Preview
Copywork
About This Passage
This is the chapter's engine: the 'double standard' by which each person excuses themselves and convicts the other. The long balanced clauses — 'taken at their face value' set against 'the fullest and most over-sensitive interpretation' — teach a young writer how parallel structure can lay two unfair rules side by side so the unfairness shows.
Your patient must demand that all his own utterances are to be taken at their face value and judged simply on the actual words, while at the same time judging all his mother’s utterances with the full...
Full copywork activity with handwriting lines available in the complete study guide.
Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
In your own words, tell the story of Screwtape's third letter. What are the most important methods he gives for setting the man against his mother, and how do you know they are the ones that matter most?
Discussion Questions
- Screwtape and the devil Glubose plan to give the man and his mother 'a sort of double standard,' each judging their own words gently and the other's harshly. Why does this double standard let both of them 'go away convinced... that they are quite innocent'? Point to how Screwtape says the trick works.
- Screwtape wants the man's prayers to be about his mother's 'soul' while he stays cross with the real 'sharp-tongued old lady at the breakfast table.' What is wrong with caring about someone's soul in prayer while being unkind to them in daily life? Use evidence from Screwtape's letter to Wormwood to defend your answer.
+ 3 more questions in the complete study guide
Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
Shared by two people toward each other.
Item 2
Having to do with home and family life.
Item 3
Harmless and unlikely to cause any trouble.
+ 5 more vocabulary words in the complete study guide
Critical Thinking
+ 5 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