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About This Passage
Here Screwtape, in disgust, states the Enemy's actual purpose: a freedom so real that it must be earned rather than forced. The contempt of 'human vermin' wrapped around the dignity of 'free lovers' and 'sons' rewards study of how a writer can smuggle praise inside a sneer, and the long, qualified sentences model serious argumentative prose.
The Enemy takes this risk because He has a curious fantasy of making all these disgusting little human vermin into what He calls His ‘free’ lovers and servants—‘sons’ is the word He uses, with His inv...
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Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Summarize Screwtape's second letter, then explain what Lewis most wants the reader to notice about how a new convert can be undermined. What techniques does Screwtape rely on to achieve that effect?
Discussion Questions
- Screwtape distinguishes the invisible true Church, 'terrible as an army with banners,' from the visible parish the man actually attends. Why is it strategically vital to Screwtape that the man perceive only the second and never the first? Point to the line where he marks the difference.
- Screwtape counts the man's conversion as nearly harmless because his 'habits, both mental and bodily, are still in our favour.' What does this assume about how much a single decision changes a person, and is Screwtape right that habit outweighs a convert's new belief? Use evidence from his letter to Wormwood to defend your view.
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
Taken or won back after being lost.
Item 2
Firmly fixed by long habit; deeply settled.
Item 3
Small creatures regarded as pests or as worthless.
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Critical Thinking
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