69 pages • 2 hours read
C. S. LewisThe Screwtape Letters
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1942A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 8-12Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 8 Summary
Screwtape articulates his theory on human existence as “undulation—the repeated return to a level from which they repeatedly fall back, a series of troughs and peaks” (37). Because humans are partly physical beings, and the material world is always in flux, people naturally find it difficult to remain focused on any single thing. Screwtape therefore warns that the patient’s commitment to Christianity may not truly be waning, as Wormwood believes. Indeed, humans will often come closer to God during “troughs” of emotional investment in faith.
Chapter 9 Summary
Screwtape continues to elaborate on “troughs” in human life. He suggests that these periods offer opportunities for all sensual temptations, “particularly those of sex” (43). However, Wormwood must be careful not to confuse pleasure itself for sin, as any sort of bodily enjoyment ultimately comes from God and is not, in its “healthy” state, sinful. The best way to exploit the patient’s “trough” is therefore to convince him that it will last forever and perhaps that it was foolish of him to have ever felt strongly about his religious convictions.
Chapter 10 Summary
Wormwood’s patient has made new friends: “just the sort of people we want him to know—rich, smart, superficially intellectual, and brightly skeptical about everything in the world” (49). Screwtape sees an opportunity to have the patient live a double life wherein he spends Saturday with his entertaining friends, engaged in “blasphemy over coffee” (52), and then goes to church on Sunday; he may even come to regard himself as superior to both groups of people if Wormwood plays on his vanity.
Chapter 11 Summary
Screwtape approves of the fact that the patient’s new friends have introduced him to others who share their attitude toward life, but he is concerned that Wormwood calls them “great laughers.” Screwtape explains that laughter is not necessarily a sign of derision and categorizes several kinds: “Joy, Fun, the Joke Proper, and Flippancy” (53). Screwtape finds joy as a cause of laughter difficult to grasp but explains that it does not suit the demons’ purposes at all. Fun should generally be discouraged as well. Jokes can be of use, although Screwtape cautions that many devils overestimate the success of sexual humor. Screwtape believes that the jokes that best suit Hell’s purposes are those told to excuse shortcomings: “Humour is for [some people] the all-consoling and (mark this) the all-excusing, grace of life. Hence it is invaluable as a means of destroying shame […] Cruelty is shameful—unless the cruel man can represent it as a practical joke” (55). Flippancy carries this even further, bypassing the actual joke but treating everything with an air of detached amusement; Screwtape therefore regards it as the most promising kind of humor to cultivate.
Chapter 12 Summary
Screwtape congratulates Wormwood on his progress in encouraging the patient to spend more time with his new friends. He warns him, however, that he must not let the patient fully recognize what is happening, as this would allow him to repent. It is better if he remains in a state of uneasiness and “half-conscious guilt” over his lifestyle conflicting with his religious observances. To ease the dissonance, he will begin to avoid the latter, and it will be easier and easier to distract him.
Chapters 8-12 Analysis
Screwtape has a kind of wisdom about the human condition, although his point of view is in some key ways distorted (e.g., he cannot understand what it means to be joyful). In particular, he grasps Humans as Both Physical and Spiritual Beings. This duality is at the core of his claims about the “undulations” of human life. The soul pulls humans toward God not only through outright religious faith but also through anything that evokes a sense of the infinite or eternal—love, beauty, etc. However, humans cannot maintain a high level of interest in any given thing for a prolonged period because their bodies are subject to the pressures of time: “[T]heir bodies, passions, and imaginations are in continual change, for to be in time means to change. Their nearest approach to constancy, therefore, is undulation—the repeated return to a level from which they repeatedly fall back” (37). Thus, human beings can love God and yet go through periods where God feels distant and prayer and religious practices seem ineffective and pointless.
This discussion of “undulation” lays the groundwork for the patient’s apparent religious lapse in Chapters 10 to 12. In these chapters, Screwtape considers the young man as a social animal, one who is likely to be susceptible to “social, sexual, and intellectual vanity” (49)—that is, to feel flattered by the attention of his worldly friends. For Screwtape, this opens all sorts of possibilities, ranging from the patient’s adoption of outright vices to subtler forms of hypocrisy and self-deception.
It is important to note, however, that while Wormwood exploits the patient’s “trough” of religious devotion to encourage sinfulness, Lewis does not portray the troughs themselves as sinful. Indeed, as Wormwood recognizes, a commitment to faith even when one doesn’t feel particularly faithful can be highly virtuous. This speaks to The Role of Reason and Free Will in Christian Life: As Screwtape explains, God does not constantly make his presence known to humans because doing so would effectively nullify their ability to choose faith. For Lewis, this also serves as a counterargument to the claim that if an omnipotent divinity existed and desired humanity’s belief, they could simply reveal themselves to unbelievers.
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