Summary Of The Screwtape Letters

Authored by C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters is a collection of writings addressed from Screwtape, the high-ranking assistant to Lucifer, to his nephew Wormwood, a junior tempter. The letters contain examples of previous successful cases, and the advice of Screwtape to Wormwood about the soul of the “patient” to whom he was assigned. The patient, whom Wormwood was to corrupt, lived in England during World War II, and was converted to the Church of England as an adult. Consequently, he is constantly tormented by Wormwood through the directives of Screwtape, both of whom try to fill his life with immoralities in the midst of his newfound Christianity. In giving his advice to Wormwood, Screwtape shows clever subtlety in tempting patients to self-centeredness

He begins by establishing contempt for the ordinary, traditional prayers of his youth, in order to encourage a desire for “something entirely spontaneous, inward, informal, and unregularised; and what this will actually mean to a beginner will be an effort to produce in himself a vaguely devotional mood in which real concentration of will and intelligence have no part.” Thus, a lack of reverence and sincerity, and ultimately, venial sin through selfishness, results in the heart and mind of the patient. Secondly, Screwtape encourages the patient to attempt to produce feelings attached to prayer, thus basing the success of the prayer around this achievement. Through this cunning tactic, the patient then ignores the workings of God in his soul, because he is focused completely upon his own mind. Finally, in convincing the patient to focus upon the pictures, images, and the notion that God is “actually located—up and to the left at the corner of the bedroom ceiling or inside his own head, or in a crucifix on the wall”, he begins to pray to the “thing that he has made, not to the person who has made him.” Consequently, the patient is enticed into a form of idolatry, praying to images rather than to God Himself. Thus, Screwtape demonstrates the easiness in which one’s innocent intentions, even if

By gluttony of delicacy, he refers to that insatiable demand for the exact, and that unsatisfiable desire for perfection. Thus he decreases the patients’ awareness of the danger of sinning through delicacy by focusing their concentration on excess. In speaking about the success he has experienced in enslaving the patient’s mother into this sensuality, Screwtape explains: “At the very moment of indulging her appetite of getting everything exactly as she wants regardless of cost to others, she believes she is practicing temperance. In asking for small quantities, she still asks for much in delicacy.” Finally, after tricking many into this type of sin, Screwtape sets a foundation for other, direr sins. For example, Screwtape states that quantities no longer matter, “provided we can use a human belly and palate to produce querulousness, impatience, uncharitableness, and self-concern”. Thus Screwtape preys upon the inclinations of his patients−likings which, though once innocent and based only upon differing tastes, give way to demands, selfishness, and various other