The Screwtape Letters Analysis

Screwtape and Foulgrin both have didactic tones, seeing how they are both trying to achieve the same goal; teach intermediate tempters how to make their patients fail. Both demons spend the entirety of each book giving detailed instruction. In The Screwtape Letters, Screwtape gives his nephew, Wormwood plenty of advice. For example, in letter three Screwtape says, “I am very pleased by what you tell me about this man’s relations with his mother. But you must press your advantage (Lewis 11).” Lord Foulgrin, however, more reminiscent of the wrongs of mankind than Screwtape, similarly informs his novice tempter, Squaltaint, in the same way. In the fourth letter, The Vermin’s Stinking Family, Foulgrin reminds Squaltaint, “And don’t forget one of the most effective forms of child abuse: parents giving their children whatever they want. (Alcorn 29).” For most of each novel, Screwtape has confidence in Wormwood and Foulgrin in Squaltaint.

The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis is a set of letters written by the demon Screwtape to his nephew, Wormwood. Wormwood is relatively new at being a demon and throughout the letters, Screwtape both responds to the letters that Wormwood sends him and provides Wormwood with advice about how best to tempt the man Wormwood is in charge of away from the Enemy, God. Although Lewis only gives the reader one side of this correspondence between uncle and nephew, Screwtape’s response at the beginning of each letter is usually enough to understand what Wormwood’s letter contained. It appears as if Wormwood had only recently become a Tempter as opposed to his uncle, Screwtape, who had surpassed the role of Tempter and now occupied an administrative role.

In the Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis proposes a dialog between an experienced devil and a young inexperienced devil. We only get to read letters from the senior, Screwtape, to the junior, Wormwood. In these letters we overhear how Wormwood’s first assignment is going, what tempting strategies he should try, and what might happen to him if he fails. Screwtape comes across cordial in all his letters, but just beneath his tone he seems to dislike his young mentee. In every letter, Screwtape belittles Wormwood in some way or another, and by the end we hear Screwtape’s outright anger and outrage at Wormwood’s failure when his patient dies a Christian. Lewis’ style of writing equips me to better recognise Satin’s subtle deceptions, and does not make

“The long, dull, monotonous years of middle-aged prosperity or middle-aged diversity are excellent campaigning weather.” Screwtape wished to drag out the Christian’s life and turn it into a purposeless, repeating roll-play. He wanted to slowly and despairingly tear the Christian from God and so tear him from the only true hope and life and joy there is in this world. Do not be alarmed, though, because God is stronger that the demons and He, “having oddly destined these mere animals to life in His own eternal world, has guarded them pretty effectively from the danger of feeling at home anywhere else.” Screwtape admits that God insures his children a place in his forever home and an everlasting joy. Additionally, Screwtape refers to humans as “mere animals.” God created us in His image, which sets us apart from the animals. Screwtape therefore was trying to degrade humankind, to lower us, and how can any of us, humans, feel sympathy for one who so hates us

Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis, is an interesting novel containing the interaction between a devil named Screwtape and his young nephew Wormwood. The book is comprised of letters corresponding between the two devils. Screwtape is a senior devil and is tasked as a mentor to his less experienced nephew. Screwtape instructs Wormwood on how to tempt a new Christian, or "patient". He suggest many different intricate ways of using human emotions, thoughts, and weaknesses to tempt their faith, and keep them from the kingdom of heaven. The ultimate goal to attain humans for their master in hell. Wormwood is at first encouraged by his uncle Screwtape, but is later criticized because he can't control his patient, and fails at keeping him from church.

The patient could have many jobs but I see him as a writer. There are many times that screwtape talks about how smart he is. Writers usually know a lot in what they write about. In the first chapter Screwtape says “Your man has been accustomed, ever since he was a boy, to have a dozen incompatible philosophies dancing about together inside his head. He doesn't think of doctrines as primarily "true" or "false", but as "academic" or "practical", "outworn" or "contemporary”, "conventional" or "ruthless". Jargon, not argument, is your best ally in keeping him from the Church.” (chapter 1 first paragraph) This shows that the patient does know his stuff and thinks through everything. I see him as a writer for science and philosophy books. These people could be professors and the patient could have been a professor before since he knows so much about life. The patient's job during the war was a defence worker (ch. 28, p154). This defence work could be helping build barricades in roads and planning where to strategically place the barriers. Since I saw him as a writer, I see it fitting that he is a defence worker because a smaller man would not be able to fight in the

Screwtape wants to destroy the patient and his mother's relationship all together. They both already had a mutual annoyance for each other despite what screwtape was trying to do. First method he wants to use is keeping the patient's mind on himself. This will cause anger and annoyance towards his mother in doing so. This all relates towards logos by being factual evidence to cause anger. With pathos, C.S. Lewis wants to show emotion that the reader can relate to. He does this by showing tone in the story with the patient and his mother. “I have had patients of my own so well in hand that they could be turned at a moments notice from impassioned prayer for a wife’s or son’s soul to beating or insulting the real wife or son without qualm.” This gives us the sense of how evil devils can be towards

