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Zusammenfassung von The Screwtape Letters

Name: The Screwtape Letters
Rating: 4.7 (56 reviews)
Author: C.S. Lewis

C.S. Lewis

Letters from a Senior to a Junior Devil

4.7 (56 Bewertungen)

20 Min.

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Christentum Literatur

Inhaltsübersicht

The Screwtape Letters
in 9 Kernaussagen verstehen

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Kernaussage 1 von 9

What’s in it for me? View a human life through a devil’s eyes.

One summer day in 1940, C. S. Lewis was attending the afternoon service in his small Oxford church when he was struck with the idea for The Screwtape Letters.

As he wrote to his brother, he imagined a book consisting of letters written from one devil to another. According to Lewis, “The idea would be to give all the psychology of temptation from the other point of view.”

A year later, in 1941, Lewis began publishing installments of The Screwtape Letters serially in the Guardian, a now-defunct Anglican newspaper. Thirty-one letters in total make up the collection. All of them are written, supposedly, by the fictional devil Screwtape as he coaches, chastises, and sometimes threatens his young nephew Wormwood, who’s attempting to secure the damnation of an unnamed Englishman.

Along the way, readers encounter a wide breadth of topics, primarily about sin and virtue, and learn how devils may be trying to tempt each one of us. Although undoubtedly Christian in content, The Screwtape Letters is nourishing reading for anyone trying to live a more virtuous life.

This Blink won’t cover all 31 of Screwtape’s letters, but we’ll make it through many of the most important topics. You might even let out the occasional nervous chuckle when you recognize some of your own sins.

Faith and Reason

The preface of The Screwtape Letters, which is signed by C. S. Lewis himself, begins with a warning: that humans tend to fall into two main errors concerning devils. The first is disbelieving in their existence entirely. The second is believing in them so much that one becomes unhealthily obsessed. Naturally, the devils themselves are pleased about both errors. Materialists, disbelieving in devils, are unlikely to believe in God. And magicians, who become fascinated by devils, end up doing their bidding.

Next, Lewis warns readers that devils are liars. As such, the correspondence which he’s about to present should be taken with a grain of salt. The overall message is clear: readers may be wary of or amused by devils, but there’s no reason to put them on a pedestal.

With that, the letters begin. The first gives readers a brief sense of the characters. The author of the letters is Screwtape, a senior devil with an authoritative, occasionally biting tone. The recipient is his nephew Wormwood, a junior devil still naive and unskilled in the ways of temptation. Finally, there’s an Englishman called “the patient.” Wormwood’s task is to draw this “patient” into damnation, away from heaven, so he can become food for “Our Father Below” –⁠ also known as Satan.

At the very beginning, the patient hasn’t yet converted to Christianity. But Wormwood is already making a mistake: believing that he can keep the patient away from God through logical reasoning alone. These days, Screwtape writes, people don’t think of doctrines as “true” or “false.” Instead, they apply adjectives like “outdated” or “contemporary,” “academic” or “practical” –⁠ you get the idea. What matters is that the patient feels righteous about his beliefs –⁠ that’s all he really cares about, anyway.

Why not use argument? Well, because devils aren’t the only ones who can argue –⁠ God can too. And once a person’s capacity for reason wakes up, it’s difficult to control where it takes them from there.

Real Life

“Real life” –⁠ an expression humans use so often without thinking about what it truly means. And thank goodness they don’t! It’s an incredibly useful one for hell, because by “real life,” people tend to mean everyday, quotidian matters: the newspaper, their lunch, the bus, and so on –⁠ certainly not spiritual matters or feelings. This is what hell wants. The humans’ attention must ever be kept on their immediate sensory experiences and not on God.

Apparently, this isn’t so easily done, though, because, by the second letter, Wormwood has already made his first major blunder. He’s allowed his patient to convert to Christianity! While terrible,⁠ the devils can still try to make the best of a bad situation.

Peaks and Troughs

At the beginning of the eighth letter, Screwtape bemoans the state of the training college in hell. Ever since they put old Slubgob at the head of it, the whole program has gone to the dogs. Wormwood writes that he has “great hopes that the patient’s religious phase is dying away.” The patient, you see, has been in a vaguely depressive mood as of late, and Wormwood hopes he will soon give up on Christianity. But he’s forgotten –⁠ or Slubgob never taught him –⁠ something very important: the law of undulation.

