Screwtape’s nephew and the devil assigned to tempt the Patient. He often reprimands Wormwood for making mistakes with the Patient, and, after Wormwood fails to win the Patient for Hell, Screwtape is eager to eat a piece of him as punishment for failure. Despite Screwtape’s successes, he is angry and embittered, critical of Hell’s bureaucracy and of Wormwood. There are far higher-ranking devils then Screwtapebut Screwtape is apparently important enough to have his own secretary, Toadpipe, who takes dictation when Screwtape is in millipede form. Sometimes, the reader learns, Screwtape undergoes a sudden transformation into a giant millipede. He seems to be a mid-level bureaucrat within Hell’s corporate structure. By his own account, Screwtape has won many souls for Hell. Screwtape often refers to Wormwood, his nephew, with terms of endearment. He has been assigned, or perhaps, to give his nephew Wormwood advice about how to win the soul of an unnamed British manthe Patientinto Hell.

Having tempted many patients into Hell over the course of many human lifetimes, he believes himself more familiar with the ups and downs of human life than any human could be.A devil and the fictional author of The Screwtape Letters. Screwtape, of course, is the most experienced. The Patient, however, is slightly more experienced. There is a sliding scale within The Screwtape Letters, a spectrum in which, on one side, sits innocence and, on the other, experience. Wormwood exaggerates constantly, especially concerning the impact of the atrocities of World War II on the Patient’s life. The Patient might exaggerate by believing his Christianity makes him superior to other non-Christians and, thus, commit the sin of spiritual pride. Wormwood, likewise, is a novice devil who is just getting started as a tempter. Screwtape wonders if Wormwood has considered how he can pervert the Woman’s unselfconscious Christianity into sin within the Patient. Screwtape writes the above lines in his twenty-fourth letter while he is discussing the Woman and her naivety concerning non-Christian ways of life. The man who has risen in society is over-refined, the young scholar is pedantic.” “It is always the novice who exaggerates.

The screwtape letters sparknotes