Riot’s Classic Literature Reviews: The Screwtape Letters
To date, I have been pretty unbiased in my selection for which works of classic literature I have included in this review series. In my initial compiled list, The Screwtape Letters wasn’t even included. Growing up in the Church and having been educated at a private Christian college, I of course have been exposed to and read many other of C.S. Lewis’ works including The Chronicles of Narnia and Mere Christianity. There is even a strong likelihood that I already read The Screwtape Letters and have simply forgotten (an eidetic memory would be an incredible gift right about now). Why revisit a work I have potentially already read then? Well, the answer is twofold. First, I have been “working on” a novel idea for the better part of fifteen years that involves a fictional portrayal of angels and demons and I have been actively searching for literature (fiction and non-fiction alike) that would help get the creative juices flowing. Plus, fifteen years later I need to kick myself in the pants and get going right? Second, as far as authors go, I ventured in my head that it was impossible to view reading Lewis’ work as a wasted effort. A couple weeks later (due to my ever increasing lack of discipline in reading) I find myself affirmed in both presuppositions, awash with some new ideas/angles for my book and left with an enforced appreciation for one of the greatest authors of all time.
Typically, I would now move on to evaluating the various themes of the book but The Screwtape Letters’ stylistic form and purpose makes this difficult. Written in the format of correspondence or letters between two demons, the sequence of entries serves more like what I would call a daily devotional than anything else. The letters follow a linear pathway in which Screwtape, a senior level demon, affectionally attempts to guide his nephew Wormwood as he endeavors to corrupt his assigned human, merely referred to as “the patient.” Using this fictional scenario, Lewis is brilliantly able to explore and dissect tenants of apologetics (reasoned arguments or writings in justification of something, typically a theory or religious doctrine) by assuming the identity of what most people would commonly label as the enemy. Lewis admitted this was one of the hardest things he ever wrote because mentally and spiritually identifying with demons obviously darkened his disposition (this makes me think about method actors and particularly the tragic story surrounding Heath Ledger and his role as the Joker). I actually ended up taking notes from each chapter, because while the “lessons” followed a linear pathway, they often varied widely entry to entry in subject matter. Yet, once the reader takes a step back the threads that connect the different chapters become clearer. This actually serves to highlight the irregularities of what would be a daily struggle against the temptations of demonic forces and how they can vary daily. One line of attack on a Tuesday may not be the same on a Wednesday.
There were so many important individual lessons that it wouldn’t be a wasted effort to go chapter by chapter and evaluating them. But, for everyone reading’s sake (and kind of my own) I won’t do that. I think it’s important to expand on a few prominent ones and offer some quotes (I’ve never done this before) that particularly floored me while reading. The ones I’m more apt to mention are because of their current cultural significance but I will say that Lewis’ observations/warnings have a universal quality to them, ones that were obviously applicable to his day and age (1941) and ones that are continually ignored today to the detriment of all.
Sexuality/Lust: In Chapter 9, Lewis directly addresses what I mentioned before, how the “troughs” of life can be a particularly apt time to influence humans. After addressing the fact that pleasures in life do in fact have a normal/healthy/satisfying function to them, Screwtape offers the demon’s intention. “All we can do is to encourage humans to take the pleasures which our Enemy has produced, at times, or in ways, or in degrees, which He has forbidden” (Lewis, 44). He goes on to describe that by exploiting man’s sexuality, they are doomed to the ever increasing desire for something that yields diminishing returns (does the porn industry ring a bell here?).
In Chapter 18, he expands on how easily humans are manipulated by the phrase and sensation of “being in love” which in turn serves as an opportunity to further exploit sexuality as a means to degrade its purpose/design. “The truth is that wherever a man lies with a woman, there, whether they like it or not, a transcendental relation is set up between them which must be eternally enjoyed or eternally endured” (Lewis, 96). We can see how flippantly our society today has treated sex and what it means to a relationship. Dating apps and hookup culture have exacerbated the issue and I’m curious to what end society continues to delude itself into thinking it has been beneficial in any way.
Yet, Lewis hits the nail on the head when it comes to the reasoning behind it: pride and the unrelenting belief in “rights” or “ownership.” “The sense of ownership in general is always to be encouraged. The humans are always putting up claims to ownership which sound equally funny in Heaven and in Hell…Much of the modern resistance to chastity comes from men’s belief that they ‘own’ their bodies…” (Lewis, 113). The arguments here aren’t some authoritarian heel on the necks of a free person, it’s a warning (much like the phrase “everything in moderation” which is also horrifyingly ignored by our culture) of what happens when a person continues to push too far against the purposes of sex. Even a little responsibility with sexuality has the consequence of preventing so many horrible outcomes outside of merely the degradation of a persons soul.
