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Copywork
About This Passage
This paragraph is Lewis's sharpest attack on a lazy modern reflex: dismissing a belief as a 'phase' instead of asking whether it is true. Screwtape openly concedes that reason cannot bridge the gap from 'I am losing interest' to 'This is false,' and then reveals his real instrument — 'it is jargon, not reason, you must rely on.' Copying it trains a writer to expose a fallacy by stating the honest logic first and then naming the dishonest substitute that defeats it.
Another possibility is that of direct attack on his faith. When you have caused him to assume that the trough is permanent, can you not persuade him that ‘his religious phase’ is just going to die awa...
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Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Reconstruct the argument of Screwtape's ninth letter in sequence, then identify the single vulnerability all its tactics exploit. How can you tell that the war over the man's interpretation of his trough, not the sensual temptation it opens, is the letter's real center?
Discussion Questions
- Screwtape claims temptation succeeds best in the trough because 'the powers of resistance' are highest at the peak, and the trough leaves 'the man's whole inner world... drab and cold and empty.' Is the trough dangerous chiefly because it weakens the man, or because it removes the rival goods that would otherwise occupy him — and which does Lewis emphasize? Use Screwtape's words to Wormwood to defend your reading.
- Screwtape concedes 'He made the pleasures: all our research so far has not enabled us to produce one,' and that the devils can only misuse what the Enemy made. Does this letter present evil as a formidable adversary or as something fundamentally dependent and derivative — and why? Use details from the letter to Wormwood to defend your verdict.
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
Things that naturally accompany or go along with something else.
Item 2
Made impure by contact with something harmful.
Item 3
Treating someone as inferior while appearing kind.
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Critical Thinking
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