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Status, grievance and resentment: C.S. Lewis on the surprisingly modern business model of hell

60 years after its author’s death, The Screwtape Letters image of hell as an unscrupulous business is still relevant. Simon Horobin tells how C.S. Lewis came to author the influential bestseller.

Simon Horobin is Professor of English Language & Literature, Magdalen College, Oxford University.

A comic book style cartoon of a small squat devil looking quizzed in hell.
A scene from Marvel Comic's version of The Screwtape Letters.

November 22nd is the sixtieth anniversary of the death of C.S. Lewis, an event that was overshadowed by the assassination of JFK on the same day. Although he is best known today as the author of the Narnia stories, the obituary that appeared in The Times newspaper a few days later noted that it was in fact The Screwtape Letters which sparked his success as a writer. 

Initially published as a series of letters in the church newspaper The Guardian, The Screwtape Letters appeared in book form in 1942. The idea came to Lewis during an uninspiring sermon at Lewis’s local parish church in the Oxford suburb of Headington, in July 1940. Provisionally titled ‘As one Devil to Another’, the book would form a series of letters addressed to a novice devil, called Wormwood, beginning work on tempting his first patient, by an older, retired devil, called Screwtape. In finding Screwtape’s voice, Lewis was influenced by a speech given by Adolf Hitler at the Reichstag and broadcast by the BBC. What struck Lewis about the oration was how easy it was, while listening to the Führer speaking, to find oneself wavering just a little.  

Lewis dedicated the volume to his friend and fellow Oxford academic, J.R.R. Tolkien. After Lewis’s death, having read an obituary in the Daily Telegraph claiming that Lewis was never fond of the book, Tolkien noted drily:  

‘He dedicated it to me. I wondered why. Now I know.’  

Despite Tolkien’s misgivings, the public devoured the work and it quickly became a bestseller. Although, as Lewis pointed out, numbers of sales can be misleading. A probationer nurse who had read the book told Lewis that she had chosen it from a list of set texts of which she had been told to read one in order to mention it at an interview. ‘And you chose Screwtape?’, said Lewis with some pride. ‘Well, of course’, she replied, ‘it was the shortest’.  

Not all readers approved of its sentiments. A country clergyman wrote to the editor of The Guardian withdrawing his subscription on the grounds that much of the advice the letters offered seemed to him not only erroneous but positively diabolical. The confusion no doubt arose from the lack of any explanation surrounding their circumstances; in a later preface Lewis gave more context, though refused to explain how this devilish correspondence had come into his hands.  

Its publication by Macmillan in 1943 brought Lewis to the attention of readers in the United States; when Time magazine featured an interview with him in September 1947, it carried the title ‘Don v. Devil’. A picture of Lewis featured on the magazine’s cover, with a comic image of Satan, complete with horns, elongated nose and chin, and clutching a pitchfork, standing on his shoulder. 

For Lewis, the war did not present a radically different situation, but rather aggravated and clarified the human condition so that it could no longer be ignored. 

The Screwtape Letters are the product of the war years, during which Lewis wrote many of his most popular works. It was in 1941 that he delivered the first of his broadcasts for the BBC Home Service, which launched his career as a public apologist for the Christian faith. In 1942 Lewis published Perelandra, the sequel to his first space travel novel Out of the Silent Planet (1938), in which his hero, Elwin Ransom, a Cambridge philologist – another nod to Tolkien – is summoned to Venus to prevent a second fall. Although it was published in 1950, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe begins with four children being evacuated to the countryside to escape the London blitz. In setting his stories in outer-space or the fantastical world of Narnia, Lewis could be accused of writing escapist fiction that avoided the realities of a world in conflict. Lewis, however, believed that the war had not created a new crisis, but rather brought into clearer focus an ever-present struggle between good and evil.  

For Lewis, the war did not present a radically different situation, but rather aggravated and clarified the human condition so that it could no longer be ignored. As he remarked in the second of his Broadcast Talks:  

‘Enemy-occupied territory – that is what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage’.  

