60 pages • 2 hours read
C. S. LewisThe Screwtape Letters
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1942A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Epilogue
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Epilogue Summary: Screwtape Proposes a Toast
This piece was published separately much later, in 1959. It is essentially an epilogue to the novel. It is a speech given by Screwtape at a devils’ banquet in honor of the young devils graduating from the Tempters’ Training College. Screwtape discusses the tastiness of the damned souls on which the devils are dining. He laments how there are fewer and fewer really delicious sinners like Hitler to devour. He does, however, relish the wine that has been made from the souls of religious fanatics such as those labeled Pharisees in the Bible.
Epilogue Analysis
In this epilogue, Screwtape sounds optimistic on the quantity of sinners over quality. He believes that modern democratic societies are producing undisciplined, ignorant souls ripe for the picking.
He is also cheered by the continuing intensity of religious intolerance he sees among humans. The religiously intolerant who hate anyone who does not believe and practice as they do provide fertile ground for Screwtape and the tempters.
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