It’s in the Little Things: Ironically, I think this idea turns out to be the biggest, most prominent theme throughout the book. Lewis spends a significant amount of time alerting the reader to the idea that what we might refer to as “the daily grind” essentially is the most major catalyst to sucking the actual life out of people. “Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts…” (Lewis, 61). Screwtape opens up the entire run of letters along these lines, advising his nephew that it is better to dull his human’s mind, to keep him away from “argumentation” (logically evaluating and questioning aspects of life) and lead him to a life of ordinariness. Stuck in an endless loop of mediocrity, the patient doesn’t have to think for themselves, therefore making them easier to manipulate into doing what Wormwood wants.
On a similar thread, yet slightly different, Screwtape also makes the argument for a life filled with noise: “Noise, the grand dynamism, the audible expression of all that is exultant, ruthless, and virile—Noise which alone defends us from silly qualms, despairing scruples and impossible desires. We will make the whole universe a noise in the end” (Lewis, 120). The beauty of these ideas intersecting comes in the fact that they initially appear to be contradictory. How can a demon be a fan of bland, ordinary lives but at the same time desiring of constant noise or persistent distractions that prevent a person from being grounded? Demonic influence is always trying to persuade away from contentment, from gratefulness. A person stuck in an endless loop of ordinariness isn’t trying to better themselves in any way and a person always searching to adapt themselves to the new trends isn’t actually appreciative of the moment. Late in the book, Screwtape implores Wormwood to keep his patient alive (his life is threatened by war) because more years means more opportunity to feed on the human’s negative emotions. A consistent weariness therefore is more desirable to a demon than sheer exhaustion because weariness induces all the negative emotions that Hell revels in.
Finally, Wormwood should keep his patient always focused on the future, never in the moment: “We want a whole race perpetually in pursuit of the rainbow’s end, never honest, nor kind, nor happy now, but always using as mere fuel wherewith to heap the altar of the future every real gift which is offered them in the Present” (Lewis, 78). Fear is a constant theme in Screwtape’s advice and the anxiety that comes along with always being fearful of the future is a mental state that these demonic influencers revel in.
The “Good Guys” Can be Bad Guys Too: Screwtape spends a significant amount of time outlining the multiple ways in which the church, faith, or religious practices all provide vectors in which Wormwood can manipulate his patient. Each of these points is offered with a contrasting warning, because the battle for the human’s souls is quite literally to be treated as such. The second chapter highlights the fickleness of the human heart and how often it gets entrapped by its own desires to judge others. This judgmental spirit often leads to “church shopping” where an early believer spends too much time trying to “find the right fit” based off what the congregation has to offer or based on the fallibleness of its patrons. Screwtape offers this advice: “All you then have to do is to keep out of his mind the question ‘If I, being what I am, can consider that I am in some sense a Christian, why should the different vices of those people in the next pew prove that their religion is mere hypocrisy and convention?’” (Lewis, 8). This and the subsequent chapter brought to mind the parable the speck and the log (or plank) parable.
Screwtape also advises Wormwood to use his influence to disrupt tenants of the faith, for example something as simple as prayer. Much of the advice given surrounds the manipulating pride or selfishness. Screwtape isn’t so much interested in preventing prayer altogether (although he does say that is the best way) but to alter its intention, thereby making it ineffective. “The simplest is to turn their gaze away from Him towards themselves. Keep them watching their own minds and trying to produce feelings there by the action of their own wills” (Lewis, 16). The ways in which prayer is manipulated can even be as subtle as directing the attention of the patient towards an object, like a crucifix or religious relic, instead of directly to God.
Late in the book, Screwtape makes mention of a vice they enjoy exploiting that is particular to Christians: Spiritual Pride. It maintains the sense of superiority they try to target in Christians that not only applies to people outside of the church, but also other denominations as well. “He must be made to feel (he’d better not put it into words) ‘how different we Christians are’; and by ‘we Christians’ he must really, but unknowingly, mean ‘my set’; and by ‘my set’ he must mean not ‘The people who, in their charity and humility, have accepted me’, but ‘The people with whom I associate by right’” (Lewis, 132). Consistently, the demon’s easiest method of manipulating the human mind is taking advantage of pride, the chief of all sins.
