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Copywork
About This Passage
In one sharp sentence Screwtape names the devils' entire strategy for pleasure: keep a person wanting more and more of something that satisfies less and less. The word 'formula' shows he means it as a reliable recipe. Copying this line teaches a writer how a single balanced sentence — increasing against diminishing — can capture the whole shape of an addiction.
An ever increasing craving for an ever diminishing pleasure is the formula.
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 ninth letter to Wormwood. What are the main ways Screwtape says a dull, dry time can be turned against the man, and which seems most dangerous?
Discussion Questions
- Screwtape explains that the 'trough periods' are the best time for temptation, not the peaks, because although there is more energy at the peak, 'the powers of resistance are then also at their highest,' and temptation works best 'when the man's whole inner world is drab and cold and empty.' Why does a low, empty mood make a person easier to tempt than a happy, lively one? Point to how Screwtape explains the difference.
- Screwtape confesses that pleasure 'is His invention, not ours,' admitting 'He made the pleasures: all our research so far has not enabled us to produce one.' Why is it a striking admission that the devils cannot create a single pleasure and can only borrow the Enemy's? Use Screwtape's words to Wormwood to explain.
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
A pull toward doing something wrong.
Item 2
The power to fight off or refuse something.
Item 3
Keeping within sensible limits; not too much.
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Critical Thinking
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