In The Great Divorce the narrator takes a bus trip to Heaven. He travels with people with a variety of beliefs. When he arrives he realizes he is insubstantial; he, like the other passengers, is a Ghost. They are met by inhabitants of Heaven – Spirits, or Solids – who come to this pickup point to guide them in the new land. The passengers have the opportunity to go back, or to become more substantial here, if they make the rest of the difficult journey. The passengers confront those matters that have gotten in their way to God. This may be refusing to forgive someone, loving someone more than God, or self-pity to the point of denial that the joy of Heaven could exist, or a refusal to take part in it. In every situation, it is the person’s choice.
The story is another spiritual journey, a common subject to Lewis, as is shown in Pilgrim’s Regress and The Chronicles of Narnia. Like Pilgrim’s Regress, this story takes after Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. For example, the journey, once arrived in Heaven, is to a mountain. The Great Divorce differs from Regress in its conversational tone and address of everyday living. Regress addresses philosophies; Divorce addresses common beliefs and behaviors, in a way that Screwtape Letters does. The former work is more academic than the latter.
The narrator does not make the journey, but is told by his teacher this is a dream. He wakes with dawn. Odd that he hears the sound of the hunt just before waking. It could just mean it is early morning, or perhaps it reflects Chaucer’s Book of the Duchess, another dream.