Preview
Copywork
About This Passage
In one balanced sentence Screwtape pictures the cost of pretending to fit in: a man who will not stand up for what he believes ends up out of step in both directions, silent when honesty calls for speech and laughing along when he should be quiet. Copying it shows how a writer can use a mirrored pair — 'silent... speak' against 'laugh... silent' — to capture a divided, false position.
He will be silent when he ought to speak and laugh when he ought to be silent.
Full copywork activity with handwriting lines available in the complete study guide.
Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
In your own words, tell the story of Screwtape's tenth letter to Wormwood. How does Screwtape want to use the man's new friends and his vanity, and what is the worst trap he hopes the man falls into?
Discussion Questions
- Screwtape is delighted with the man's 'rich, smart, superficially intellectual' new friends, who are 'brightly sceptical about everything,' and with how Wormwood used 'all his social, sexual, and intellectual vanity.' Why are vanity and the wish to seem clever such useful tools for drawing a person into a bad crowd? Point to how Screwtape describes the new friends.
- Screwtape values 'a subtle play of looks and tones and laughs' by which the man can imply he is 'of the same party' as his friends, a betrayal the man 'does not fully realise.' Why is this quiet, wordless agreement a more dangerous betrayal than openly saying he agrees? Use Screwtape's words to Wormwood to explain.
+ 3 more questions in the complete study guide
Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
Doubting; not easily believing things.
Item 2
Distrustful; believing people act only from selfishness.
Item 3
Being disloyal to someone or something you should support.
+ 5 more vocabulary words in the complete study guide
Critical Thinking
+ 5 more questions in the complete study guide
Get the complete study guide — free
Sign up and get your first book with every chapter included. Copywork, discussion questions, vocabulary, and critical thinking.
Sign up free