A Joy Observed: The Study of Transformation through the Life and Literature of C.S. Lewis

Henry, Meagan (2014) A Joy Observed: The Study of Transformation through the Life and Literature of C.S. Lewis. Undergraduate thesis, under the direction of Beth Spencer from English, The University of Mississippi.

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Abstract

This project attempts to tackle one of the inevitable aspects of life: transformations. The study of these transformations are written through the life and literature of C.S. Lewis, following events of his life and how those reflect in his nonfiction works. Through the thesis, I explore different areas of transformation through Lewis: coming to life (or belief), love, pain, grief—all culminating in joy. I conjecture that finding joy is the point of life’s changes. The fundamental understanding of the different types of transformations, although studied through Lewis, is universal. It is this universal quality that has drawn and continues to draw readers to Lewis’s work. And it is this quality that drew me to this project. I found comfort during my own changes through the wisdom Lewis freely shared in his writing and through the similarities I found in each of our own transformations. Lewis experienced the transformation of coming to life through his salvation, the transformation of love through his wife, Joy, and then the transformation of grief after losing her. But these transformations, I would claim, ultimately cultivate joy. And after all, joy is the reason for transformations. They exist so that we, like Lewis, can learn to seek and find joy throughout the circumstances of our life.

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