The key point, writes Screwtape, is to fix the patient’s attention on ‘real life’ – but don’t let him question what he means by ‘real’. 

Lewis’s message to a country living in fear of occupation by German troops was that the invasion had already happened. They had been summoned not to their country’s defence, but to its liberation. When the Pevensie children stumble into a snow-covered Narnia under the control of the tyrannical White Witch, they are told in hushed whispers of the rumours of Aslan’s return: ‘“They say Aslan is on the move—perhaps has already landed.”’ It is a reminder that Aslan enters Narnia as a rebel, intent on overthrowing the Witch and installing the rightful kings and queens on the thrones of Cair Paravel.  

The Screwtape Letters do not ignore the war during which they were written; Wormwood’s patient is killed in the London bombing. But, for Screwtape, a war is of no value unless it results in winning souls for his Father Below. His advice to his nephew is concerned with diverting the patient from engaging with universal questions by distracting him with everyday preoccupations and sense experiences. While these might involve the immediate conflict, they could also be the excitement of a new romance, a falling out with a friend, the prospect of promotion, or an obsession with food. If the patient should begin to speculate about spiritual matters, Screwtape advises Wormwood to deflect him with academic theories and philosophies that avoid confronting the question of whether the Christian faith might actually be true. The key point, writes Screwtape, is to fix the patient’s attention on ‘real life’ – but don’t let him question what he means by ‘real’. It is ironic, Screwtape observes, that, while mortals typically picture devils putting ideas into their minds, their best work is done by keeping things out.  

Despite numerous requests for sequels, Lewis was reluctant to twist his mind back into the ‘diabolical attitude’ and revisit the spiritual cramp it produced. Numerous spin-offs have appeared to fill the void, with Screwtape emails, audio and stage performances and even a Marvel comic book adaptation. Despite this, readers continue to turn to the original work. After all, Lewis’s depiction of hell as an unscrupulous business concern, whose employees are perpetually concerned about their own status, nursing grievances and resentment, speaks to our modern age just as much as it did to Lewis’s own. 

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Miranda Hart's diagnosis of the unseen

Beyond a medical illness she's on to something supernatural.
On a TV chat show, guests look to one of their own talking to the audience.
Mirnada regales a chat show.

There I was, standing in the book aisle with a choice before me. One that would dictate my mental state for the week ahead: I could pick up Boris Johnson’s hotly anticipated autobiography (although, at £30, it would mean putting the bottle of wine in my basket back on the shelf) or I could choose Miranda Hart’s latest literary offering.  

Externally, all seemed calm. Internally, an almighty battle of the books was raging within me. The price of Boris’ ruled out the option of buying both. So, which should I pick? Whose voice should I invite to live inside my brain for the next five days? Both books were offering me a cultural bandwagon to hop on, I just had to decide which wagon looked like the better option.  

Boris… Miranda… Boris… Miranda… Boris… Miranda…  

After some intense deliberation, I popped BoJo’s memoir back on the shelf and became the proud owner of Miranda Hart’s new book. And I must admit, after hearing from friends who chose Boris to be the victor of their own battle of the books, I am very happy with my decision.  

Miranda Hart, the deeply beloved comic actor, sit-com writer, and stand-up comedian, hasn’t been entirely honest with us. For decades, she has been suffering with what she now knows to be Lyme Disease. In her book, she draws back the curtain and reveals a lifetime worth of suffering with illness after illness – bronchitis, tonsillitis, pericarditis, gastroenteritis, labyrinthitis – as Miranda succinctly puts it, ‘too many itises’. Despite illness being her body’s default state, Miranda kept calm(ish) and kept on. That is, until around a decade ago when her symptoms became simply unbearable.  

She tells the story of collapsing onto her living room floor, extreme fatigue rendering her utterly unable to pick herself up. This was the beginning of months of being bedbound and years of having to press pause on her life. Miranda recalls how she wept with relief at being able to crawl to the bathroom, of how she had to watch the television with sunglasses on because of neurological symptoms, and how she would ‘look at a cup of tea on the table and wonder if I had the strength to take a sip’.  She also paints a terrifying picture of not being believed - of living with an illness that nobody can understand, of suffering with symptoms that have no explanation. Miranda contracted Lyme Disease when she was fourteen, and had it diagnosed when she was in her forties.  