Wrap Up: Lewis’ work actively dismantles a common misconception or inaccurate teaching that is sometimes given in churches and is even enforced in popular culture: demons aren’t possessors/puppeteers. While their existence certainly seems to be consumed by relishing in the misery of humanity, their influence results to more like an endless series of nudges in the wrong direction. Lewis (through Screwtape) points out that demons cannot produce any sort of virtues in humans nor do they spend their time implanting ideas into people’s heads as much as they work to keep positive thoughts out. They are more inclined to pester and degrade, to blur lines and enforce intangible ideas. They operate in the greyness of life, in indecisiveness and drudgery. Lewis dedicates whole chapters to showing just how much they despise even the little things like music, reading, or simply taking a walk outside. The Screwtape Letters, while assuredly tailored to people of faith, I think offers a perspective that is more universal than that. Lewis’ writing is so dense, like he wrote a massive paragraph and hyper-edited it down to saying the least amount of words as possible while maintaining the full paragraph of implication. Even with my notes, highlighted lines, and a long history in the Christian faith, I am not even entirely sure I absorbed all of the implications of his text, that’s just how compressed his thoughts are. It’s a masterful piece of writing, the fact that he can carry on a conversation/correspondence between two characters without even writing a single word from Wormwood is incredible. That being said, my copy of the book was only 209 pages. An undisciplined reader could handle this book easily in a week, but I would advise not to be too flippant with the time spent on each chapter. This is a fictional story that doesn’t really fit in the molds of a typical narrative and Lewis’ persistence in jam-packing meaning into simple phrases had me re-reading passages multiple times just to squeeze out every drop of meaning. It is an endeavor, but considering the importance of the content, it’s certainly one worth trying.
Riot’s Rating: 9.5/10
P.S. I don’t know how many copies of the book have the “Screwtape Proposes a Toast” section included, but if you want to get a mind-blowing look into the prophetic nature of Lewis’ writing, definitely get a copy that has this. I don’t think I need to waste any time drawing the parallels between what is happening right now in our current political climate to the quotes (I’m going to emphasize the ones that made my head explode) from that section. I’ll simply say this, be wary of anyone that weaponizes the word “democracy,” Inigo Montoya said it best.
“Hidden in the heart of this striving for Liberty there was also a deep hatred of personal freedom. That invaluable man Rousseau first revealed it. In his perfect democracy, you remember, only the state religion is permitted, slavery is restored, and the individual is told that he had really willed (though he didn’t know it) whatever the Government tells him to do” (Lewis, 196).
“Democracy is the word with which you must lead them by the nose…they should never be allowed to give this word a clear and definable meaning. They won’t. It will never occur to them that Democracy is properly the name of a political system, even a system of voting, and that this has only the most remote and tenuous connection with what you are trying to sell them” (Lewis, 197).
“You are to use the word purely as an incantation; if you like, purely for its selling power. It is a name they venerate. And of course it is connected with the political ideal that men should be equally treated…As a result you can use the word Democracy to sanction in his thought the most degrading (and also the least enjoyable) of all human feelings. You can get him to practice, not only without shame but with a positive glow of self-approval, conduct which, if undefended by the magic word, would be universally derided. The feeling is of course that which prompts a man to say I’m as good as you” (Lewis, 197-198).
“The claim to equality, outside the strictly political field, is made only by those who feel themselves to be in some way inferior. What it expresses is precisely the itching, smarting, writhing awareness of an inferiority which the patient refuses to accept. And therefore resents. Yes, and therefore resents every kind of superiority in others; denigrates it; wishes its annihilation” (Lewis, 198-199).
“Let no man live who is wiser, or better, or more famous, or even handsomer than the mass. Cut them all down to a level; all slaves, all ciphers, all nobodies. All equals. Thus tyrants can practice in a sense, ‘democracy’” (Lewis 201-202).
“It begins to work itself into their educational system…The basic principle of the new education is to be that dunces and idlers must not be made to feel inferior to intelligent and industrious pupils…At universities, examinations must be framed so that nearly all the students get good marks. Entrance examinations must be framed so that all, or nearly all, citizens can go to universities, whether they have any power (or wish) to profit by higher education or not. At schools, children who are too stupid or lazy to learn languages and mathematics and elementary science can be set to doing the things that children used to do in their spare time. Let them, for example, make mud-pies and call it modelling” (Lewis, 203-204).
“Children who are fit to proceed to a higher class may be artificially kept back, because the others would get a trauma—Beelzebuub, what a useful word!—by being left behind. The bright pupil thus remains democratically fettered to his own age-group throughout his school career, and a boy who would be capable of tackling Aeschylus or Dante sits listening to his coaeval’s attempts to spell out A CAT SAT ON THE MAT” (Lewis, 2004).
“The few who might want to learn will be prevented; who are they to overtop their fellows? And anyway the teachers—or should I say, nurses?—will be far too busy reassuring the dunces and patting them on the back to waste any time on real teaching…Of course this would not follow unless all education became state education. But it will” (Lewis, 205)
“If there was a bunch of tall stalks that needed their tops knocked off, it was surely they. As an English politician remarked not long ago, ‘A democracy does not want great men’” (Lewis, 205)
“For ‘democracy’ or the ‘democratic spirit’ (diabolical sense) leads to a nation without great men, a nation mainly of subliterates, morally flaccid from lack of discipline in youth, full of the cocksureness which flattery breeds on ignorance, and soft from lifelong pampering. And that is what Hell wishes every democratic people to be. For when such a nation meets in conflict a nation where children have been made to work at school, where talent is placed in high posts, and where the ignorant masses are allowed no say at all in public affairs, only one result is possible” (Lewis, 206).
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