History Creator / CSLewis

Lewis and Gresham's romance was dramatized in the film and stage play ''Shadowlands'', with Creator/JossAckland and Creator/AnthonyHopkins taking the role of Lewis in two different film versions.

* ''Literature/ThePilgrimsRegress'' (1933): His first publication following his conversion. An allegory generalizing from the details of Lewis' own, somewhat unusual, conversion.

** ''Literature/TheLastBattle'' (1956). The last ''Narnia'' book.
* ''Literature/TillWeHaveFaces'' (1956): The novel Lewis considered his best.

** Another school he went to had an overweening "aristocracy" of {{Jerk Jock}}s supported by teachers which engaged in organized [[TheBully bullying]] and even rumored pedophilia toward the underclass students (the second of which Lewis actually said was, under the circumstances actually a saving grace because it got their minds off their snobbishness!) Lewis hated that school so much that he almost considered UsefulNotes/WorldWarOne less unpleasant: no one said you had to pretend to like it, after all.

* GeekyTurnOn : Several of his descriptions of Joy Gresham.
* GentlemanSnarker : C.S. Lewis himself was one of the best and his snarkyness appears in his books.
* GetItOverWith

** Though they did drift apart sense, Lewis gotten tired off Tolken criticizing CS Lewis using Christian themes in his story. Lewis was more Heterosexual life partners with Warren his older brother whom he outright did say he was his "dearest and closest friend" one time.

** In one of his essay's, he mentions Dark-Gods-of-the-Blood which comes down to how we must always fight off the desire to give into the baser desires we feel as we go through daily life.

* MagicPoweredPseudoscience in ''That Hideous Strength''

* SourSupporter
* TheStoic: One of his favorite tutors, Kirk, is described in this way. In fact descriptions in ''Surprised by Joy'', make him sound like he had AspergersSyndrome.

* TalkingInYourDreams

* WhatCouldHaveBeen: A scholarly book entitled ''Language and Human Nature'' was begun but never completed. The rub: It was to have been coauthored with Creator/JRRTolkien. [[http://www.txstate.edu/news/news_releases/news_archive/2009/07/CSLewis070809.html]]. Mind you, he fought in a World War, so we should really be thankful we had him at all....

*** He may not have wanted to dwell on the experience-WarIsHell after all, that one especially.
* YouAreWorthHell: Thoroughly {{deconstructed|Trope}}.

-->''"...I often find myself living at such cross-purposes with the modern world: I have been a converted Pagan living among apostate Puritans."''

[[TropeNamers Trope Namer]] for TheFourLoves (from the book ''Literature/TheFourLoves'') and NarniaTime (from the way time works between worlds in ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfNarnia'').

----

* YouAreWorthHell: Thoroughly [[DeconstructedTrope Deconstructed]].

* ObstructiveBureaucrat : ''TheScrewtapeLetters'' opines that {{Hell}} is run by these.

[[TropeNamers Trope Namer]] for TheFourLoves (from the book ''Literature/TheFourLoves'').

* UsefulNotes/WorldWarII: Much of Lewis's fiction (''Literature/TheScrewtapeLetters'', ''Literature/TheGreatDivorce'', five of the seven ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfNarnia'' books, and the second book in Literature/TheSpaceTrilogy, specifically) takes place during the War. It's usually not dealt with extensively, but you can catch plenty of references to the Blitz and the subsequent air raids, blackouts, etc. all the same. This is understandable, as Lewis lived in England and did much of his writing during the '30s and '40s.

* ''The Pilgrim's Regress'' (1933): His first publication following his conversion. An allegory generalizing from the details of Lewis' own, somewhat unusual, conversion.

He was born and raised in [[UsefulNotes/NorthernIreland Ulster]]. [[MissingMom His mother died]] when he was young. He was educated in a series of English {{Boarding School}}s, the first of which was run by a SadistTeacher. He fought in [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarI the Great War]]. He was a member of TheInklings and a friend of Creator/CharlesWilliams and Creator/JRRTolkien, whose influence partially led to his conversion to Christianity (though Lewis being an Anglican and Tolkien a Roman Catholic led to some friction). He published an autobiography of his early life and conversion titled ''Surprised By Joy''. Afterwards, he met Joy Gresham and [[CitizenshipMarriage married her so she could remain in the UK]]. Then, they [[PerfectlyArrangedMarriage fell in love]] and had an Anglican ceremony after Joy was diagnosed with terminal bone cancer. She died four years later. Lewis himself died the same day as [[Literature/BraveNewWorld Aldous Huxley]] and JohnFKennedy; this led to his passing being almost unpublicized.

