Shadowlands- William Nicholson

Shadowlands is a play adapted from a film in the late 20th century, and is about the deep love between the writer C.S. Lewis and an American called Joy. The extract I have taken is from the final scene, and primarily deals with the way in which Lewis, or Jack as his friends call him, copes with the death of Joy. The extract opens with a short conversation between Jack and Joy, and although it is not absolutely clear, it appears as though this is their final conversation before "her eyes close" and she dies.

In this piece of dialogue between the two lovers Jack tells Joy that she is "the truest person (he's) ever known". The idea that 'truth' is a vital aspect of love relates to Forster's novel A Room with a View. In Forster's novel, the character of Mr Emerson, who represents the voice of the author, tells the young protagonist Lucy that "we fight for more than Love or Pleasure: there is Truth. Truth counts." Similarly, in the concluding stanza of Matthew Arnold's poem Dover Beach, the narrator speaks directly to his companion and says "Ah, love, let us be true to one another", making the point that although the world around them "hath neither joy, nor love, nor light", truth between lovers is more important.

Another key aspect of the extract from Nicholson's play is Jack's questioning of faith. Harrington says that Jack has "faith solid as a rock" but this faith is seriously questioned following Joy's death. People often struggle with belief in God when faced with suffering and Jack is no different, asking angrily "does God care? Did he care about Joy?" Jack goes on to describe God as the vivisectionist and human beings as "rats in the cosmic laboratory" and by referring to science Nicholson is exploring the idea that science had begun to triumph over religious belief in the early 20th century, mainly following Darwinian understanding.

The extract from Shadowlands deals with the idea that love and pain go hand in hand and are ultimately inseparable. Jack says to his step-son Douglas, whose grieving the loss of his mother, that "if you want the love, you have to have the pain." This demonstrates one of the ideals of courtly love, a medieval conception dealing with love and admiration, which says that love will inevitably lead to pain. Jack closes the play by saying that "the pain, now, is part of the happiness. That's the deal", demonstrating this aspect of courtly love which is recurrent in literature. For example, Auden's poem Stop all the clocks ends with the line "and nothing now can come to any good" demonstrating the narrators pain following the death of a loved one.

This is one of the first plays I have looked at as part of my course, and although I was only given a short extract I think the play has great wealth in the topic love through the ages because it explores how grief is expressed in relation to friends and family, and how it can impact on a mans religious belief.