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Copywork
About This Passage
Here Screwtape confesses the deepest limit of his whole side: evil can invent nothing. Every pleasure is the Enemy's; the devils can only take a good thing and bend it to a forbidden time, way, or degree. Copying this passage shows a writer how an argument can move from a sweeping admission ('His invention, not ours') to its exact, damning consequence ('All we can do is...').
All the same, it is His invention, not ours. He made the pleasures: all our research so far has not enabled us to produce one. All we can do is to encourage the humans to take the pleasures which our ...
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Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
In your own words, retell Screwtape's ninth letter to Wormwood in sequence. What tactics for exploiting the trough does he list, and how can you tell he treats the man's own thoughts about the trough as the most powerful battlefield?
Discussion Questions
- Screwtape explains that temptation succeeds best in the trough, not the peak, because at the peak 'the powers of resistance are then also at their highest,' while in the trough 'the man's whole inner world is drab and cold and empty.' Why does emptiness make a person more vulnerable than abundance, and what does that reveal about how temptation actually finds its opening? Use Screwtape's words to Wormwood to explain.
- Screwtape confesses 'it is His invention, not ours,' admitting the devils can only take the Enemy's pleasures 'at times, or in ways, or in degrees, which He has forbidden.' Does this confession make evil look powerful or dependent in this letter, and why? Use Screwtape's words to Wormwood to defend your reading.
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
To use something selfishly or unfairly for one's own gain.
Item 2
Harmless; unlikely to cause injury or offense.
Item 3
Twisted or corrupted forms of something good.
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Critical Thinking
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