According to Screwtape that question has been answered by the “High Command.” He says that for the moment their policy is to conceal themselves from their patients. Screwtape introduces a dilemma. “When humans disbelieve in our existence we lose all the pleasing results of direct terrorism and we make no magicians. On the other hand, when they believe in us, we cannot make them materialists and sceptics.” Obliviously this situation has become a big problem for demons like Screwtape. In a human doesn’t believe that a demon is causing them pain and suffering, then the demon doesn’t take as much pleasure for doing something. If I do something good I know that I would like to be rewarded or acknowledged for something even if that is not having the Servants heart that God wants us to have. On the flipside if a person knew there was a demon doing all of these terrible and unthinkable things to them, they would know that all bad things would come from demons. It is like a surprise birthday party. If you know that your good group of friends is throwing you a surprise party, you won’t enjoy it as much if you had no idea about it. What I want to know is why Wormword would want to reveal himself to his patient? I really cant figure out any positives about it besides, the person knowing who is ruining their life is a

Throughout the story, the Misfit is constantly in denial about the existence of God, the resurrection of Jesus, and the necessity of

He does this because Wormwood wants the girlfriend to feel like she’s not good enough for the patient. Eventually the patient loses the love of his life because he she was convinced that she didn’t deserve him. Screwtape also believes that instead of waiting until marriage to have sex, a person should be able to do it whenever they feel like it. Eventually at the end of the book the patient dies but he is sent to Heaven. Wormwood wasn’t successful in turning the patient away from Christ. Screwtape is turned into a larger centipede for failing to convince his nephew to convince the patient to leave God .The theme of this novel is would be to try and prove that Christianity will always prevail. Even though as Christians our faith is tested everyday we should just persevere and know that God is with us. Even though Screwtape was evil he was also very wise. Screwtape knew exactly what to do in order to lead the patient down the wrong path. Whenever a person is suffering Screwtape says that “it feels like I had a rich buffet.” Screwtape basically lives of people’s daily suffering. Wormwood is easily persuaded, whatever his uncle tells him to do to the patient it would get done. He’s also easily excited, whenever the Europeans went into a second war he was “delirious with joy.” But Screwtape had to teach him not to get joyful so fast. Finally, the patient would be described as a person who is easily influenced. Throughout the novel you notice that whatever wormwood tells him to do it would be done. He believed that the things he was doing would benefit God, but it was actually benefiting Satan. But in the end Satan lost because the patient went to Heaven to be with our Father in Heaven. In the end Christianity still beat Satan and the patient is happy in

Love is a very impactful thing. The fact that the Patient has great love for his mother stands out as a problem for Wormwood and Screwtape. These two accomplices believe that if they strip the patient of all sources of love that he will turn away from God. Wormwood is provided with a list filled with details on how he can turn the patient’s love into anger and annoyance towards his mother. One way that they attempt to do this is by distorting the patient’s prayers into prayers

Inside his mind, he finds all these evil from his thoughts that he had repressed and locked away all these years cause of his strict religious beliefs. The evil is represented by a devil he met in his unconscious mind. The devil holds in his hands a staff that resembles a serpent is similar to the story of Adam and Eve where the snake leads them away from being the purest of man and in Young Goodman Brown where the devil with the serpent staff leads Brown deeper into the forest. All his thoughts that were considered wrong by his religion were repressed and forgotten. These thoughts which he thought were forgotten are actually locked deep into the “forest” part of his mind and the opening of that door will only take a matter of time before the mind can’t take anymore. Once the door creaks open from the pressure of the thoughts, the person becomes hysterical unless a method of mental solution provided in Freud theory is utilized. Proven by Sigmund Freud, hysteria is not at all physical and is indeed a mental condition.

The author helps us to understand exactly who our enemy is and who our enemy is not. Our enemy is not flesh and blood but, “principalities, and spiritual wickedness in high places”. People are often used by demonic spirits to act in adverse ways. We must never target people as our foes. The enemy would love to have us overlook him and turn on one another. Our brothers and sisters are not who we should fight. It is the spirit behind them using them to distract us into doing something we will later regret.

Throughout the document, Mather is constantly depicting the Devil and spirits as very real, tangible enemies (e.g. descriptions of “invisible hands” and unexplained supernatural happenings), that were slowly infecting the Christian

Christianity is mostly closely associated with Jesus Christ, its founder and premier exorcists. Out of all of Jesus’ healing one-fourth of them dealt with Exorcism and there are at least 26 references to exorcisms preformed by Jesus in the New Testament. Through out the Gospel many accounts of Jesus performing exorcists are documented in the Gospel by his apostles (Bancroft.) The first accounts of Jesus performing types of exorcisms comes from Mathew 4: 24. Matthew writes that Jesus cured all the people who were possessed, lunatics, and paralytic. This also integrates the idea that exorcism is not just about free an individual from demonic possession, but also free them of mental and physical diseases as well. In the Gospel according to Mark, Jesus casts out multiple demons named Legion out of man from Gerasenes, who would cry all night and bruise himself with stones, into a herd of pigs who than ran off a cliff to their own demise (Mark 5: 1-20). Satan does not act alone when he posses an individual, he is working with several evil spirits such as lust, hate, destruction, , anger, anxiety, desperation, suicide, revenge death and torment. Conversely Exorcism is not always seen as a negative experience. In Acts 16: 16, It is told of a women possessed by an oracular spirit, literally a python spirit of whom was the guardian of Delphic oracles. In