Preview
Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Reconstruct Screwtape's twentieth letter to Wormwood in sequence — the forced end of the direct attack on chastity, the pivot to engineering a 'desirable marriage,' the masters who manufacture a whole age's sexual 'taste,' the two imaginary women of terrestrial and infernal Venus, and the plan to wed the infernal one to a Christian misled about 'Love.' Then name the central aim: that Hell labours to convert desire from a reverent love that honors a real person into a possessive craving fixed on the unreal.
Discussion Questions
- Screwtape is annoyed that the direct assault on chastity has been stopped, and turns at once to using the man's sexuality 'for the promotion of a desirable marriage.' Why is the failed frontal attack actually the opening for a subtler ruin, and what does the pivot reveal about Lewis's view of temptation as long strategy rather than mere impulse? Use details from the letter to Wormwood to develop your answer.
- Screwtape boasts that the masters work through 'popular artists, dressmakers, actresses and advertisers' to direct desire 'to something which does not exist,' praising the fake 'apparent nude' over the real. Using the letter's details, why does training desire on the unreal make its demands 'more and more impossible,' and how does an appetite no real person can satisfy serve Hell's ends? Use Screwtape's words to Wormwood to develop your claim.
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Critical Thinking
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