Topic > Screwtape's strategies: manipulations and distortions

He continues to talk about love, underlining that both the acceptance and rejection of "falling in love" can be useful as long as the subject focuses on himself. The best thing would be if Wormwood could convince his subject to marry a young woman from the neighborhood who would make it really difficult for him to continue pursuing his life as a Christian. Although the Enemy has put a stop to Wormwood's direct attacks on his subject's virtue, Screwtape advises him to follow a path that places false expectations about women in his mind. Superficial concepts of beauty can go a long way in convincing the young man to marry the wrong kind of woman, which would then be devastating to his spiritual life. Screwtape here advises Wormwood to cultivate in his subject a sense of victimhood in light of small inconveniences. Above all, he must learn to consider his time as if it were his own, which he reluctantly renounces for his work or magnanimously for the activities of his church. We must also teach him to think of his body as something that belongs to him; under no circumstances should the idea that all he has and is belong to the Enemy be allowed to enter his mind. Wormwood's subject has apparently found a girlfriend, and Screwtape is furious, since she is a chaste, modest Christian girl from a Christian family. Furthermore, Wormwood had informed the secret police of Screwtape's indiscretions in an earlier letter. In this epistle, Screwtape cannot decide whether to be more enraged by the love affair or by Absinthe's perfidy. He goes so far as to threaten Wormwood with words about the House of Correction for Incompetent Tempters, but in his fury he suddenly transforms into a centipede and ends up dictating the rest of the letter to his secretary Toad. Subject's new girlfriend introduced him to several other intelligent Christians and