David Thornton - Relationships in The Weight of Glory

In C.S. Lewis’ The Weight of Glory, there is an intriguing thought about how to view others. In most of his fiction, Lewis deals with the relationships between people. Unique circumstances challenge and engage these relationships in a different ways. However, the different relationships all determine how the plot and storyline comes to life. Relationships are powerful and yield something greater than both the people involved can produce. Lewis writes, “The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbor’s glory should be laid on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you say it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, it at all, only in a nightmare.” (Lewis 45) The thought is to view others as they should be viewed, in their own glory as a person. For most people view others in light of their own egoistical perceptions and selfish manipulations. But, as humans, we are the ones who can or may determine the glory of another through respecting them through humble reverence.