TERM+PAPER

Emily McVittie Malatack World Lit pd 1 March 22, 2011  Term Paper Rough Draft “On November 29, 1898, Clive Staples Lewis was born in Belfast, Ireland. He was the son of A. J. Lewis, a lawyer, and Flora August Hamilton Lewis, a mathematician […] whose father was a minister” (C.S. Lewis Biography). “Lewis's early childhood was relatively happy and carefree [….] This somewhat idyllic boyhood came to an end for Lewis when his mother became ill and died of cancer in 1908” (Imbornoni). Losing his mother at such a young age, was a tragedy that resonated within Lewis for many years after. He says in his autobiography “ With my mother’s death all settled happiness, all that was tranquil and reliable, disappeared from my life. There was to be much fun, many pleasures, many stabs of Joy; but no more of the old security. It was sea and islands now; the great continent had sunk like Atlantis ” (FIND PAGE NUMBER). Unfortunately, Lewis’ sufferings did not end with the loss of his mother; “At this point he lost not only his mother, but also, in effect, his father. Albert Lewis, perhaps out of grief, withdrew and decided to send both sons to a boarding school” (Lindsley). Though he was brought up Catholic, the tragedies in Lewis’ life led him to question his faith. “At a later boarding school, Chartres, encounters with a teacher who introduced him to the occult, as well as his doubts drawn from the problem of evil, concern over the similarities between Christianity and paganism, and sexual temptation were factors that led to a loss of faith. He lost his faith, virtue, and simplicity” (Lindsley). Though this was a dark period in Lewis’’ life, he did not stop his education. “In 1916 Lewis was accepted at University College, the oldest college […] at Oxford University. In 1925, after graduating with first-class honors […], Lewis was elected to an important teaching post in English at Magdalen College, Oxford. He remained at Oxford for 29 years” (Imbornoni). It was around this time that Lewis had an epiphany and converted to Christianity, a move that altered the rest of his life. Lewis describes his conversion: " You must picture me alone in that room at Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England"  