This law simply states that humans are constantly undulating between peaks and troughs in their lives. Their affection for their friends, their appetites, their interest in their work, and so on –⁠ all of these things alternate between periods of vibrancy and periods of numbness.

Vanity and Pleasure

In letter ten, Screwtape has learned that Wormwood’s patient has made friends with a middle-aged married couple. Screwtape is delighted by this news –⁠ the couple are rich, smart, superficially intellectual, and highly skeptical. What could be better?

In these people’s company, the patient’s vanity can easily be preyed upon. He’ll feel a sense of social pressure to laugh at their jokes and agree with their arguments. If his friends say something cynical, he’ll act cynical. If they mock religion, he’ll mock it with them. Eventually, he’ll really feel these derisive feelings, even if at first he’s just pretending. After all, as Screwtape says, ”All mortals turn into the thing they are pretending to be.”

Pride

Letter 14 begins with another bout of bad news. Wormwood has written Screwtape that his patient is no longer making any of those confident resolutions which marked his original conversion. He no longer promises to be virtuous forever nor expects to receive grace for life. Instead, he merely prays for the strength to meet the daily and hourly temptation!

The patient has, in other words, become humble. In this case, there’s only one thing to do –⁠ draw his attention to his humility so that he recognizes it for what it is. The knowledge of one’s virtues inevitably leads to taking pride in the virtue –⁠ and that pride, naturally, cancels out the humility.

Love

Ah, the modern concept of “being in love.” It’s one of hell’s greatest successes, according to Screwtape.

When it comes to sexual temptation, the Enemy –⁠ that is, God –⁠ has thankfully presented humans with a dilemma. He demands either complete abstinence or permanent monogamy. Abstinence is already very difficult for humans, and monogamy is becoming even more so,⁠ thanks to the experience they now call “being in love.” Today, this feeling is considered the sole legitimate basis for a marriage. Moreover, marriage is supposed to make the feeling permanent. If not, the only solution is divorce.

Christianity And

Speaking of love, in letter 22, Screwtape learns of yet another disastrous occurrence: Wormwood’s patient has met a woman! And a virginal, kind-hearted Christian woman at that. She makes Screwtape want to vomit.

Adding insult to injury, the patient has also gotten to know the woman’s family and circle. The house she lives in reeks of devoutness, and everyone that spends a weekend there comes away stinking of heaven. Even the cat and dog are tainted with the odor! The whole matter angers Screwtape so much that, mid-letter, he inadvertently transforms into a giant centipede.

War

Early on in the letters, Screwtape discovers that Wormwood is enthused about the prospect of the Second World War, which is taking place in the background. The obviously naive Wormwood believes that war can only be a good thing for the causes of hell.

However, as Screwtape points out in the fifth letter, that isn’t the case. In fact, war often has bad consequences for hell. For one, it often turns people to God. It also inspires some people to sacrifice their lives. Although God doesn’t support war, he still tends to reward people who give their lives to causes.

Final Summary

Throughout the entirety of The Screwtape Letters, readers view human foibles through a devilish lens as senior devil Screwtape advises his nephew Wormwood on how to damn his patient to hell.

The letters cover many themes, but the underlying one is that humans are constantly being tempted, and that the devils’ ways are at work everywhere one might look. Despite this, the devils’ tactics are frequently unsuccessful, because humans have a way of overcoming their struggles and ultimately emerging on the side of God.

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Worum geht es in The Screwtape Letters?

The Screwtape Letters (1942) is a satirical novel in the form of letters written from one demon to another. Senior demon and hellish administrator Screwtape shares advice and lessons with his nephew, Wormwood, who is tasked with tempting his “patient” away from God and toward Satan. As such, readers see the ordinary troubles and temptations of human life depicted from a devil’s point of view.

Wer The Screwtape Letters lesen sollte

Satire lovers with an interest in Christian theology
Non-Christians with a self-deprecating streak
Narnia fans who want to sample another of Lewis’s works

Über den Autor

S. –⁠ that is, Clive Staples –⁠ Lewis was a British writer born at the turn of the twentieth century. He taught English literature at both Oxford and Cambridge, fought in the First World War, and had a well-known friendship with fellow writer J. R. R. Tolkien. His most famous books are those making up the fantasy series The Chronicles of Narnia, but his writings on Christian theology, including Mere Christianity and The Problem of Pain, are also notable.

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