The Screwtape Letters

Screwtape directs Wormwood to foster problems between the young man and his beloved that will become more serious over time. Screwtape’s approach focuses on the way men and women perceive sacrifices and unselfishness in a marriage. Men, in particular, may be lead to do things that they don’t want to out of an appearance of unselfishness. Later, they may become resentful and hostile towards their wives. 

Screwtape guides Wormwood to corrupt the young man’s prayers by planting the idea that prayers don’t work. “If the thing he prays for doesn’t happen, then there is one more proof that petitionary prayers don’t work; if it does happen, he will, of course, be able to see some of the physical causes which led up to it, and ‘therefore it would have happened anyway,’ and thus a granted prayer becomes just as good a proof as a denied one that prayers are ineffective” (148).

Screwtape is very concerned that the young man may actually die in the air raid bombings in his town. The young man is in a good position to die and go to Heaven, which is exactly what Screwtape and the devils do not want.