One of Lewis' most popular titles seems mis-named. The Great Divorce is not about marriage or divorce or about the family at all. It is a parable about heaven and hell and the great division ("divorce") between the two.
In this story, Lewis portrays heaven as the Reality toward which every desire has always been leaning. Even evil desires have in them some kernel of the joy that heaven -- and only heaven -- could ultimately fulfill.
Hell, in this view, is a place of torment not because of the exquisite physical terrors but because of its failure to be much of anything at all. Hell isn't the opposite of heaven in The Great Divorce; it is "not a bang but a whimper," to borrow a phrase. The tiniest molecule of heaven could hold the entirety of hell.
And this life here on earth? From that vantage-point, after death, our earthly life will seem in retrospect either a region of hell (because it really all began there) or the first taste of glory.
I have long thought that every man has tasted hell many times in his life. Not when he burns his finger but when he feels that aching pang of being Left Out, especially when he realizes that he alone is the cause of his isolation and rejection.
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