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.
Preface-Chapters 4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Preface Summary
Lewis declines to say how he obtained the letters that follow but warns readers neither to discount the existence of devils nor interest themselves in them excessively. He also provides guidance for interpreting the text: “[R]emember that the devil is a liar” (ix). This applies particularly to the characters in the narrative, who may not be described accurately.
Chapter 1 Summary
The senior devil Screwtape writes to his nephew Wormwood, who is a novice tempter. Wormwood has been given the assignment to manipulate a young man, his “patient,” and win him over to the devil’s camp. Wormwood has sought to do this by encouraging the patient to spend time with agnostics or atheists, but Screwtape considers his approach ham-fisted; in the modern era, Screwtape claims, people are less convinced by reason than by emotion, so Wormwood should try to make the patient consider materialism “courageous” rather than “true.” He further advises encouraging the patient to focus his attention on the “stream of immediate sense experiences” and to avoid “universal issues” (2), even if the latter seem superficially opposed to religious belief. An emphasis on philosophy and logic might lead the patient to think about and be attracted to religious thoughts and connections with the divine.
Chapter 2 Summary
Screwtape is annoyed at the news that the patient targeted by Wormwood has become a Christian. However, Screwtape holds out hope that the patient will be disappointed by what he experiences in the church and make judgments about his fellow churchgoers. This tendency toward being disappointed by the reality of a thing is intrinsic to human nature, Screwtape suggests, because God (whom he refers to as “the Enemy”) wants people to choose a Christian life freely rather than allow themselves to be swept along by their “affections and habits” (7). If the patient’s neighbors are actually hypocritical in their religion, Screwtape argues, it will be even easier for Wormwood to cultivate a sense of superiority in the young man.
Chapter 3 Summary
The patient’s mother is an older lady with rheumatism, and her son has dutifully prayed for her recovery. Screwtape sees in this situation an opportunity to have the patient lose track of his mother as a real human being. He also proposes working to heighten any annoyance or tendency toward blame the patient might feel over his mother’s trivial habits; meanwhile, the patient should be encouraged to view his own words and actions in the most flattering light possible.
Chapter 4 Summary
Screwtape encourages Wormwood to get the patient to avoid formal prayer as much as possible in favor of a “vaguely devotional” feeling. However, if the patient does pray, he should focus as much on how he is thinking and feeling during prayer as possible. Failing that, he should pray to an objectified God, such as would be represented by a crucifix on the wall, rather than having a more direct sense of “the Person who has made him” (18).
Preface-Chapter 4 Analysis
In these early chapters, the author establishes the character of Screwtape, including how he thinks about human beings and how he approaches tempting human souls. Fundamentally, Screwtape sees humans as ignorant and naïve, particularly about spiritual matters. This has implications for the tack he takes in corrupting them, as he believes their thoughts and feelings can be easily manipulated, and Lewis implies that much of what Screwtape claims is true—that humans are, for example, easily distracted. Their minds wander, and they often lack the energy and commitment to lead a genuinely faithful life. This allows tempter devils to get into their heads and lead them astray.
Nevertheless, Lewis also suggests that Screwtape’s disdain for humanity reflects a basic misapprehension of God’s nature and plan. On some level, Screwtape understands The Role of Reason and Free Will in Christian Life, as evidenced by the fact that he explains how foibles like the tendency toward distraction make choosing moral behavior more meaningful. Screwtape, however, cannot appreciate this because (as Lewis depicts it) the entire ethos of Hell centers on domination and hierarchy; he chastises Wormwood at one point for critiquing his advice, saying, “That is not the sort of thing that a nephew should write to his uncle—nor a junior tempter to the undersecretary of a department” (15). This depiction of Hell as oppressive and God as a champion of freedom challenges the popular association of religion with unthinking obedience and is one way Lewis seeks to make Christianity more appealing to readers.
Screwtape’s distaste for humans has another thematically significant dimension: He disapproves of the fact that humans are (according to traditional Christian teaching) an amalgamation of the spiritual and the physical. He refers, for example, to God’s “inveterate love of degrading the whole spiritual world by unnatural liaisons with the two-legged animals” (7). This too challenges what Lewis sees as a popular misconception about Christianity—that it disapproves of the body—by associating that viewpoint with a literal devil. These early chapters lay the groundwork for a nuanced understanding of Humans as Both Physical and Spiritual Beings.
Screwtape makes it clear that physical experience can provide inroads for sin; in Chapter 1, he recalls a time when he distracted someone from philosophical musings with thoughts of hunger. However, for a physical being, mental experiences are also in some sense bodily and thus just as useful to the devils, particularly when they focus a person’s attention inward. This is why Screwtape urges Wormwood to distract the patient with thoughts about the mental experience of praying, as this precludes actual spiritual engagement. It is a focus on the self, rather than a focus on the body, that Lewis identifies as the root cause of sin in his exploration of Love, Self-Love, and the Conflict Between Good and Evil.
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