Screwin’ around with Screwtape. On reading Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters
“The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was to convince the world he didn’t exist.” — Charles Baudelaire
Theology and religion is not my thing. The C.S. Lewis who wrote The Screwtape Letters is not the same C.S. Lewis who had written the Narnia novels with its simplicity, a sense of adventure and fantasy-clad imagination. Yes, there are religious and Christian themes between Narnia and The Screwtape Letters. By this time, Lewis, who was a former atheist had already converted to Christianity and his works which followed would have the traces of Christian values.
The Screwtape Letters is one of his most well-known work aside from the Narnia novels. What surprised me was the fact that the letters were published before the Narnia novels. Though Narnia entrenched Lewis as a bona-fide children’s storyteller, The Screwtape Letters have sold over half a million copies at the time of the publication. Its success was perhaps boosted due to the war against the Axis powers: at times of crisis, people will resort to religion and spiritual reflections. Besides, much of the book referred to how the Great War affected the spirituality of believers.
It was also accessible as many deem it an easy read, being just over a hundred odd pages and brushed with the heavy strokes of satire. However, I did not have the same experience, having thought that I’d finish the book within a day but in fact, spending a good week on it (though I was reading other books in between). I found the book difficult to read due to its format and epistolary form.
We also need to think in reverse, as evil is speaking here and we need to penetrate the mind of the pen-tester in order to expose our own flaws. The reader is required to think of God as “The Enemy” and the “father” is the boss below. It took some getting used to, especially if you have no idea what the book was about to begin with. Oftentimes, things that we deem as “good” can also be used as an instrument of evil, with the right push and pull here and there, but this is the point of the book — how fragile and subtle temptation can be to keep man off-track.
It is after all, the battle for the soul of man. The devil Wormwood was commissioned to pluck the soul of an unknowing Christian man, who is only referred to as “the patient” as though having Christian values is a sickness. Being in the time of World War II, Wormwood must also convert the man to the devil lest he dies in air raid and his soul goes to heaven. Yet, the man is stronger in spirit than what Screwtape and Wormwood expected, and as each passing letter becomes more and more scathing to Wormwood’s failures, the devils become more desperate in their methods.
The whispering devil on the man’s shoulder
The ultimate failure of Wormwood to claim the soul of the man professes the strength of the Christian values if the follower believes and acts accordingly. For Lewis, a theologian and a student of Christianity, the perfection and unity that the Christian doctrine offers ensures man’s salvation in the face of temptation.
Through the methods proposed by Screwtape, we might even perhaps see our own chinks in the armour. We should then begin to question what is the next temptation that we unknowingly let seep into our daily routines. The devils may have fooled us into wasting our best years in idle action:
“The Christian describe The Enemy as one ‘without whom Nothing is strong’. And Nothing is very strong: strong enough to steal away a man’s best years not in sweet sins but in a dreary flickering of the mind over it knows not what and knows not why, in the gratification of curiosities so feeble that the man is only half aware of them, in drumming of fingers and kicking of heels, in whistling tunes that he does not like…”
Surely, Lewis had aptly described our own downfall in our own pointless endeavours. In the age where we are under the mercy of social media and mindless online games, we are wasting our own best years even before we know it. I would know this as I am guilty of the same thing, watching reels until my sleep time teeters to unhealthy levels. Baudelaire’s quote above is therefore apt, though it wasn’t an original thought.
In the course of the letters, Screwtape also wrote about sexuality and relationships, which is in question here: the devils have gradually tricked mankind to “being in love” after conjoining as a single flesh. The obsession of being in love will ultimately result in either a person being deterred from marriage (as he or she is not in love), and to the impossibilities of attaining a partner with the perfect sexual form. Another echo into the future that we are in now.
Lewis also encouraged believers to thik academically into religion, thus seeing Jesus as a historical figure instead of a spiritual figure. The more that men question rituals, facts and history, the more that he will be sidetracked. He will in fact, be focusing his efforts on breaking down his own religion as opposed to being a devout Christian himself. Christianity should be pure in itself, not for example, Christianity and history or any other pairing, ergo “mere Christianity”.
Having been written during wartime, Lewis also questions how Christians will react to the war. In a way, the war is a test of human frailty or spiritual strength. In Wormwood’s patient we see the latter, as the man was able to continue his daily routines with the same fervour and maintain his unshakeable Christian values. However, for those who despair, they were ripe for gleaning. The war and the internal emotions of the man is often in question, as in the times of crisis, the state of mind can either be a vehicle of salvation, or another avenue for the man to lose his soul.
The book was written for Lewis’s mate Tolkien, who would write his own his own Narnia based on some ring. He had also quoted that despite the readers asking for more chapters, a sequel so to say, that it was fine with its length. I am personally glad that the book wasn’t more than what it was. Even with Screwtape Proposes a Toast it was already a bit over the top. No, I didn’t really enjoy the book as much as I liked. It is satire, but it’s seldom satire that makes you smile. You need to dig deep and decipher what Lewis is trying to say, but in that effort, you will be rewarded. Thus, I prefer the Lewis who was the children’s storyteller rather than the satirist.
