The book, The Great Divorce, was written in 1945 by C.S. Lewis. Lewis wrote the book as a response to William Blake’s book, Marriage of Heaven and Hell. In many ways, it is a refutation of Blake’s book; there is no marriage of heaven and hell. The book begins in a sad, dark, desolate place. The reader is led to believe that this place is hell. The narrator takes the reader throughout the streets of this peculiar place. Eventually, he stumbles upon a bus station, along with many other passengers. There is a long line of people waiting, so he falls in line with the rest of them. It becomes apparent very quickly that these people are not the friendliest of people. They are annoyed with each other at the slightest disturbance,…
C.S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce is a work that showcases the many patterns of denial and rejection that people use to avoid giving their lives to God. Lewis attempts to show the difference between heaven and hell. He does not do this in the literal sense of the places where humanity will be going in eternity. Rather, he embodies the figurative sense of heaven and hell which people experience on earth.…
The Four Loves, authored by British novelist C.S. Lewis, is often viewed as one of the best books written on the subject of love as it pertains to religion. In the book, Lewis covers many ideas including the four types of love which include: storgé (empathetic love/affection), philia love (the love between friends), Eros (erotic/romantic love), and Agapé (the unconditional ‘God’ love). In this book, Lewis also covers the differences between need and gift love; however, one of the most astounding statements that Lewis makes is in the storgé passage, specifically in the section about affection where he states, “Affection is responsible for nine-tenths of whatever solid and durable happiness there is in our natural lives.” (pg. 53). Lewis also states, "The highest does not stand without the lowest. (pg.9) If affection is part of storgé, which is considered the lowest love, then to obtain the higher loves one must have affection. Furthermore, storgé (commonly referred to as affection) creates stamina in natural relations between people due precisely to that low-level nature it…
A friend can be defined as someone who has feelings of affection for another. In The Chosen, by Chaim Potok, various friendships impact several people. Danny and Reuven’s friendship influenced both young men in different ways. Their friendships sculpted the rest of their life in many different aspects. If Danny had not befriended Reuven, he most likely would never have experienced a life outside of Hasidism.…
One strives to find an individual to be able to connect on an intellectual and emotional level. The prime definition of a friend, defined by Google is, “a person whom one knows and with whom one has a bond of mutual affection.” Despite there being a concrete definition, friendship has no terminology because everyone’s view on it is distinct and miscellaneous. The pure definition of friendship is defined on one’s own notion. In The Things They Carried, Rat Kiley and Curt Lemon had a bona fide friendship that was equivalent to no other friendship. Mark Fossie and Mary Anne Bell also had a friendship that was beyond than just a friendship. Both relationships were so complementary but yet contradicted each other sufficiently.…
Media identifies friendship in three types: reciprocity, receptivity and association. Friendship of reciprocity focuses more on equality, each person shares equally in giving and receiving in a relationship. Friendship of receptivity is the opposite. It is an inequality in giving and receiving. It’s a good inequality because each person in the relationship gains something. Friendship of association is described as a friendly relationship than a true friendship because there is great trust in the relationship.…
In the preceding quote by C.S Lewis; Mr Lewis explains what friendship does for a person. To paraphrase it in an understandable way, he seems to have said; Friendship is not necessary to survive, it only enhances life and makes life more interesting. This is my personal viewpoint exactly! Throughout life many people like to have other people close by them, parents have children, couples are married, teenagers have friends…. A lot of life is spent with friends and this many cause people to think that without friends they become nothing.…
C.S. Lewis writes about God-love and Gift-love and the differences between both. He starts off describing Need-love. The best I can describe Need-love is in this passage on page 2: "We are born helpless. As soon as we are fully conscious we discover loneliness. We need others physically, emotionally, intellectually; we need them if we are to know anything, even ourselves." We can perceive Need-love to be selfish but as C.S. Lewis uses an example to describe how Need-love is not always selfish, "Need-love in consciousness- in other words, the illusory feeling that it is good for us to be alone- is a bad spiritual symptom; just as lack of appetite is a bad medical symptom because men do really need food." After this Lewis goes on to say that man's love for God is only and completely Need-love where as God's love for mankind is only and completely Gift-love. Lewis describes Gift-love as the Devine love. He also describes when man and God are the most alike, or when man gets nearer to God or is more like God. C.S. Lewis writes, "Man approaches God most nearly when he is in one sense least like God. For what can be more unlike than fullness and need, sovereignty and humility, righteousness and penitence, limitless power and a cry for help?" Then C.S. Lewis goes into describing love itself: "love ceases to be a demon only when he ceases to be a god" or "begins to be a demon the moment he begins to be a god." Lewis finishes his introduction saying, "Our Gift-loves are really God-like; and among our Gift-loves those are most God-like which are most boundless and unwearied in giving."…
