Sheldon Vanauken’s celebrated memoir A Severe Mercy is a moving portrait of deep love confronted with suffering and death. Published in 1977, A Severe Mercy was written by Vanauken from the compilation of many years’ worth of journal entries, hand-written letters, and firsthand accounts of the people and events that the narrative relates. As a Yale- and Oxford-trained scholar and professor of English and an accomplished poet and author, Vanauken brings his literary expertise to the table in this passionate and masterfully crafted piece of personal history turned dramatic tragedy. The title is taken from one of the personal letters Van received from renowned author and Christian apologist C. S. Lewis—with whom he corresponded over the latter half of the memoir—who writes and speaks of his wife’s death as a “severe mercy” that must be received and undergone. This study guide was created using HarperCollins’ Publishers 1980 edition of A Severe Mercy.

Summary

The story begins with the author Vanauken (known as Van to friends) arriving by car in the middle of the night at the property and estate known as Glenmerle, his childhood home. As he wanders by the pond and the bridge, he looks toward the darkened home and reminisces about all the times he spent there playing, learning, and enjoying the company of his mother, his friends, and most importantly, Davy. Davy—his beloved wife of 17 years, whose full name is Jean Davis—recently died, and he has come here to remember the good times. After a short while, he returns to his car and drives away.

After this brief introduction, the rest of the narrative shifts back to the start of Van and Davy’s relationship. They meet at the photography studio in the local department store when Van is home on college break and end up on a group date later the same night, where they become engrossed in conversation as they discover a host of shared loves, interests, and desires, and shortly afterward begin courting. After a whirlwind courtship characterized by long conversations about their future hopes and dreams, and expectations regarding marriage, they get married in secret less than a year after their first meeting.

Once they finally announce their marriage publicly, they head south to Florida, hoping to procure a small boat and take up a life of seafaring. Before they get a day’s journey, Van is informed that he has been drafted into the Navy and must report at once. For the next four years, Van and Davy are stationed at the naval base in Hawaii, where they live through the Pearl Harbor attack and await the end of the war in 1945. After the war, Van is discharged, and the couple immediately proceeds to Miami, Florida, where they finally buy a boat and spend months sailing, fishing, and picking up odd jobs to fund their lifestyle.

Once the novelty wears off, they decide they will need gainful employment to continue their chosen lifestyle, so they apply to Yale, entering college that fall. After graduating from Yale, Van takes a teaching job in Virginia for a short while as they wait for the right time to commission a boat to be built for their purposes. In the meantime, however, Van receives an opportunity to attend school at Oxford, which has been a dream of his, and so they put their sailing hopes on hold to move to England.

While in Oxford, Van and Davy first encounter and befriend loving, devoted Christian friends who lead them to reevaluate their opinions and preconceived notions about Christians and whether Christianity might actually be true. Eventually, after many months of debate, investigation, research, and personal correspondence with famed Oxford professor C. S. Lewis, Van and Davy decide they have come to believe the truth of the faith, becoming Christians and committing their lives to Christ and the faith.

Their time in Oxford is treasured, but they realize that it will soon end, so Van procures a position teaching English and literature at Lynchburg College in Virginia. Having experienced such high culture and a devoted community of believers, they are quickly disappointed by the lack of zeal and widespread apathy they encounter in their new hometown. Very quickly, a new community of curious students forms as they open their home to those who seek guidance and answers to the questions in their lives. Not long after arriving, however, Davy discovers that she is beginning to fall ill, and doctors soon discover that she has contracted a fatal illness from a virus that has already started to attack her liver.

While Davy experiences a reprieve from the ravages of her illness for about a year, eventually, she succumbs to the virus and dies in Van’s arms after a short period of suffering. In the wake of Davy’s death, Van has to struggle to continue to find meaning in the world, and he is helped again by his longtime friendship with Lewis, with whom he often corresponds about his experience of loss, grief, and the pain of trying to move past his hurt and heal. In an attempt to make sense of Davy’s death, he embarks on a mission he dubs the Illumination of the Past, where he reviews their entire history together through his memory, the letters and poems she wrote, and even in the paintings she left behind. This exercise forms the book’s basis though it would not be put into print for about a decade.

As Van struggles through the passing months and years, he eventually sees the truth in what Lewis said about Davy’s death. Lewis had written to Van and called Davy’s death a “severe mercy” for them both, and as Van begins to heal and find continued meaning in life and remember his wife, he sees the whole picture of their life and love together. Davy’s death proved to be, in the end, her greatest act of love for him as she offered up her life in peace and love, and Van left behind continued to understand the presence of the beloved even after death, looking forward to the time that they would be reunited once again in the life to come.