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Copywork
About This Passage
This is the chapter's argumentative core. Screwtape concedes that the Enemy can out-argue him, then explains why argument is still to be avoided: it 'awakes the patient's reason.' The periodic sentences, the semicolons, the antithesis of 'Enemy's own ground' against 'Our Father Below,' and the closing rhetorical question reward study of how a mind builds and defends a claim.
The trouble about argument is that it moves the whole struggle on to the Enemy’s own ground. He can argue too; whereas in really practical propaganda of the kind I am suggesting He has been shown for ...
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Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Give a concise summary of the letter, then identify the single most important sentence in it. Explain why that sentence matters to the book as a whole and what it reveals about Lewis's larger argument about temptation.
Discussion Questions
- Screwtape admits the Enemy is 'greatly the inferior of Our Father Below' at 'practical propaganda' but not at honest argument. What does Screwtape's own admission show about the relationship between truth and persuasion in this chapter? Point to the passage and weigh what it concedes.
- Screwtape forbids the man to 'ask what he means by real.' Why is that one forbidden question so dangerous to Screwtape's whole project, and what does the chapter assume about the word 'real' itself? Use Screwtape's words to Wormwood to support your reading.
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
Unable to be clearly put into words; vague and unspoken.
Item 2
Following accepted customs or the usual way of doing things.
Item 3
Concerned with ideas or study rather than practical effect.
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Critical Thinking
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