C.S. Lewis names the demon who writes letters to Wormwood Screwtape.
The Screwtape Letters, published in 1942, is structured as correspondence from Screwtape, an experienced demon, to Wormwood, a junior tempter. Screwtape offers advice on how to distract a human being from faith, virtue, and clear moral reasoning. The fictional letters use irony: advice that sounds practical from a demon’s perspective exposes the destructive habits it recommends.
Lewis wrote the book during the Second World War, and its satire addresses temptation in ordinary life rather than through spectacular supernatural events. Pride, distraction, resentment, and self-deception are more important in the letters than dramatic acts of evil.
The framing device sometimes causes readers to misremember the characters’ roles. Screwtape is the adviser, while Wormwood is the inexperienced recipient. The book became one of Lewis’s most widely read works and remains a notable example of Christian satire.