It seems that Miranda Hart is trusting that all that she can see is not all that there is – that her suffering is not the truest thing about her and that she doesn’t need to be the source of all of her healing. 

For those with no experience of living with a chronic illness, Miranda’s honesty will open your eyes to the pain and frustration that comes with your body not allowing you to live the life you crave. If you do have experience of chronic illness, this book will make you feel seen. 

But, alas, this is Miranda Hart we’re talking about. If you’re looking for a woe-is-me book, this isn’t it (maybe you’d have more luck trying Boris?). This book is brimming with:  

A) End-of-chapter dance breaks 

B) Jokes about wind (obviously)  

C) Theology 

I kid you not.  

Each of her chapters outline a ‘treasure’ that she has found in the depth of her suffering, the ‘watchwords’ that she uses to encapsulate these treasures are: love, faithfulness, peace, self-control, kindness, goodness, joy, gentleness and patience.  

I got to chapter four of the book and had myself a real – ‘hang on a minute…’ - moment. As a Christian, I’ve grown up with another way of grouping those words together: I call them ‘the fruits of the Spirit’. 

By chapter five I was convinced: Miranda Hart has released a spiritual book.  

She has, quite excellently, trojan-horsed a bunch of Bible into the Sunday Times best-seller’s chart. And nobody seems to have noticed, I almost feel a little guilty for outing her. All the book reviews I’ve read note the hard-won warmth and wisdom included in this book (both of which are there, by the way) and conclude that it is a truly lovely self-help manual. And that’s where they’re wrong.  

This is precisely not self-help.  

In fact, I get the subtle sense that the self-help industry is one that irks Miranda a little bit, and understandably so – the idea that we can ice-bath ourselves into wellness must sound odd to someone who can’t pick themselves up off their living room floor. So, I’ll say it again: self-help is not what this book is.  

Instead, it seems that Miranda Hart is trusting that all that she can see is not all that there is – that her suffering is not the truest thing about her and that she doesn’t need to be the source of all of her healing. She mentions, again and again, that the truest thing about her (and us, her 'Dear Reader Chums') is that she, and we, are loved. Deeply, unconditionally, unshakably loved. We haven’t earnt it and therefore can’t lose it. In her darkest moments, she had lost everything – her career, her social life, her home, her hopes and dreams - but she never lost that love. Everything else she has to say in the book flows from that belief.  

I happen to think she’s dead right – but that is, undeniably, a faith statement. This book is built upon them.  

And listen, you could read this lovely book – giggle and weep your way through it – without ever sensing anything supernatural within it. But, make no mistake, there is the supernatural within it. 

What Miranda has affectionately called her ‘treasures’ and the Bible calls ‘the fruits of the Spirit’ are just that; they’re what grow when one lives a life informed by and infused with God’s spirit. They’re the tangible symptoms of putting yourself in God’s presence, of keeping company with him. They are him rubbing off on us.  

What I’m trying to get at is this: these ‘fruits’, they’re seen in us, but they’re all God. They’re not the fruits of the self and so the way to obtain them cannot be self-help.  

Miranda obviously appreciates that belief in any divine/supernatural/transcendent thing can be complex, that the notion of ‘god’ can come with baggage, and religion can be an all-out no-no. And so, she is incredibly subtle with what she has to say. This book is not self-help, but it’s not evangelism either. She uses her beloved ‘ists’ (phycologists, neurologists, sociologists etc.) to unpack the ‘treasures’/’fruits’, showing how recent research and ancient religion have many of the same things to say.  

And listen, you could read this lovely book – giggle and weep your way through it – without ever sensing anything supernatural within it. But, make no mistake, there is the supernatural within it. From the opening page to the closing one, God’s there, hidden in plain sight.  

I really am unspeakably glad I didn’t pick Boris.