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Copywork
About This Passage
Here Screwtape defines flippancy with surgical precision: it is not the making of jokes but the pose of having already laughed at everything serious. No real wit is required — only a manner that treats every important thing as obviously ridiculous. Copying this sentence shows a writer how to capture an attitude, not an action, and why the assumed sneer can be more corrosive than any actual joke.
No one actually makes it; but every serious subject is discussed in a manner which implies that they have already found a ridiculous side to it.
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Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
In your own words, tell the story of Screwtape's eleventh letter to Wormwood. What are the four kinds of laughter he names, and which does he most want to encourage?
Discussion Questions
- Screwtape divides laughter into 'Joy, Fun, the Joke Proper, and Flippancy,' and admits the first two do the devils 'no good,' since Fun 'promotes charity, courage, contentment, and many other evils.' Why does Lewis have a devil insist that real joy and fun are dangerous to Hell? Point to how Screwtape describes their effects.
- Screwtape's prized use of humour is 'as a means of destroying shame,' so that meanness, cowardice, or cruelty can be 'passed off' as funny. Why is making a wrong act seem funny a powerful way to keep a person from feeling ashamed of it? Use Screwtape's words to Wormwood to explain.
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
People who mock or sneer at what others respect.
Item 2
A shallow, mocking attitude toward serious things.
Item 3
The mind's power to think and understand.
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Critical Thinking
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