The Great Divorce: Chapter 1
Summary
We open with Lewis standing in a bus queue. He’s been wandering in continual twilight through The Grey Town in the rain. Other than the bus queue, the town appears to be deserted.
As he joins the queue, a couple argue and they both leave.
The Short Man in front of him makes a disparaging comment about “the sort of society” in the bus queue. After Lewis fails to respond to the slight, The Big Man punches The Short Man who limps away.
Next, a young, seemingly androgynous, couple leave arm in arm, “it was clear that each for the moment preferred the other to the chance of a place in the bus”.
A woman four places ahead complains “We shall never all get in”. A man offers to change places with her for five shillings, but he then double-crosses her. The rest of the group throw her out of the line.
We get the impression that events like this continue to happen for some time until “the queue had reduced itself to manageable proportions long before the bus appeared”. The bus is a stunning vehicle, driven by a driver who is “full of light”. To our protagonist’s puzzlement, the driver’s appearance raises the ire of those in the queue. They all push and shove to get into the bus but, in the end, there is plenty of room for all.
Our man sits at the back of the bus, a good distance away from the others, but is immediately joined by “a tousle-headed youth” who sees in our protagonist a kindred spirit. He comments on his bewilderment at the other passengers, saying they “won’t like it at all when we get there, and they’d really be much more comfortable at home” where “they’ve got cinemas and fish and chip shops and advertisements and all the sorts of things they want”. He says he ought to have taken the bus as soon as he arrived, but he’d “fooled about trying to wake people up”. It becomes clear that this man is a poet and, to our protagonist’s horror, he is about to show him some of his poetry… It is at this point Lewis realizes that the bus is now airborne and he looks out of the window to see the Grey Town disappearing below into the rain and the mist.
Questions
Q1. What words would you use to describe The Grey Town?
Q2. What do you make of the different members of the queue? The arguing couple, The Short Man, The Big Man, The Androgynous Couple, The woman who pays to change places with the man who cheats her…
Q3. In what way do the characters in the line each display one of the Seven Deadly Sins? Envy, Gluttony, Greed, Lust, Pride, Sloth, Wrath
Q4. In what ways are the members of the bus stop similar? In what ways are they different from each other?
Q5. Why do you think the line for the bus is so short? Why do people so easily leave the line?
Q6. Why do you think the members of the queue react so badly to the driver?
Q7. Do you think the tousle-headed youth represents anyone in particular?
Q8. Why does the tousle-headed youth think that the others would be happier staying in the town?
Q9. Who do you think Cyril Blellow was?