The Screwtape Letters

This chapter introduces a major shift in the young man’s life. It is the beginning of World War II, and the young man is uncertain about whether he will be called to go into battle. Wormwood is “drunk” with the thought of the death and destruction the war will bring. 

Screwtape scolds him and reminds him that in the crisis of a war people will often turn to God, the “Enemy.” Screwtape prefers the more mundane scenario of people who die “in costly nursing homes amid doctors who lie, nurses who lie, friends who lie, as we have trained them, promising life to the dying, encouraging the belief that sickness excuses every indulgence” (23-24).

Screwtape advises Wormwood against counting too much on the young man’s hatred of the Germans. Screwtape would rather have the patient’s natural tendencies toward malice focused on “his immediate neighbors whom he meets every day” (28).

In this chapter, Screwtape takes up the issue of which way to direct the young man in reference to the war. Screwtape favors extremes, so he discusses the possibility of making the young man into a pacifist or a patriot. He comes down on the side of pacifist, in part because this will make the young man unpopular and separate him from his neighbors.