What is the name of C.S. Lewis’s allegorical novel about a senior demon advising a junior tempter?
Answer
The Screwtape Letters
C.S. Lewis’s allegorical novel about a senior demon advising a junior tempter is The Screwtape Letters.
The book was published in 1942 and takes the form of letters from Screwtape, an experienced demon, to his nephew Wormwood. Screwtape offers advice on tempting a human patient and obstructing the person’s movement toward Christian faith and virtue.
Lewis uses an inverted viewpoint: the demons describe harmful behavior as if it were sensible professional practice, while goodness appears as the enemy’s strategy. This ironic structure lets the book examine pride, distraction, resentment, social pressure, and self-deception.
The work is fiction rather than a literal guide to demonology. Lewis later wrote a preface explaining that the concept was difficult to sustain because he found it spiritually uncomfortable to write from a demonic perspective.