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Copywork
About This Passage
These two sentences hold the secret of the whole letter. Screwtape has noticed that people rarely lose their temper over plain bad luck; they lose it when they feel a fair claim has been denied — when they believe they were owed something and cheated of it. That is why he wants the man to make as many claims as possible, including the claim that his time is 'his own': the more a person feels he is owed, the more often he will feel wronged. Copying these balanced sentences trains a writer to state a cause-and-effect insight precisely, and to see that much of our anger begins not in what happens but in what we think we deserve.
Men are not angered by mere misfortune but by misfortune conceived as injury. And the sense of injury depends on the feeling that a legitimate claim has been denied.
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Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
In your own words, tell the story of Screwtape's twenty-first letter to Wormwood. First, how does he plan to make the man grumpy by feeding the feeling that 'my time is my own'? Then, what truth about time does Screwtape secretly admit, and how does he twist the small word 'my' to make people treat even friends as things?
Discussion Questions
- Screwtape says people are 'not angered by mere misfortune but by misfortune conceived as injury,' and that the man feels his time 'being stolen' when a visitor takes some of it. Why does the belief that 'my time is my own' turn an ordinary interruption into something that feels like a robbery, and what does that show about where much of our anger really begins? Use Screwtape's words to Wormwood to defend your reading.
- In an earlier letter Screwtape preferred to keep the man from reasoning clearly, fighting the truth with confusing words instead of honest argument; here he again insists the belief about owning time must be kept in 'darkness,' never argued for, because 'there aren't any' arguments in its defence. How do these two letters together show that the devils avoid honest thinking on purpose, and why does that tell you their ideas cannot survive a close look? Use details from this letter and the earlier one to Wormwood to develop your answer.
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
Easily annoyed; irritable over small things.
Item 2
Bad luck; an unlucky event that happens to you.
Item 3
Fair and rightful; properly allowed or owed.
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Critical Thinking
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