TSL Chapter 22 -- So! Your Man is in Love

Summary

In a rambling, nearly incoherent letter, Screwtape addresses a number of revolting developments

1. The Patient has fallen in love with a good, Christian woman whom The Devil(s) despises
2. Wormwood has committed some kind of treachery -- informing on Screwtape's heresy to the infernal authorities
3. The Christian woman's household which is full of love, and therefore abhorrent and incomprehensible to the demonic
4. How unfair the world is to demons

It ends with Screwtape turning into a giant centipede and his letter being completed and signed off on by his secretary, Toadpipe.

Literary Analysis

In a radical departure from most of the book, this chapter is almost entirely literary -- there's not much real theology and virtually no anti-sermon.

Instead, this chapter serves to introduce a conflict -- a good Christian woman who will be a bad (good) influence on Wormwood's patient.

This conflict allows CSL to introduce a variety of new topics deal with the Christian life (e.g. Spiritual Pride) over the next several chapters. It also allows him to reveal more about the characters, their conflicts and their natures.

The Girl

Who is this fearsome woman who throws the best-laid plans of demons into chaos? Like all humans, she doesn't get a name, but we do get Screwtape's description of her:

Demure, monosyllabic, mouse-like, watery, insignificant, virginal, bread-and-butter miss.

Monosyllabic?

The Secret Police

Apparently some of Screwtape's letters found their way to Hell's Secret Police, and Wormwood was responsible. Screwtape assures his Nephew that the matter has been settled ("tidied over"), and then provides him with what is evidently an illustrated torture manual about a House of Correction for Incompetent Tempters.

The letter doesn't make it clear exactly what happened? Did Nephew Wormwood turn over Screwtape's letters in an attempt to get Screwtape whacked? If so, why? And why, after this betrayal is Screwtape still happy to help him?

This chapter doesn't answer any of those questions, unfortunately, but it does suggests hidden depths to their relationship which I trust will be explored later,

Metamorphosis 

Screwtape's fury at Worms turns him into a centipede and he then claims it's not a punishment from God, but a signifier of his interior vital life essence of something. Funny! (it's a Milton reference, which Screwtape, himself credits explicitly)

Noise v. Music & Silence

One last thing I noted was the contrast of Heavy and Hell on an audible level. George MacDonald writes of Heaven, 

"...the regions where there is only life, and therefore all that is not music is silence."

Going where MacDonald didn't, Lewis amplifies this by noting that Hell abides neither music nor silence, but instead fills every available space with noise.

Cool.