logo

60 pages 2 hours read

Patti Callahan Henry

Becoming Mrs. Lewis: The Improbable Love Story of Joy Davidman and C. S. Lewis

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2018

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Essay Topics

1.

While the novel concentrates on love and marriage, friendship appears important. How does the novel define and describe friendship?

2.

From Dante’s Inferno and Julian of Norwich’s Revelations to Tolkien’s Middle-Earth materials, Becoming Mrs. Lewis includes allusions to other texts. What are the functions of these textual allusions?

3.

Family remains one of the foci of Callahan’s novel. How does the novel depict family and its disappointments?

4.

English and American social standards often conflict in the novel. Describe and define this conflict: what does this difference in these social conventions reflect about Joy and Jack’s relationship?

5.

Compare and contrast Joy’s upstate New York farmhouse to the Kilns, the family home of C. S. Lewis and his brother.

6.

Fame and its pursuit remain important for many of the writers Joy describes, meets, or knows. How does the novel ultimately judge literary fame?

7.

Each chapter begins with an epigraph, usually from Davidman’s sonnets. Picking one chapter, describe the relationship between the epigraph and the chapter’s materials.

8.

Davidman experiences symptoms of chronic illnesses and cancer in the novel. How does the novel connect Joy’s spiritual journey and bodily health?

9.

Describe the role of letters in the novel—from those that Joy and C. S. Lewis write to each other to those Joy and Bill write to each other.

10.

Motherhood and its costs appear as a focus of the novel. How does the novel judge Joy as a mother? How does she judge herself?

blurred text
blurred text
blurred text
blurred text