| The Screwtape Letters | |
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Recent edition cover |
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| Author(s) | C. S. Lewis |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Christian, satire |
| Publisher | Geoffrey Bles |
| Publication date | 1942 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 175 pp |
| ISBN | 978-0-06-065293-7 |
The Screwtape Letters is a satirical Christian apologetics novel written in epistolary style by C. S. Lewis, first published in book form in February 1942.[1] The story takes the form of a series of letters from a senior demon, Screwtape, to his nephew, a junior "tempter" named Wormwood, so as to advise him on methods of securing the damnation of a British man, known only as "the Patient".
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In The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis provides a series of lessons in the importance of taking a deliberate role in living out Christian faith by portraying a typical human life, with all its temptations and failings, as seen from devils' viewpoints. Screwtape holds an administrative post in the bureaucracy ("Lowerarchy") of Hell, and acts as a mentor to Wormwood, the inexperienced tempter. In the body of the thirty-one letters which make up the book, Screwtape gives Wormwood detailed advice on various methods of undermining faith and promoting sin in the Patient, interspersed with observations on human nature and Christian doctrine. Wormwood and Screwtape live in a peculiarly morally reversed world, where individual benefit and greed are seen as the greatest good, and neither demon is capable of comprehending or acknowledging true human virtue when he sees it.
Versions of the letters were originally published weekly in the Anglican periodical The Guardian between May and November 1941,[2][3] and the standard edition contains an introduction explaining how the author chose to write his story.
In 1959 he wrote the sequel, Screwtape Proposes a Toast, a critique of certain trends in education.
The Screwtape Letters is one of Lewis' most popular works, although he claimed that it was "not fun" to write, and "resolved never to write another 'Letter'."[4]
Both The Screwtape Letters and Screwtape Proposes a Toast have been released on both audio cassette and CD, with narration by John Cleese and Joss Ackland. A dramatized audio version by Focus on the Family was a 2010 Audie Award finalist.
The Screwtape Letters comprises thirty-one letters written by a senior demon named Screwtape to his nephew, Wormwood, a younger and less experienced demon, who is charged with guiding a man toward "Our Father Below" (Devil / Satan) and away from "the Enemy" (God).
After the second letter, the Patient converts to Christianity, and Wormwood is chastised for allowing this to happen. Screwtape notes however, that they have the advantage of distraction, which could potentially dull his new faith. A striking contrast is formed between Wormwood and Screwtape during the rest of the book. Wormwood is depicted through Screwtape's letters as much closer to what conventional wisdom has said about demons, i.e., wanting to tempt his patient into extravagantly wicked and deplorable sins and constantly writing about the war that is going on for the latter half of the book. Screwtape, on the other hand, is not interested in getting the patient to commit anything spectacularly evil, saying that "the safest path to hell is the gradual one." He sees a demon's primary goal to befuddle, confuse, and eventually corrupt a person rather than to tempt.
In Letter VIII, Screwtape explains to his protege the different agendas that God and the devils have for the human race: "We want cattle who can finally become food; He wants servants who can finally become sons." With this end in mind, Screwtape urges Wormwood in Letter VI to promote passivity and irresponsibility in the Patient: "(God) wants men to be concerned with what they do; our business is to keep them thinking about what will happen to them."
Lewis's use of this "correspondence" is both varied and hard-hitting. With his own views on theology, Lewis covers areas as diverse as sex, love, pride, gluttony, and war. Lewis, a Cambridge scholar himself, suggests in his work that even intellectuals are not impervious to the influence of such demons, especially being led towards placated acceptance of the "Historical Point of View" (Letter XXVII).
In Letter XXII, after several weeks of attempts to find a licentious woman for the Patient, and when Screwtape receives a painful punishment for a secret he divulges to Wormwood about God's genuine love for humanity, the irate Screwtape notes that the Patient has fallen in love with a Christian girl, and he is enraged over this mistake that Wormwood has allowed. Toward the end of this letter, Screwtape becomes so incensed that he turns into a large centipede, mimicking a similar transformation that John Milton included in Book X of Paradise Lost, where the demons were raging so much against God that they found they had been turned into snakes.
In the last letter, it emerges that the Patient has been killed during an air raid (World War II having broken out between the fourth and fifth letters), and has gone to Heaven. Wormwood is to be punished for letting a soul 'slip through his fingers' by being handed over to the fate that would have awaited his patient had he been successful: the consumption of his spiritual essence by the other demons. Screwtape responds to his nephew's desperate final letter by tauntingly assuring him that he may expect just as much assistance from his "increasingly and ravenously affectionate" uncle as Screwtape would expect from Wormwood were their situations reversed, paralleling the situation where Wormwood himself turned his uncle over to Satan for making a religiously positive remark that would offend him.
The short sequel essay Screwtape Proposes a Toast, first published in 1959, is an addendum to The Screwtape Letters. It takes the form not of a letter but rather an after-dinner speech given by Screwtape at the Tempters' Training College for young demons. It first appeared as an article in the Saturday Evening Post.
