Preview
Copywork
About This Passage
Here Screwtape reveals a surprisingly delicate piece of strategy: the man's faint guilt must be neither too strong nor wholly suppressed. Too strong, and it wakes him; gone entirely, and the devils lose a useful tool. Copying this passage shows a writer how a careful argument balances opposite dangers and keeps a thing alive precisely at the level that does the most harm.
This dim uneasiness needs careful handling. If it gets too strong it may wake him up and spoil the whole game. On the other hand, if you suppress it entirely—which, by the by, the Enemy will probably ...
Full copywork activity with handwriting lines available in the complete study guide.
Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
In your own words, retell Screwtape's twelfth letter to Wormwood in sequence. How does he manage the man's faint guilt, and how can you tell the slow, unnoticed drift is the letter's true subject?
Discussion Questions
- Screwtape's chief fear is that the man might 'awaken... to a sense of his real position,' so the change of direction must seem 'trivial and revocable.' Is the deepest danger to the man the drift itself or his ignorance of it — and which does Lewis make primary? Use Screwtape's words to Wormwood to defend your reading.
- Screwtape is 'almost glad' the man remains 'a churchgoer and a communicant,' since the outward 'habits of a Christian' let him think his 'spiritual state is much the same.' Why does Lewis treat the survival of empty religious habits as more useful to the devils than their loss? Use Screwtape's words to Wormwood to develop your answer.
+ 3 more questions in the complete study guide
Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
A church member who shares in communion.
Item 2
On the outside; in outward appearance only.
Item 3
Making something stronger or more extreme.
+ 5 more vocabulary words in the complete study guide
Critical Thinking
+ 6 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