unknown

"Often the lone-dweller waits for favor,
mercy of the Measurer, though he unhappy
across the seaways long time must
stir with his hands the rime-cold sea,
tread exile-tracks. Fate is established!

So the earth-stepper spoke, mindful of hardships,
of fierce slaughter, the fall of kin:
Oft must I, alone, the hour before dawn
lament my care. Among the living
none now remains to whom I dare
my inmost thought clearly reveal.
I know it for truth: it is in a warrior
noble strength to bind fast his spirit,
guard his wealth-chamber, think what he will.
Weary mind never withstands fate,
nor does troubled thought bring help.
Therefore, glory-seekers oft bind fast
in breast-chamber a dreary mind.
So must I my heart--
often wretched with cares, deprived of homeland,
far from kin--fasten with fetters,
since long ago earth covered
my lord in darkness, and I, wretched,
thence, mad and desolate as winter,
over the wave's binding sought, hall-dreary,
a giver of treasure, where far or near
I might find one who in mead-hall
might accept my affection, or on me, friendless,
might wish consolation, offer me joy.
He knows who tries it how cruel is sorrow,
a bitter companion, to the one who has few
concealers of secrets, beloved friends. 
The exile-track claims him, not twisted gold,
his soul-chamber frozen, not fold's renown.
He remembers hall-warriors and treasure-taking, 
how among youth his gold-friend
received him at the feast. Joy has all perished!
So he knows, who must of his lord-friend,
of loved one, lore-sayings long time forgo.

When sorrow and sleep at once together
a wretched lone-dweller often bind,
it seems in his mind that he his man-lord
clasps and kisses, and on knee lays
hands and head, as when sometimes before
in yore-days he received gifts from the gift-throne.
When the friendless man awakens again,
he sees before him fallow waves,
sea-birds bathing, wings spreading,
rime and snow falling mingled with hail.
Then are the heart's wounds ever more heavy,
sore after sweet--sorrow is renewed--
when memory of kin turns through the mind;
he greets with glee-staves, eagerly surveys
companions of men. Again they swim away!
Spirits of seafarers bring but seldom
known speech and song. Care is renewed
to the one who frequently sends
over the wave's binding, weary, his thought.

Therefore, I know not, throughout this world,
why thought in my mind does not grow dark
when the life of men I fully think through,
how they suddenly abandoned the hall,
headstrong retainers. This Middle-Earth 
each of all days so fails and falls
that a man gains no wisdom before he is dealt
his winters in the world. The wise man is patient,
not too hot-hearted, nor too quick tongued,
nor a warrior too weak, nor too foolhardy,
neither frightened nor fain, nor yet too wealth-greedy,
nor ever of boasts too eager, before he knows enough.
A warrior should wait when he speaks a vow,
until, bold in mind, he clearly knows
whither mind's thought after will turn. 
A wise man perceives how ghastly it will be
when all this world's weal desolate stands,
as now here and there across this Middle-Earth
blown on by wind walls stand
covered with rime, the buildings storm-shaken.
The wine-halls molder, the wielder lies down
deprived of rejoicing, warband all fallen,
proud by the wall. Some war took utterly,
carried on forth-way; one a bird bore off
over the high holm; one the hoar wolf
dealt over to death, one a warrior,
drear-faced, hid in an earth-cave.
Thus the Shaper of men destroyed this earth-yard,
until, lacking the cries, the revels of men,
old giants' work stood worthless.

When he with wise mind this wall-stone
and this dark life deeply thinks through,
the wise one in mind oft remembers afar
many a carnage, and this word he speaks:
Where is the horse? Where the young warrior? Where now the gift-giver?
Where are the feast-seats? Where all the hall-joys?
Alas for the bright cup! Alas byrnied warrior!
Alas the lord's glory! How this time hastens,
grows dark under night-helm, as it were not!
Stands now behind the dear warband
a wondrous high wall, varied with snake-shapes,
warriors fortaken by might of the ash-spears,
corpse-hungry weapons--famous that fate--
and this stone-cliff storms dash on;
snowstorm, attacking, binds all the ground,
tumult of winter, when the dark one comes,
night-shadow blackens, sends from the north
rough hailstorm in anger toward men.
All is the earth-realm laden with hardship,
fate of creation turns world under heaven.
Here goldhoard passes, here friendship passes,
here mankind passes, here kinsman passes:
all does this earth-frame turn worthless! 
So said the one wise in mind, at secret conclaves sat him apart.
Good, he who keeps faith, nor too quickly his grief
from his breast makes known, except he, noble, knows how beforehand
to do cure with courage. Well will it be
to him who seeks favor, refuge and comfort, 
from the Father in heaven, where all fastness stands."

