The Great Divorce

Chapter 4 begins the pattern that dominates the rest of the novel: The narrator witnesses one of the Grey Town Ghosts meeting a Spirit who has come to offer them entry, urging them from the Valley that acts as a preview of Heaven and onward into the Mountains, where they will experience Heaven’s full bounty.

The first Ghost to decline this offer is the bully, who meets a Spirit who used to be his employee and expresses annoyance that this man, who once killed someone, has been in Heaven while he, the Ghost, has not; the Ghost believes he was consistently a “good person” in life. The Spirit says he must accept that no human is so good that they deserve to go on to the Mountains and enter God’s presence. Moreover, the Ghost had very low standards for what qualifies as a “good person,” as he treated his employees and family with cold indifference. The Ghost must therefore ask for what he perceives as “charity”—God’s mercy. The Ghost angrily refuses, saying he’d rather “be damned than go along with” the Spirit (31).