Screwtape Proposes a Toast is Lewis's criticism of levelling and featherbedding trends in public education; more specifically, as he reveals in the foreword to the American edition, public education in America (though in the text, it is English education that is held up as the purportedly awful example).
The Cold War opposition between the West and the Communist World is explicitly discussed as a backdrop to the educational issues. Screwtape and other demons are portrayed as consciously using the subversion of education and intellectual thought in the West to bring about its overthrow by the communist enemy from without and within. In this sense Screwtape Proposes a Toast is more strongly political than The Screwtape Letters where no strong stand is made on political issues of the day, i.e., World War II.
Marvel Comics and religious book publisher Thomas Nelson produced a comic book adaptation of The Screwtape Letters in 1994.[5]
The Screwtape Letters is a planned film based on the novel. 20th Century Fox bought the film rights to the book in the 1950s. Fox is partnering with Walden Media to make this film just as they are doing with The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Walden originally intended to release the film in 2008,[6] however the current release date is set for 2012. Ralph Winter, the producer, credited the success of the Chronicles of Narnia film series for the greenlighting of The Screwtape Letters.[7] The Screwtape Letters is to be a live-action film.[8] Because the novel is a series of letters with limited action, critics have questioned how a film adaptation is possible.[9]
The stage play Dear Wormwood (later renamed Screwtape), written by James Forsyth, was published in 1961. The setting is changed to wartime London, where we actually see Wormwood going about the business of tempting his "Patient" (in the play, given the name "Michael Average"). The ending is changed as well, with Wormwood trying to repent and beg for forgiveness, when it appears that his mission has failed.
Philadelphia playwright and actor Anthony Lawton's original adaptation of The Screwtape Letters has been staged several times since 2000 by Lantern Theater Company, most recently in May/June 2010. In Lawton's adaptation, each of Screwtape's letters is punctuated by varied dances including tap, Latin ballroom, jazz, martial arts, and rock – and whips and fire-eating. Screwtape performs these dances with his sinuous secretary, Toadpipe.
The Fellowship for the Performing Arts obtained from the Lewis estate the rights to adapt The Screwtape Letters for the stage. The initial production opened off-off-Broadway at Theatre 315 in New York City in January 2006. The initial three-week run was extended to eleven and finally closed because the theater was contractually obligated to another production.[10] It was co-written by Max McLean (who also starred) and Jeffrey Fiske (who also directed). A second, expanded production opened off Broadway at the Theatre at St. Clements on 18 October 2007, originally scheduled to run through 6 January 2008. The production re-opened at the Mercury Theater in Chicago in September 2008, and continued on a national tour including San Francisco, Phoenix, Louisville, Chattanooga, Ft. Lauderdale, Houston and Austin, through January 2010 as well as playing at The Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, D.C. for ten weeks.
The Barley Sheaf Players of Lionville, Pennsylvania performed James Forsyth's play Screwtape in September 2010. It was directed by Scott Ryan and the play ran the last 3 weekends in September.[11] The Production was reviewed by Paul Recupero for Stage Magazine.[12]
Focus on the Family Radio Theatre, which received a Peabody Award and multiple Audie awards for excellence in broadcasting and production, was granted the rights to dramatize "The Screwtape Letters" as a feature length audio drama. Production began in 2008 and was released in the fall of 2009.[13] Andy Serkis, known for playing Gollum in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, provides the voice for Screwtape. There is a 7-and-a-half minute video preview of the Radio Theatre production with interviews and making-of footage.[14]
The album Peril and the Patient by Called To Arms is a concept album based entirely on "The Screwtape Letters." [15][16]
Sarah Palin has written that the book "touched me with clarity as it pertained to faith and purpose".[17]
David Foster Wallace praised the book in interviews and listed it first on his list of top ten favorite books.[18]
In 1995, the music video Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me by U2, an animated Bono is seen walking down the street holding the book The Screwtape Letters. While on stage during the ZooTV Tour Bono would dress as Mr. MacPhisto, his alter ego. Bono would wear a gold suit and devil horns and usually call the White House and ask to speak to then President George Bush.
The lyrics for the song "Oubliette (Disappear)" from the album The Earth Sings Mi Fa Mi by The Receiving End of Sirens were inspired by "The Screwtape Letters". [19]
In 2010, the Marine Corps Gazette began publishing a series of articles entitled "The Attritionist Letters" styled in the manner of "The Screwtape Letters." In the letters, General Screwtape chastises Captain Wormwood for his inexperience and naivete while denouncing the concepts of maneuver warfare in favor of attrition warfare. [20]
In the Sunday comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, Calvin's teacher, who repeatedly fails to teach Calvin the value of education and attentiveness, is named after Wormwood. [21]
In 1975, Dr. Walter Martin wrote his own follow-on to the original, called Screwtape Writes Again.
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