The Screwtape Letters Analysis

One author is prevalent amongst all others in a fight against the established standards of the Christian faith. His strategy destabilizes the positions of many and strengthens his standpoint. Lewis's strategy starts with a simple story and then uses the elements of the story to help the reader form an opinion on an issue. This is most prevalent in his nonfiction works. C.S. Lewis wields his style of writing to convey moral truth to a modern age of people who oppose his ideas. Lewis starts his essays, nonfiction stories, and other pieces with a blank slate that has nothing more than some simple characters and a setting. The persuasive power and rhetorical style of C. S. Lewis starts to show when he develops a plot and applies attributes to
the characters. The true nature of his writing style then takes form as every piece of his writing works together to create an insurmountable argument for his own moral standing. Modern thinking and societal norms then appear as the antagonists of C.S. Lewis while he triumphs by meeting an unstoppable force with an immovable object. He was not a slacker in his field of expertise. He took on the toughest, philosophical challenges known to twentieth century mankind. The topics C.S. Lewis chose to cover were so opposed that he was at ends with himself on how to present them to the general public. As Coyle states: "How does a writer communicate his ideas to his audience when every social, cultural, and intellectual force is at work to undermine the very concepts he presents?" Lewis's ideas were not easily conveyed to society. He had to work hard to produce pieces that would endure the relentless attacks that Tandy describes. To present his ideas C.S. Lewis needed a strategy that would land him a place in society's great graces. C.S. Lewis's approach came in the form of a Lion, a Witch, and a Wardrobe. C.S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe takes place in a magical land called Narnia where anything can happen from snow witches to talking lions. All of this takes place inside a medium as simple as a wardrobe. The tale manages to delight readers of all ages due to its use of fictional characters and scenes. Lewis's concept of myth was essential to everything he wrote and is crucial to his increasing popularity(Bloom 49). What Lewis did behind the fictional writing is the astonishing part, though. According to Jacobs, C.S. Lewis portrayed the Lion as a sacrificial lamb to invoke the image of Jesus, he used the witch as a traitorous visage of Satan, and he used the wardrobe as a metaphor of conversion to Christianity. All of this is contained in a book meant to be read by children. Lewis was masterful at putting his writing in a format that would be accepted in all groups, even the youngest, but how do his books manage to influence people and make them think of their actions and beliefs in an entirely different way? Lewis targets his audiences to make them feel as if the words he wrote were designed for the reader in specific. An example of audience targeting occurs in The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe. The children reading the book are targeted through their ability to relate to how the children in Narnia feel. This occurs when the children visit the Beavers and hear the name of Aslan from the Beavers. "And now a very curious thing happened. None of the children knew who Aslan was any more than you do; but the moment the Beaver had spoken these words everyone felt quite different."( Lion, Witch, and Wardrobe 35) The power and godlike feeling of Aslan is foreshadowed through the interaction between the children and the Beavers. The power of Aslan is emphasized here because the invocation of his name is enough to make something stir in the children. The children reading the book can relate to this because they understand that if the children in the book feel some sort of awe at the name of Aslan they should too. The answer is held in his words. He used methods of rhetorical writing and employed complex writing prose to appear established and impervious to counterattacks. Given Lewis's opposition to modern styles of thinking and his belief that language is the best way to communicate his moral truths, it isn't surprising that he put his ideas inside the language and structure of his argumentative pieces (Tandy 43). The works that he produced all rely on his pattern of rhetorical statements and language mastery. Lewis made one piece that caught the attention of many and used his most famous rhetorical strategy. The Screwtape Letters is Lewis's most popular feat of language and style mastery.
In The Screwtape Letters, the story is stylized to be read as a series of letters sent to a devil's nephew. The devil's knowledge of what is wrong with humanity is imparted to his nephew through the letters, and at the same time the reader receives C.S. Lewis's views of humanity in the modern age. The true cleverness of the book is that it presents Lewis's ideas as a satirical criticism of humanity. C.S. Lewis writes in the letters exactly how to bring men to their knees through tactics that take advantage of the human nature. Simultaneously, the reader is attacked by the devil's strategy to bring the worst out in people. Who would argue that if the demons of hell use a human weakness drag people to the fiery depths, it is okay to embrace this weakness? C.S. Lewis intended this structure and the reader can't argue against him because the book is written as a series of letters between demons, not as a direct message from Lewis about what people should and shouldn't
do. Out of the Silent Planet of the Space Trilogy is Lewis's other language and communication themed piece of critical acclaim. The book takes place on an alien world called Malacandra. Earth appears silent from this planet. This is due to the native races of Malacandra speaking in many different and artistic languages. "That the hrossa should have such instincts was mildly surprising; but how came it that the instincts of the hrossa so closely resembled the unattained ideals of that far-divided species Man whose instincts were so deplorably different? " (Lewis, Out of The Silent Planet 75)The silence and deplorableness of earth and the poetic style of Malacandra are metaphorical for Earth being a dark and pain filled place while Malacandra is a utopia free of pain and lacking of darkness. This is similar to how Gulliver, in Gulliver's Travels, tries to describe to the Houyhnhnms what greed or stealing are in his land. The Houynhnhnms are unaware of such a concept due to their utopian society(Bloom 52). Out of the Silent Planet reflects C.S. Lewis's vision of modern thinking as a corrupt system just as Gulliver's system was corrupt. C.S. Lewis does this with the power of language and not much more than it. The use of poetic language to describe an issue helped him convey his message to the science fiction readers of today. What is C.S.
Lewis's end goal beyond convincing Sci-Fi readers of society's corruption? It may be described as a better future or an educated populace, but an age of modern thinking returned to its Christian origins would be most accurate because C.S. Lewis was a passionate follower of Arthurian texts. He wanted modern thinking to return to medieval thinking of the Arthurian. "The label of 'closet Arthurian' suits Lewis for two reasons: his Arthurian works tend to be little known and seldom studied today, and documentary evidence of his passion for the legend of King Arthur survives in his private letters and diary entries" (Tolhurst 140). The obvious dedication to Arthurian texts shows Lewis's resolve to revert society to a time when his moral code was a normality amongst the
Arthurian.