Summary Of The Screwtape Letters

The Screwtape Letters The Screwtape Letters by C.S Lewis is a satirical book that gives a face to spiritual warfare. The book is set in World War II era England (Lewis 9), a time of fear, uneasiness, and bleakness. It is written as the correspondence between two demons, Screwtape and Wormwood. Screwtape writes thirty letters to Wormwood, giving him instructions and detailed ideas on how best to tempt a man only known as “The Patient”. Lewis gives readers a fresh and unique perspective on the spiritual world by giving them a glimpse into the playbook of the enemy and uses strong literary devices to create an imaginative take on theology . The setting of the story is 1940’s England (Lewis 9). World War II is waging and the world is afraid.

Screwtape is the uncle of Wormwood and serves as a mentor figure to him (Root). The entire book is made up of letters written by Screwtape, so the story is told from his point of view (Lewis 23). In the very beginning, readers are given a warning that Screwtape is first and foremost a liar, so the events that are recorded in the letters may or may not be entirely true (Lewis, preface). He is very intelligent, well spoken, and oddly charming. He is written as a seemingly harmless demon. However, Lewis uses the guise of likability and humor to portray how the devil often presents himself as harmless. Further into the story it becomes more apparent who Screwtape really is, a heartless demon who’s ultimate goal is to take as many people to hell as possible (Johnson). Screwtape has years of experience behind him and is well respected. He is arrogant and confident in his abilities as a tempter and is shown to be short tempered when it comes to his nephews incompetence (Johnson). Screwtape doesn’t like his nephews flashy plans and is constantly advising him to go about tempting slowly (Lewis 20). Though he is trying to help Wormwood, Screwtape is shown to have no real affection for his nephew (Lewis 99). He threatens Wormwood after he reports him to the secret police and even talks about eating his nephew (Lewis, 68). Screwtape is a static character because his goals and motives remain the same from start to finish (Lewis 68). Although he doesn’t undergo massive change throughout the story, he is classified as round because his motives and personality are complex. A interesting detail that all three of the main characters have in common, is that they all have indirect characterization. The reader learns more about them as the story goes on, instead of Lewis giving all the details