** Another school he went to had an overweening "aristocracy" of {{Jerk Jock}}s supported by teachers which engaged in organized [[TheBully bullying]] and even rumored pedophilia toward the underclass students (the second of which Lewis actually said was, under the circumstances actually a saving grace because it got their minds off their snobbishness!) Lewis hated that school so much that he almost considered WorldWarOne less unpleasant: no one said you had to pretend to like it, after all.

* DemocracyIsFlawed: The chief value he saw in Democracy was simply that it prevented tyranny. Otherwise he would have preferred Aristocracy.

* ForTheEvulz: Deconstructed in ''Mere Christianity'': although it is possible to do good for the sake of doing good, nobody does evil for the sake of doing evil; evil deeds are merely the pursuit of good in the wrong way.
* GeekyTurnOn : Several of his descriptions of Joy Greshem.

* JesusWasCrazy: Famously, ''Mere Christianity'' popularized the so-called "trilemma" argument in favor of the deity of {{Jesus}}: if Jesus wasn't {{God}}, then it's fallacious to say He was "[[JesusWasWayCool a great moral teacher]]," since an actual great moral teacher would be humble rather than [[AGodAmI claiming to be God]] as Jesus did. So either Jesus was GodInHumanForm, Jesus was [[ThatLiarLies a liar]], or JesusWasCrazy. [[note]]Assuming the usual [[UsefulNotes/{{Christianity}} Christian view]] of TheBible, of course. Let's remember the RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment.[[/note]]

* HeterosexualLifePartners: Is a very close friend of JRRTolkien, author of the Lord of the Rings books.

* HeteroexualLifePartners: Is a very close friend of JRRTolkien, author of the Lord of the Rings books.

** In ''The Problem of Pain'' he discusses the moral problem of the suffering of animals(who after all are not either being [[PayEvilUntoEvil punished for something]] or [[TheSpartanWay being trained in how to be good]] and therefore not subject to some of the possible explanations for human suffering). In fact he does take the question seriously. But when he gets to discussing animals and the afterlife, he imagines someone asking "Where do you put all the mosquitos" and then notes ironically that heaven for mosquitos and hell for humans might be "very conveniently combined."

** Another school he went to had an overweening "aristocracy" of {{Jerk Jock}}s supported by teachers which engaged in organized [[TheBully bullying]] and even rumored pedophilia toward the underclass students. (The second of which Lewis actually said was, under the circumstances actually a saving grace because it got their minds off their snobbishness!) Lewis hated that school so much that he almost considered WorldWarOne less unpleasant: no one said you had to pretend to like it, after all.

* ForTheEvulz: Deconstructed in ''Mere Christianity'': Although it is possible to do good for the sake of doing good, nobody does evil for the sake of doing evil; evil deeds are merely the pursuit of good in the wrong way.

* JesusWasCrazy: Famously, ''Mere Christianity'' popularized the so-called "trilemma" argument in favor of the deity of {{Jesus}}: If Jesus wasn't {{God}}, then it's fallacious to say He was "[[JesusWasWayCool a great moral teacher]]," since an actual great moral teacher would be humble rather than [[AGodAmI claiming to be God]] as Jesus did. So either Jesus was GodInHumanForm, Jesus was [[ThatLiarLies a liar]], or JesusWasCrazy. [[note]]Assuming the usual [[UsefulNotes/{{Christianity}} Christian view]] of TheBible, of course. Let's remember the RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment.[[/note]]

* PerspectiveFlip: ''Till We Have Faces''

* TearsOfJoy: Not quite the theme of ''Surprised by Joy'' but heading that way.
* TrueCompanions: The Inklings

He was born and raised in [[StrokeCountry Ulster]]. [[MissingMom His mother died]] when he was young. He was educated in a series of English {{Boarding School}}s, the first of which was run by a SadistTeacher. He fought in [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarI the Great War]]. He was a member of TheInklings and a friend of Creator/CharlesWilliams and Creator/JRRTolkien, whose influence partially led to his conversion to Christianity (though Lewis being an Anglican and Tolkien a Roman Catholic led to some friction). He published an autobiography of his early life and conversion titled ''Surprised By Joy''. Afterwards, he met Joy Gresham and [[CitizenshipMarriage married her so she could remain in the UK]]. Then, they [[PerfectlyArrangedMarriage fell in love]] and had an Anglican ceremony after Joy was diagnosed with terminal bone cancer. She died four years later. Lewis himself died the same day as [[Literature/BraveNewWorld Aldous Huxley]] and JohnFKennedy; this led to his passing being almost unpublicized.

