Preview
Copywork
About This Passage
Screwtape diagnoses the convert's hidden problem: a religion that is 'pictorial' rather than spiritual, undone by the gap between imagined togas and modern clothes. The parenthetical 'though of course an unconscious' and the urgent anaphora 'Never let it... never let him...' reward study of how syntax can both analyze and command, and how a tempter's strategy hides in the grammar.
At his present stage, you see, he has an idea of ‘Christians’ in his mind which he supposes to be spiritual but which, in fact, is largely pictorial. His mind is full of togas and sandals and armour a...
Full copywork activity with handwriting lines available in the complete study guide.
Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Give a concise summary of the second letter, then identify the single most important sentence in it. Explain why that sentence matters to the book's argument about how ordinary faith is undermined.
Discussion Questions
- Screwtape distinguishes the man's 'pictorial' idea of Christians from a genuinely spiritual one and calls the clash with modern clothes a 'real—though of course an unconscious—difficulty.' Why does Screwtape insist this difficulty must never 'come to the surface'? Point to the line and weigh what surfacing it would cost his plan.
- Screwtape describes the disappointment that meets every endeavour as the Enemy's deliberate gift, since He wants 'free' lovers rather than creatures carried by feeling. Does this chapter offer a coherent account of why a good power would permit suffering, or does it merely relabel neglect as freedom? Use Screwtape's words to Wormwood to defend your reading.
+ 3 more questions in the complete study guide
Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
Not genuine; an imitation meant to look real.
Item 2
Spoiled, debased, or altered from a pure original.
Item 3
Happening without a person being aware of it.
+ 3 more vocabulary words in the complete study guide
Critical Thinking
+ 7 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