TSL Chapter 3

Chapter Summary

Nephew Wormwood has written something about The Patient's poor relationship with his mother; it's implied that they live together although not clearly stated. Uncle Screwtape is pleased to hear that they don't get along but is quick to suggest that Wormwood work proactively to make things even worse. Screwtape offers four points of advice, numbered for Worm's convenience:

1. Wormwood is to keep The Patient focused inwardly in navel-gazing self reflection rather than externally, toward the physical world.
2. Wormwood should work to neutralize The Patient's prayers by keeping them focused on judging and condemning his mother's irritating habits and, wherever possible by having him pray for some idealized version of the woman rather than herself
3. He should play up The Patient's irritation at his mothers' habits and expressions and encourage The Patient to view these as intentional slights and insults
4. Encourage the risible double standard of demanding to have one's own words taken at face value, while feeling entitled to view other's words as subject to uncharitable interpretation

Finally, Uncle Screwtape concludes by asking if the mother seems to harbor any resentment or annoyance over The Patient's recent conversion to Christianity.

Literary Assessment

Welcome, Glubose!

There's a little world building here. The introduction of the charming Glubose, the first of several unappetizingly named unclean spirits we'll be hearing about. Glubose is The Patient's mother's Persecuting Devil (presumably the counterpart to the heavenly Guardian Angel). Devils, it seems, collaborate and work together like people do, to achieve their diabolical objectives.

Domestic Hatred & Self Awareness

The theme of this chapter, following Lewis's anti-sermon approach is about domestic tranquility. Instead of focusing on dramatic problems (which would be both hard to present in his chosen, unilateral format, and hard to relate to), and as in his previous chapters, he's focused to the details of human interactions and how contempt (which he calls "domestic hatred") can find purchase on things as simple as expressions. He uses words like irritate, aggravate, annoyance, and so-on in almost every paragraph. This isn't about the big fights, it's about the daily friction of living with another human-being.

This is insightful: it's easy to focus on any number of visible, dramatic problems but at least some researchers find contempt to be the most reliable indicator of divorce. Certainly it's something everyone involved in intimate, live-in relationships (whether with romantic partners, roommates, or parents) should be on guard against.

While the chapter focuses on a live-in mother, it could really focus on any domestic scenario -- if The Patient were married, it would doubtless be his wife.

I think Lewis's prescription is right minded, but probably ineffective: he reminds the reader to view one's mother charitably (she probably isn't really trying to piss you off with her eyebrows), and to act fairly, holding others to the same standards one holds one's self.

As far as it goes, that's fine -- but I wonder how many people would disagree with those ideas while calm. Probably not many. Holding to ideas of fairness and charity when one is in the middle of an emotionally charged interaction (Those EYEBROWS! SHE'S DOING THE THING WITH THE EYEBROWS!!!) is really the trick, and Lewis's prescription doesn't so much help with that.

All of which requires a degree of self-awareness, but Lewis is against self self-reflection, or at least (maybe) doing it to the exclusion of worrying about the external world. Of course given the nature of the work, it's not telling us so much what to do as what to avoid.

 

Prayer in Chapter 3(Theology & Literary Together)

Why mix theology and literary considerations to talk about prayer in Chapter 3? Because the way it's presented in this chapter (less so in the next one), is weird and is probably rendered the way it is, in part, in service to the story.

Weird? How so: To begin with, the idea of demons rendering prayer "innocuous" seems bizarrely over powered. How can fallen spirits get between God and man? The answer is even stranger: they cannot directly intercede -- the can't "jam" the transmission, for example -- but they can mess with The Patient's prayer guidance system. 

If they can take his prayers off-target, either by having him pray for a purely imaginary person or for sins that aren't really sins, the prayer fails (or -- maybe -- succeeds, but has no desired effect).

This is an extremely mechanistic view of prayer and curious because, biblically, Your Father knows what you need before you ask him. While I don't know how Anglicans pray, I bet that they don't count on doing it exactly right all the time to make it worthwhile.

I think that Lewis does this because of his didactic agenda: as an anti-sermon, he's teaching us how 'not to pray' and so warns us against errors we might make -- being judgmental and arrogant (assuming we know the sins of another... or that sin is somehow against us), or about being hypocritical -- praying for the ineffable soul, while neglecting the wellbeing of the corporeal person.

In this sense, warning against those errors requires some kind of in-story construct, and he's chosen to make those prayers metaphysically ineffective.

In this chapter. In the next one he's quick to correct this impression -- so perhaps he felt Chapter 3 was some what lacking theologically and sought to correct that impression directly. I'll note that his preface caveat about devils being liars is useful here: maybe Screwtape was intentionally misleading Nephew Wormwood about the inefficacy of prayer?

Looking ahead, it certainly seems to have gotten him in trouble!

My Reaction

As I said above, I think Lewis is eminently reasonable, but somewhat weak on relationship counseling front.

I'm also nonplussed by his guidance on prayer. I don't think I've ever prayed for God to fix someone who I found annoying or for someone's "soul" in the edification sense that Lewis uses. Intellectually, I can see how either of those approaches might be lacking, but it wasn't something that resonated with me.

I think I'll be more engaged by the next chapter.