* ''TheSpaceTrilogy''

* ''TheGreatDivorce'' (1945): A dream-visit to a semi-MundaneAfterlife, where the joys of Heaven are available to all, and the punishments of Hell are entirely [[SelfInflictedHell self-inflicted]] (and therefore all the more inescapable).

* ''The Dark Tower'' (1977): An abandoned and unfinished sequel to ''Out Of The Silent Planet'', i.e. ''TheSpaceTrilogy's'' WhatCouldHaveBeen.

* DueToTheDead: A major plot point in ''Literature/TillWeHaveFaces'', and even overdone in ''TheGreatDivorce''.

* NoSuchThingAsSpaceJesus: Averted in TheSpaceTrilogy, and discussed in several of his theological essays.

* UsefulNotes/WorldWarII: Much of Lewis's fiction (''Literature/TheScrewtapeLetters'', ''TheGreatDivorce'', five of the seven ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfNarnia'' books, and the second book in TheSpaceTrilogy, specifically) takes place during the War. It's usually not dealt with extensively, but you can catch plenty of references to the Blitz and the subsequent air raids, blackouts, etc. all the same. This is understandable, as Lewis lived in England and did much of his writing during the '30s and '40s.

* JesusWasCrazy: Famously, ''Mere Christianity'' popularized the so-called "trilemma" argument in favor of the deity of {{Jesus}}: If Jesus wasn't {{God}}, then it's fallacious to say He was "[[JesusWasWayCool a great moral teacher]]," since an actual great moral teacher would be humble rather than [[AGodAmI claiming to be God]] as Jesus did. So either Jesus was GodInHumanForm, Jesus was [[ThatLiarLies a liar]], or JesusWasCrazy.

* AVeryBritishChristmas: In a very humorous piece in ''God In The Dock,'' {{Herodotus}} visits the island of [[SdrawkcabName Niatirb]] and concludes that the resident barbarians observe two entirely separate holidays on 25 December: Exmas (a commercial racket) and Crissmas (a religious festival). Also, FatherChristmas shows up in Narnia.

* AuthorTract: Much of Lewis's work could qualify [[note]](a good reminder that [[TropesAreTools Tropes Are Not Bad)[[/note]], though there are some exceptions:

* AuthorTract: Much of Lewis's work could qualify [[hottip:*: (a good reminder that [[TropesAreTools Tropes Are Not Bad)]], though there are some exceptions:

* CommonalityConnection: In ''Surprised by Joy'' and "Three Ways of Writing for Children"

* CombatByChampion, Prince Caspian features a particularly gut-churning edge-of-your-seat example. All the more so for Peter's quiet dignity.

* WorldWarII: Much of Lewis's fiction (''Literature/TheScrewtapeLetters'', ''TheGreatDivorce'', five of the seven ''Literature/ChroniclesOfNarnia'' books, and the second book in TheSpaceTrilogy, specifically) takes place during the War. It's usually not dealt with extensively, but you can catch plenty of references to the Blitz and the subsequent air raids, blackouts, etc. all the same. This is understandable, as Lewis lived in England and did much of his writing during the '30s and '40s.

** Somewhat ironically, Lewis makes very few references to [[WorldWarI the World War he actually fought in.]]

* LiteraryAllusionTitle: ''That Hideous Strength'' (named after a line in a Sir David Lyndsay poem), ''Surprised By Joy'' (after Wordsworth's "Surprised By Joy--Impatient As The Wind"), and, in a more roundabout way, ''The Great Divorce'' (a response to Blake's ''The Marriage of Heaven and Hell'').
** There's also ''The Pilgrim's Regress'', which is a ShoutOut to... [[Literature/ThePilgrimsProgress oh, you figure it out.]]

* HoYay: [[DeconstructedTrope Deconstructed]] in ''The Four Loves'', making the point that those who perpetually see homosexuality in HeterosexualLifePartners have made the mistake of thinking that every close emotional bond between adults is sexual. (A key theme of the book is that there are different kinds of affection and we shouldn't confuse them.)