Translation taken from: http://www.lightspill.com/poetry/oe/wanderer.html

The Pilgrim's Regress Analysis

In the passage from The Pilgrim’s Regress on pages 6 and 8, C.S. Lewis uses literary references and allusions to emphasize the beginning of John’s spiritual journey, an event important within the plot of the allegorical novel in which John’s physical journey represents his needed and necessary spiritual growth.

            The Pilgrim’s Regress is a structural “copy” of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, also a theological novel about a character who makes a physical journey representing his spiritual growth.  In the passage from The Pilgrim’s Regress, the narrator says, “Now the days and weeks went on again, and I dreamed that John had little peace either by day or night for thinking of the rules…” (Lewis 6).  The narrator in Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, too, exists in a dream-like state, watching the main character of his dream realize his need for something more in life.  John, in this passage, realizes this as he receives “from beyond the wood a sweetness and a pang so piercing that instantly he forgot his father’s house, and his mother, and the fear of the Landlord, and the burden of the rules” (Lewis 8).

            The rules themselves that John has been told he must keep are an allusion to the Bible, specifically the Old Testament.  In the Old Testament, the Jews were given a strict list of rules by god that they were supposed to keep.  The list of rules can be found in the chapters of Deuteronomy and Leviticus in the Old Testament of the bible.  The Jews were told that the only way to achieve salvation and enter heaven was by keeping all of these rules (i.e. Laws).  John, too, is told that he must keep the overwhelming list of rules give n to him. Lewis’ use of imagery entails how burdensome this list of rules was to John.  As the narrator says, “There were so many [rules] that [John] never read them all through and he was always finding new ones” (Lewis 6).

            As an educated Christian scholar, what C.S. Lewis would have understood was that the laws weren’t enough to save the Jews which is why Christ needed to come into the world as a human and die to save humanity.  If the rules John was given are an allusion to the Old Testament laws, then these rules aren’t enough to fulfill John’s desire for the “sweetness and pang” (Lewis 8) he experiences in this passage.  John must go on a spiritual journey to seek the true Christianity that won’t be burdensome as the rules he must keep are.

            References to Pilgrim’s Progress and the Old Testament laws—both an image of a necessary spiritual journey and growth—guide this passage in The Pilgrim’s Regress on pages 6 and 8, purposefully fitting as this passage is indeed John’s start of the journey and spiritual growth he makes over the course of the novel.

The Pilgrim's Regress

The Pilgrim's Regress: Clive Staples Lewis, pg. 6-8

“Now the days and the weeks went on again, and I dreamed that John had little peace either by day or night for thinking of the rules and the black hole full of snakes.  At first he tried very hard to keep them all, but when it came to bed-time he always found that he had broken far more than he had kept: and the thought of the horrible tortures to which the good, king Landlord would put him became such a burden that the next day he would become quite reckless and break as many as he possibly could; for oddly enough this eased his mind for the moment.  But then after a few days the fear would return and this time it would be worse than before because of the dreadful number of rules that he had broken during the interval.  But what puzzled him most at this time was a discovery which he made after the rules had been hanging in his bedroom for two or three nights: namely, that on the other side of the card, on the back, there was quite a different set of rules.  There were so many that he never read them all through and he was always finding new ones.  Some of them were very like the rules on the front of the card, but most of them were just the opposite.  Thus whereas the front of the card said that you must be always examining yourself to see how many rules you had broken, the back of the card began like this:

Rule I: --Put the whole thing out of your head

            The moment you get into bed.

Or again, whereas the front said that you must always go and ask you elders what the rule about a certain thing was, if you were in the least doubt, the back said:

Rule 2: --Unless they saw you do it,

            Keep quiet or else you’ll rue it.

And so on.  And now I dreamed that John went out one morning and tried to play in the road and to forget his troubles; but the rules kept coming back into his head so that he did not make much of it.  However, he went on always a few yards further till suddenly he looked up and saw that he was so far away from home that he was in a part of the road he had never seen before.  Then came the sound of a musical instrument, from behind it seemed, very sweet and very short, as if it were one plucking of a string or one note of a bell, and after it a full, clear voice—and it sounded so high and strange that he thought it was very far away, further than a star.  The voice said, Come.  Then John saw that there was a stone wall beside the road in that part: but it had (what he had never seen in a garden wall before) a window.  There was no glass in the window and no bars; it was just a square hole in the wall.  Through it he saw a green wood full of primroses: and he remembered suddenly how he had gone into another wood to pull primroses, as a child, very long ago—so long that even in the moment of remembering the memory seemed still out of reach.  While he strained to grasp it, there came to him from beyond the wood a sweetness and a pang so piercing that instantly he forgot his father’s house, and his mother, and the fear of the Landlord, and the burden of the rules.”