I found letter 20 to contain themes that are relevant to today’s world, not only the spiritual world, but in the media as well. Screwtape talks about women and what is desired of their appearance. In the time this book was written, women were desired if they embodied a boyish, slender figure. This is very similar to what we see today in the media; women who are freakishly skinny, unhealthy, and regarded as the object of ultimate desire. Screwtape goes into detail on the desire issue and the patient’s obligation to get married. He talks of the two type of women he would marry. The first is the natural, healthy, earthly woman, who would no doubt be “mixed with charity, readily obedient to marriage,” et cetera. The second would be the woman of lust, the one he wants only for her physical attributes. This is seen a lot in society and is somewhat disturbing. I was wondering what is everyone’s take on this topic of women as subjects of desire??
4 comments:
I wrote about this chapter as well and you are right because it does apply in todays world. I was a bit annoyed in this chapter and a lot of the other chapters too. He talks so much about appearance and sometime he also sounds sexist too. It gets annoying readind his letters sometimes.
I felt disturbed by this letter. I don't know if it was because of how women are presented or if it was just the way i took it that disturbed me. To a certain extent women are thought of as being objects that provide some sort of satisfaction or that fill in some of the empty holes. It is sad that women themselves are also falling into that sort of thing by allowing it to happen and participating in it as well.
I'd be curious to see how this chapter would be different if the patient were female instead of male. One thing that strikes me about this chapter is that there is a lot of blame that usually is spread around when this kind of topic is brought up. Yet, in today's culture relationships are the product of two people wanting to be connected, not just the man wanting the women. If the women is attracted to the man Screwtape would want the patient to be, then there is obviously a huge problem on both sides of the relationship, and not one that could be fixed by just one of the two people changing.
Screwtape's view of women disturbs me as well; however, I am not surprised coming from the devil. He obviously portrays to extremes of women such as, the sex object--lusty and the possession that does whatever he wants--a slave. Both satisfy the flesh but not the emotional and spiritual connections. Like the "connect" podcast stated, "All people desire to be connected, but some connect easier to people than others." Also, if the devil can get men to view women just like he does, then no one will ever care enough to be connected which is what God wants. So, the bottom line is that Satan just wants to destroy anything that God creates--men, women, marriages, and relationships between them all.
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