The Tao of Screwtape : Sender/receiver pairs and objective values in C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters.

Abstract: The purpose of this essay is to identify the various sender/receiver pairs from C.S. Lewis’s novel The Screwtape Letters and, once identified, to examine these pairs within the context of the concept of a doctrine of universal values which is expressed in Lewis’s The Abolition of Man. For the sake of clarity and simplicity the essay begins with a definition of terms and concepts that will be used throughout, including basic terms used when discussing a communicative act: sender, receiver and message. I then explain the essays central concept which is taken from another one of Lewis’s works The Abolition of Man regarding a doctrine of objective value. The idea that a set of universal values exists is often central to secular writing and C.S Lewis, a Christian apologist, makes it clear that he believes that there exists an ethical way of living that is common to all men, Christian and non-Christian alike. He dubs this set of basic morals the Tao. The various senders from The Screwtape Letters are then identified, beginning with the central character of Screwtape and moving in concentric circles outwards through Wormwood, the Enemy and his angels and ending with the reader/writer allegory wherein the sender is identified as the writer, Lewis. Textual evidence is given in each scenario to reveal whether these senders are aware of a doctrine of moral values and whether, in accordance to Lewis’s explanation of what he calls speaking from within the Tao, the various senders speak and act in order to teach that set of values to others.