The Screwtape Letters

In his preface, Lewis gives the reader important guidance for interpreting the text: “remember that the devil is a liar” (ix). The reader is not to take Screwtape’s word as true, especially as he describes the characters in the narrative.

This is an epistolary novel—a novel in the form of a series of letters. In this case, the reader only gets to see one side of the correspondence, the letters written by the senior devil Screwtape to his nephew Wormwood, who is a novice tempter. Wormwood has been given the assignment to manipulate a young man and win him over to the devil’s camp. 

Screwtape begins the first letter with basic advice on how to tempt a human being. The tempter must encourage his “patient” to focus his attention on the “stream of immediate sense experiences” and to avoid “universal issues” (2). The latter might lead the patient to think about and be attracted to religious thoughts and connections with the divine.

Screwtape is annoyed at the news that the young man targeted by Wormwood has become a Christian. Screwtape holds out hope that