Essay on C. S. Lewis Works

Many learned writers and theologians have written insightful literature about spiritual matters, yet it is the nontheoligan C.S. Lewis who has used his exemplary writing skills to balance the literary and spiritual realms. Each of Lewis’ more spiritually based books (i.e. The Chronicles of Narnia, The Screwtape Letters, or The Great Divorce) begins with a setting familiar to the reader and then introduces fictional places and characters to construct the scenes which embed theological ideas. This process of leading the reader through the fictional realm into the spiritual realm displays Lewis’ magnificence as a writer. He is able to design novels that ground the reader in realistic fiction which ultimately creates the foundation from which to discuss theology.

C.S. Lewis provides a firm foundation of reality for his reader, and then transitions to the spiritual realm. In Lewis’ The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, the setting begins with the real event of World War II, followed by the Pevensies traveling to a beautiful house of a professor. Everything the Pevensies are in contact with in the beginning of the novel are real things (i.e. WWII, house) that are familiar/known to the reader. Even when Lucy begins to enter Narnia through the wardrobe she maintains an aspect of reality in her actions as “[s]he did not shut it [the wardrobe] properly because she knew that it is very silly to shut oneself into a wardrobe, even if it is not a magic one.” Here, Lewis is transitioning the reader from the familiar earth world to the mythical Narnia realm. Once inside the mythical/spiritual realm of Narnia, the reader becomes enamored with the mythological creatures, such as Tumnus the faun, yet continues to stay tethered to reality because Lewis incorporates human reactions (i.e. Edmund’s worrying about dinner/Lucy’s mindfulness of the wardrobe) and objects such as tea cups and lamp posts into the story. After the reader is comfortable with the magical world, then Lewis introduces the Christ-like character of Aslan, depicting virtuous and theological actions. Thus, the reader is able to believe in Aslan as a good spiritual role model because he/she has been slowly acclimated with reality to believe in the fictitious. 

Again, in The Great Divorce, Lewis incorporates familiar reality with fictitious worlds. The narrator may be in either Hell or Heaven, but he repeatedly encounters earthly objects such as stores, a bus, trees, and even a flower. All the aforementioned are objects that the reader has most likely encountered or has some foreknowledge of so that he/she can imagine the object and relate to what is being said, without Lewis having to describe each object in vast detail. Lewis’ incorporation of these earthly objects in a fictitious world creates a balance between the tangible and the spiritual. Once again Lewis provides the reader with the believable (i.e. bus) and then transitions to the spiritual, in order to discuss/speculate on theological concepts. 

There is at least one of Lewis’ books, however, that does not transition the reader from reality to spiritual, but continually has the two worlds interacting with each other. The book The Screwtape Letters repeatedly has the demons affecting the real world and the humans involuntarily affecting the demons. The demons, however, become believable because they speak about everyday occurrences that afflict the humans such as observing “neighbours sing out of tune, or have boots that squeak, or double chins, or odd clothes.” For example, Screwtape is the uncle to Wormwood and he works in Hell, which is cleverly set up like a relatable bureaucratic office system. Nevertheless, these familiar and seemingly mundane specificities of The Screwtape Letters, are what make the spiritual aspect of the book so believable. 

The aforementioned books are all examples of how Lewis eloquently used the familiar to assist the reader in believing the spiritual aspects of the books. Each novel contained a kernel of reality, ranging from a bus to an uncle, that grounded the reader in the novel, and allowed him/her to stay tethered to the familiar while venturing into the spiritual realm created by Lewis. Lewis’ clever transitions from realistic fiction to spiritual fiction in his novels portray his skill as a writer, through creating familiar worlds in which to discuss and develop theological thoughts.  Without the realistic aspects of his writing, the theological connections he made would be overlooked by the reader and chalked up to fantasy. Yet, Lewis’ prelusion of tangible familiar objects within fictitious worlds, created believable spiritual realms and allowed for theological observations.