Literary devices
1. What is the literary device?
2. How is it being used in this context?
1. Metaphor
2. He is seeing the Christian life in a different way because he is being influenced by his love for the girl.
After the patient makes a lot of Christian friends through his relationship with the girl, Screwtape writes that "the conditions seem ideally favourable" to make him become Spiritually Prideful. What is one of the conditions he mentions?
1. Unworthy of the girl, but not unworthy of her friends. He thinks of himself as "one of the family"
2. The friend group is better educated, more intelligent, and more agreeable
3. He thinks he likes them because they are at the same spiritual level of maturity, when really he is just enchanted by everything related to the girl
In Chapter 19, Screwtape suggests that Wormwood persuade his patient to marry a girl who would make the Christian life difficult for him. How does Chapter 25 help us better understand this idea of Christian life and the people we spend time with?
Because the patient chose a Christian girl, he is now being more exposed to good influence and strong believers which will only help him further to seek God. Now Screwtape and Wormwood have to work even harder to twist the good influence of these people for bad.
Because humans live in time, they can only experience things successively, which requires changes to occur.
"He [the patient] is like a dog which should imagine it understood fire-arms because its hunting instinct and love for its master enable it to enjoy a day's shooting!" (Chapter 24)
1. What is the literary device?
2. What is the comparison being made?
1. Simile
2. The patient thinks he understands and likes Christianity because he is in love with the girl.
How does Screwtape suggest the patient's love for the girl be used to increase his Spiritual Pride?
When he is with Christians, make him think they are "his sort" of people and make him enjoy being with them because of her. Then when he is not with them, he will be bored and associate that feeling with non-Christians.
Screwtape suggests that Wormwood twist the pleasures of life by making the patient seek novelty. How does this connect with the ideas of peaks and troughs we talked about in Chapters 8-9?
Peaks and troughs can both be exploited by Screwtape. In particular, the idea that only God can create good or pleasurable things that the devils can only twist is a common thread. Even the pleasure of a new thing in its season can be distorted into a craving for novelty.
What is the "little vice" of the girl that Screwtape is hoping can become a more serious vice in the patient?
Screwtape writes that the girl has a view of outsiders/non-Christians that is ignorant and naive--that she sees them as being "not normal" compared to herself and her friends. In her it is more ignorant than sinful, but for the patient it can become a bigger sin issue that Wormwood can exploit.
"We [the devils] have trained them [humans] to think of the Future as a promised land which favoured heroes attain--not as something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, wherever he is" (139).
1. What is the literary device?
2. How does this quote relate to how Screwtape wants humans to think about the future?
God wants humans to think about a decision in terms of "Is it righteous?" and "Is it prudent?" Screwtape wants humans to think about decisions as whether they will be good considering how the future is going, but they don't know the future.
How does horror of "The Same Old Thing" help Screwtape's cause?
God has created seasons and rhythms of life because humans do like change but stability. However, with fear of the same old thing, humans grow discontent with the simple pleasures of life and desire novelty.
How does the idea of "Christianity And..." from Chapter 25 connect to Screwtape's suggestions for using patriotism, pacifism, and Christianity at the end of Chapter 7.
In Chapter 7, Screwtape suggests that Wormwood make the patient use Christianity as a cause for a certain political position like pacifism or patriotism. Similarly, in Chapter 25, Screwtape wants to create division between people through "Christianity And..."
"The Enemy (being a hedonist at heart) has made change pleasurable to them [humans], just as he has made eating pleasurable" (136).
What is a hedonist and why does Screwtape think that the Enemy is one?
A hedonist is someone who believes pursuit of pleasure is the most important thing in life. Screwtape thinks the Enemy is a hedonist because he sees God as wanting his people to enjoy the beautiful things he has created. (see Chapter 9)