How does screwtape letters end

Ironically, civilization values people who have had long lives and many experiences. But this is difficult, since Wormwood runs the danger of encouraging the patient to feel more love and therefore be a more virtuous person. In the same way, Wormwood could encourage the patient to feel cowardice, but this would result in the patient feeling humility and therefore moving closer to God. In general, Screwtape admits, devils have a very difficult job—no matter how hard they try, mankind has a way of embracing faith and piety.

In his final letter to Wormwood, Screwtape greets Wormwood with false warmth and explains that the patient has died in an air raid. He even expresses his desire to learn what lies in Heaven. In the end, he reminds Wormwood that the penalty for failing to corrupt a human is being eaten alive—and Screwtape himself will be the devil to eat Wormwood.

The Screwtape Letters. Plot Summary. All Symbols The Screwtape Letters. LitCharts Teacher Editions. Teach your students to analyze literature like LitCharts does.

Detailed explanations, analysis, and citation info for every important quote on LitCharts. The original text plus a side-by-side modern translation of every Shakespeare play. Sign Up. From the creators of SparkNotes, something better. Literature Poetry Lit Terms Shakescleare. Download this LitChart! Teachers and parents! Struggling with distance learning? Themes All Themes. Symbols All Symbols.

Theme Wheel. Everything you need for every book you read. The way the content is organized and presented is seamlessly smooth, innovative, and comprehensive. LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Screwtape Letters , which you can use to track the themes throughout the work. Paddy ultimately died on the French front, leaving Janie King Moore behind. After the war, Lewis moved in with and tended to her.

The overbearing Mrs. Moore could be a very difficult person. Lewis biographer under the sun believes that she was also, in fact, a caricature of Mrs. Young people even if they are not religious, are idealistic and detached from the world. It is easier to wean their souls off of eternal thoughts little by little over the course of many years.

Screwtape reopens the question of whether to make courageous, cowardly, or filled with hatred. Hell cannot make him brave, writes Screwtape.

Its research department has not discovered how to produce virtues. Hatred Wormwood can manage. He should confuse the Patient and make him think he hates the Germans on behalf of women and children.

And hatred is best mixed with fear. Cowardice, unfortunately, is the only vice of which Hell has failed to make men proud. So Wormwood must be careful. If he makes the Patient cowardly, it may make him pray to the Enemy for forgiveness and strength and, therefore, have the opposite of the desired effect. The best thing might be to make the Patient superstitious. His superstition will take away his presence of mind and cause him to act cowardly in a critical moment.

Only cowardly action is sin. It is not sin to feel fear. During the first air raid, the Patient feels very frightened.