The Screwtape Letters By Clive Staples Lewis

As we know Screwtape has a significant amount of experience in the demon world knowing many tips and tricks. One example of this is, “Now it may surprise you to learn that in His efforts to get permanent possession of a soul, He relies on the troughs even more than on the peaks…”(Lewis 38.) In the beginning of the quote Screwtape explains that it will be surprising with the information that he is informing Wormwood about. With this we are able to assume that Screwtape isn’t new to these ideas and is sharing his knowledge with Wormwood. Throughout this chapter Screwtape is able to inform Wormwood about the Enemies power and ability he has over all people.

Prayer is a prevalent aspect in the Screwtape Letters. In Letter Four, Wormwood struggles to attack the prayer life on his patient. His uncle, Screwtape, advises him that it is best if the patient does not pray at all. By being a recent Christian convert, Screwtape suggests that it would be better if Wormwood could take advantage of the patient’s forgetfulness. “Whenever they are attending to the Enemy Himself, we are defeated, but there are ways of preventing them from doing so.”

In both “The Scarlet Letter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne and “The Crucible” by Arthur Miller, there is an overarching motif of sin and the effects that sin has on the characters and the prose itself. Throughout both pieces of literature, the effects of sin are a large driving force that both progress and enhance the plot. In order to attain a deeper insight of the role of sin in both pieces of literature, it is necessary for the reader to not only look at the sins of the characters, but also look at the background and context of both prose, the treatment of the characters due to their sins, and the overall character development throughout the story. While the focal point of this essay will be to compare and contrast the role of sin in both prose, it is necessary to first look at the backgrounds and

C.S. Lewis is probably one of the greatest Christian writers who ever lived. His variety and depth of works is legendary. But, in this particular book, he does what few authors have done well. No other author has better captured the subtle deceptions of the Devil and helped the Christian (or non-Christian) to understand it in such a clear way. The book brings feelings of disturbance, humor, sadness, and elation.

Subjectivism C. S. Lewis “The Screwtape Letters” tells the story of Screwtape, a devil in Hell, writing letters to his nephew, Wormwood, who is trying to guide a patient towards Hell over God and Heaven. Lewis has in other works described his thoughts on subjectivism and an objective truth and how an objective truth is better than subjectivism. However, in “The Screwtape Letters”, Lewis is describing the view of the devil and therefore the descriptions most often become the opposite of Lewis’ beliefs. Yet, in some circumstances an objective truth applies to the devil as well. The elements in the novel describe how Screwtape uses an objective truth and reality as a means of pushing the patient towards Hell compared to Heaven, which in Scretape’s

In C. S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters, Screwtape, a demon, writes a series of replies to letters from his nephew Wormwood, also a demon, on how to tempt a human 'patient' on earth to the Devil's camp. While this is a fictional work, this novel points out many different ways the Devil may tempt humans, specifically Christians, into disobeying God's word. For me, it has helped me identify some of the ways the Devil has tempted me to sin when I had not really realized that what I was doing was a sin, specifically when he speaks about the relationship between the patient and his mother: "...build up between you in that house a good settled habit of mutual annoyance; daily pinpricks"(11). Here Screwtape wants Wormwood to make the patient easily annoyed by small things that his mother does and to hold her to a different standard than himself. I often

Baileys use of imagery here gives the reader a deep insight in the daily life of a modern day cult and the difficulties victims may

To begin The Skeletons in God’s Closet, Butler includes a foreword written by Rick McKinley, a fellow church member. McKinley addresses the common misconception people have that God is not really good because he allows Hell, judgment, and holy war. McKinley assures the reader that Butler is a great person to address these issues because he has known Butler for over a decade, and Butler is an experienced missionary and theologian. Butler then begins with the introduction. In the introduction, Butler outlines many topics that will be delved into in the novel.

Due to Dimmesdale’s perfect reputation, he chooses to hide his sin from people. As a young pastor, God’s words judge Dimmesdale’s soul deeply, and sin in his heart burns his soul wildly. The more people trust him, the more he agonizes internally. Therefore, Dimmesdale starts to torture himself with whip, and even puts a letter “A” on his chest. Hidden sin in his heart break him down gradually.

Hey Jacob! I concur with you that through the book, C.S. Lewis exposes many different challenges faced by Christians. Many of these I did not even realize that we, as Christians, encounter. I am sure that our ignorance plays into the hands of Satan and benefits his scheme. The points you brought up were very intriguing, but I had trouble figuring out how some of them related to The Screwtape Letters.

The victimization of fears and securities is a main weapon in the belt of those who wish to lead and conquer. This is proved when in “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”, Edwards uses dark imagery and tone, telling the congregation, “O, Sinner! Consider the fearful danger you are in... You hang by a slender thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it” (156).

While Satan, “Our Father Below,” is a self-loving, deceitful father. When everyone agrees that Lewis’s style of writing is instructive. Some say Lewis wrote the book for people to understand and feel sympathy for Satan and his followers “demons”. Lewis’s style of writing makes one better equip to reorganize Satan’s subtle deceptions in three ways: it helps people recognize distractions in our thoughts, it helps people recognize distractions

Whether in delicacy or excess, gluttony is the most readily accepted of the seven deadly sins. Guinness argues both that, in the modern world, gluttony of delicacy has replaced the gluttony of excess and the proper response to this vice is courage under suffering. When we think of gluttony, we tend to envision endless tables of food sprawled out before a man who could stand to skip a few meals, however, while this is one way in which gluttony presents itself, it is not the form we find often within the modern Christian’s life. Rather, the most common form of gluttony in the Christian’s life is that of delicacy. In his book, The Screwtape Letters C. S. Lewis utters these words through the pen of his character Screwtape, a demon corresponding with a demon-in-training, “Your patient’s mother… would be astonished… to learn that her whole life is enslaved to this kind of sensuality, which is quite concealed from her by the fact that the quantities involved are small” (Guinness, pg. 4-10).

The sinners in circle four are the traitors to their masters, their punishment is they lie completely sealed in the ice, so they couldn’t speak to any of them. As he entered the center, Virgil showed him “the foul creature”. Dante decided not to use his name because they’re in his domain. He has three faces, and there are three sinners stuck inside each mouth. Judas Iscariot is in the central mouth, Brutus and Cassius in the mouths either side.

The protagonist from “The Turn of the Screw”, is perceived to be despearate as she tries to achieve her dream but her personal pride leads her to an unstable condition. The author depicts the Governess believing that to attain her goal of gaining attentionby her employer, she must be a hero. Therefore, she invents lies about seeing her predessors haunting her pupils. Nonetheless, the more times James makes the Governess mention the ghosts the more she believes they are real and they, “want to get them (the children)” (82). The Governess is blinded by making it appear she sees the ghosts that she looses herself in her own lies leading her to an unstable condition of not knowing what is real or not.