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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What practical problem did H.'s death solve?

2. What effect did the author's experience of H. have on him?

3. What do Bridge-players tell the author makes the game serious?

4. What does the author think that H. would have thought must happen to weak faith?

5. What experience helps the author make a decision about God's nature?

Short Essay Questions

1. Toward what does Lewis turn when he becomes overwhelmed by feelings?

2. What is an imperfect religious image with which Lewis is familiar? What is Lewis's reflection on this image?

3. What does Lewis reflect can withstand suffering better, the body or the mind? Briefly explain.

4. In addition to a sword, what other metaphor does Lewis use to describe H. to establish a balanced view?

5. What does Lewis mean when he writes that all reality is iconoclastic? How does this statement relate to Lewis's thoughts about his love for H.?

6. What question does Lewis ask to begin to reason his way through his pain? How does this question lead Lewis onto new ground?

7. For Lewis, why is a good God as formidable as God, the Cosmic Sadist? Describe the differences between the two ideas.

8. How does the consolation that previously so wearied Lewis, "She is in God's hands", strike Lewis by the last chapter?

9. What signs are there that Lewis is beginning to come out of his depression?

10. At the beginning of Chapter Four, why does Lewis decide that he will not fill more than four journals?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Lewis begins his reflections in the midst of great pain. His wife, H., has died. Describe three examples of Lewis's pain, as he describes it throughout the book.

Essay Topic 2

For the first two chapters, Lewis is immersed in emotions, in raw agony. In the third chapter, he takes a significant turn. As Lewis points his ability to reason toward his grief, he begins another stage in the process of his grieving.

1) What questions does Lewis ask about H.'s death and what it means for the whole of life? When Lewis writes about the "problem of the universe," what does he mean?

2) Describe the difference between what Lewis believed before H. died and what he questions after she dies. What is the main difference between the two conditions of belief? What is important about the difference for the possibility of a sane and rational life of faith?

3) Regarding faith, what Lewis believed prior to H.'s death has everything to do with his faith in God and in what he had been taught. How does Lewis think about his faith after H. died?

Essay Topic 3

Describe the different ways that Lewis considers God. Specify each of Lewis's characterizations of God and what each means to Lewis. With which, if any, of Lewis's characterizations about God does Lewis end the book?

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