The Great Divorce

Although readers may spend the book’s early chapters thinking the bus passengers have arrived in Heaven, the passengers are actually only in the Valley of the Shadow of Life. The Spirits indicate that the mountainous area they can see in the distance is Heaven. “The Valley of the Shadow of Life” is an idea Lewis invented for the novel rather than one that appears in the Bible, although the name references the biblical Psalmist’s mention of “the valley of the shadow of death” in Psalm 23. The area functions as an entryway or precursor to Heaven, a place that is much like Heaven in its beauty, weight, and solidity, but missing the key Heavenly element: God’s direct presence.

Lewis’s inclusion of an entryway area preceding Heaven in all its fullness reinforces his theme of humankind’s ability for self-deception. Many people do not believe in Heaven and Hell simply because they have no evidence that either exists. However, in Lewis’s telling, even the verification of Heaven through sensory evidence—the ability to see it on the horizon and to experience the kind of place that it is—would not persuade those who are determined not to believe. The Valley also solves the problem of representing Heaven itself directly, which the novel implies would be impossible; as a Spirit tells the artist, Heaven and God are ultimate realities that artistic representations can only gesture towards.