- Screwtape believes that the best way for a human to die is "in costly nursing homes amid doctors who lie, nurses who lie, friends who lie, as we have trained them, promising life to the dying, encouraging the belief that sickness excuses every indulgence, and even, if our workers know their job, withholding all suggestion of a priest lest it should betray to the sick man his true condition!" I think he believes this because when humans die this way they have been constantly lied to until their death. They are also unable to meet with a priest because the priest might reveal their true state of health.
2. How does "...malice thus becomes wholly real and the benevolence largely imaginary"? How does this apply to your life?
- If Wormwood is successful in pushing malice into his patient's "inner circle" and pushing benevolence to the "outer circle" then his patient will show malice to those closer to him. When benevolence is thrust out to the "remote circumference, to people he does not know" then it becomes an imaginary characteristic of his patient. I think that if Wormwood is able to push malevolence upon his patient so that he does ill toward those he speaks with or interacts every day, his patient's sense of benevolence toward those same people will eventually dissipate. Benevolence will become an imaginary concept to Wormwood's patient, one that he will no longer be familiar with. If I think negatively about people that I know, I tend to begin to think negatively about many things that they do. If I continue to think like this, eventually everything that this person does will become irritating and annoying. My benevolence towards someone like this is very small. I do not want to be kind and my patience with someone like this is very thin. Even though I should be a loving and kind person towards anyone that I come into contact with, it is a struggle when interacting with certain people.
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