Many of C.S. Lewis’ poems have spoken to me on a deep level over the last few years, this one in particular holds the most meaning for me and has impacted my life in multiple ways. In this paper, I will first discuss why I believe this piece to be about the regret Lewis felt in regard to the negative effect his selfishness had upon a relationship that he was a part of and how this relationship was with a woman he cared for deeply and romantically. I will then discuss how it has affected me on an emotional level and applies to my life personally as a follower of Christ.…
Love is a many trousered thing by Louise Rennison, is definitely one for a read. Although it is number eight in its series and you need to read the rest to understand. But I do promise, it's worth it. Georgia Nicolson, the main character of the book is just a normal teenager going through some normal problems. Her life is more comical than most.…
Kyle Cox Dr. Rosenberg Classical Literature 29 September 2014 Gilgamesh Theme Love is the most powerful force in the world. There never will be and there never has been anything as strong. But it is far too easy to say that love is the most powerful emotion — we all know it is. People, however, rarely assume the task of deciding which type of love is the strongest.…
According to Merriam Webster’s dictionary, the definition of friendship is “the state of being friends; the relationship between friends,” emphasis on “relationship”. Although it has a positive connotation, a friendship isn’t always going to be a great one. We see this in John Steinbeck's novella, Of Mice and Men. Two long time friends, George and Lennie go through constant difficulties, struggling to obtain “ the American Dream” a reoccurring theme in many of Steinbeck's pieces. We notice that Lennie isn’t all there, there is something about him that would be detected today with our advanced technology, but wouldn’t be detected back then, so he was just seen as dumb. With the mentality of a very young child and the strength of a bull,…
Since the dialogue left off at an unanswered question, we the readers are unable to discern a definitive conclusion or meaning from the text. So as the reader we are left to our own devices to make our own definition and meaning out of friendship which is probably its greatest strength. Through it and this paper, I was questioning my own understanding of friendship and left me more resolute in my understanding than ever. Most of the definitions our arguments in the Lysis were not the true essence of what friendship is, rather how people can make an initial or enduring connection to get to friendship. Belonging and wisdom are by products and motivators of friendship.…
Friendship is a virtue or at least involves virtue. Friendship is always a special thing but people tend to forget about how much its value is. Friendship is not just necessary, but also noble.Friendship consists of goodwill between two people. You can only have a few friends being that its take some precious time to build a real friendship. Aristotle’s speaks about how there are three kinds of friendship. The first is friends of utility, where both people receive some benefit from each other. Aristotle believed that this is the type of friendship that is for the old. Aristotle argued that they “are at such a time of life pursue not what is pleasant but what is beneficial.” The second is friends of pleasure, where both people are attracted to each other, good looks, or other their pleasant qualities all together . aristotles says this friendship is for the young. Aristotle argues that the young because “...quickly become friends and quickly stop...” and “...love and stop loving quickly...” The third is friends of excellence, where both people admire the other’s excellence and help one another strive for excellence. Aristotle says this about friends of excellence “...complete sort of friendship between people who are good and alike in virtue...”friends of virtue or excellence is hard to come by especially in the world we live in today because it is so much individualism. According to Aristotle the first two friendships are accidental, because in these case friends are only thinking about their own utility and pleasure, not are going to change over a period of time. If a friendship is based on excellence it will be a long lasting relationship, because excellence is a quality. This kind of friendship is the one everyone wants to have and it overlooks the other two friendships. This kind of friendship though is hard to find and takes a lot of time to progress but it is worth it. It is nothing like having a real and true friend. Friends who want the same thing will…
You see that she believes that patriarchy is a long outlived mindset and has been around for way too long and that everyone has suffered from its consequences to still be around in today’s time. She also goes to explain that even patriarchal men are suffering because “If patriarchy were rewarding, the overwhelming dissatisfaction most men feel in their work lives- a dissatisfaction extensively documented in the work of Studs Terkel and echoed in Faludi’s treatise- would not exist.” In other words if being patriarchal led to a better life then so many men would not be experiencing such dissatisfaction with life. She then goes off to end her argument with explaining that men are not the enemy but patriarchy is. This final statement is what really brings out her argument as it sets her mindset so far away from the “feminist” mindset that men are the enemy. Once she stated this final piece of her argument she won over so much of the intended audience and changes her entire argument and rhetorical purpose from simply informing and expressing to making every word she had stated thus far…