Which character narrates C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters?

Screwtape narrates C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters through a series of letters addressed to his junior tempter, Wormwood. Screwtape is a senior demon who offers advice on tempting a human being known only as “the Patient.”

The book was first published in book form in 1942, after sections had appeared in the Anglican newspaper The Guardian. Lewis uses the fictional correspondence to present moral and theological ideas from a deliberately reversed perspective: the demons try to prevent the Patient from becoming spiritually attentive.

The letters are satirical rather than a literal guide to demonology. Their humor comes from the bureaucratic language, professional rivalry, and distorted values of the demon world. Lewis uses that inversion to examine distraction, pride, fear, social pressure, and self-deception.

Wormwood is the inexperienced demon receiving the advice, while Screwtape is the more senior correspondent. The unnamed Patient allows the reader to identify with the human situation without turning the story into a conventional biography.