The junior demon in C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters is called Wormwood.
Wormwood is the inexperienced tempter who receives advice from his older uncle, Screwtape. The book consists of letters written by Screwtape, a senior demon, offering strategic guidance about how to lead a human away from faith and moral clarity.
Lewis published the work in 1942, during the Second World War. Its unusual viewpoint lets him satirize temptation by presenting destructive habits as if they were professional techniques. The demons praise distraction, vanity, resentment, and self-deception rather than dramatic supernatural events.
A common mix-up is reversing the two names. Screwtape is the letter writer and senior adviser; Wormwood is the junior demon whose assignment is discussed. The name Wormwood also echoes the bitter plant mentioned in the Bible, reinforcing the book’s deliberately dark vocabulary.