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Copywork
About This Passage
Screwtape's third method exploits the worn grooves of long familiarity. The cool generalization of the first sentence ('it usually happens') yields to the curt command 'Work on that,' then to a precise, almost surgical instruction about the mother's eyebrows. The shift from observation to imperative rewards study of how prose can diagnose a weakness and then weaponize it.
When two humans have lived together for many years it usually happens that each has tones of voice and expressions of face which are almost unendurably irritating to the other. Work on that. Bring ful...
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Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Give a concise summary of the third letter, then identify the single most important sentence in it. Explain why that sentence matters to the book's argument about how faith fails at home.
Discussion Questions
- Screwtape tells Wormwood that in 'civilised life domestic hatred' hides in words 'harmless on paper' delivered 'in such a voice... that they are not far short of a blow in the face.' What does this analysis reveal about the gap between what is said and what is meant in a family, and why is that gap so useful to a tempter? Point to the passage and weigh the insight.
- Screwtape's deepest device is the 'double standard,' by which each person judges their own words by intention and the other's by suspected intention. What does this asymmetry reveal about the structure of self-righteousness, and why does the chapter present it as a nearly universal human failing? Use Screwtape's words to Wormwood to defend your reading.
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
Polite and well-mannered on the surface; socially refined.
Item 2
Causing no damage or offence.
Item 3
Believed, without proof, to be true or guilty.
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Critical Thinking
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