The Screwtape Letters summary

“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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.