Letter 21 Summary

The notion of ownership is explored in this letter. Human beings' strange notions that their time and their bodies are their own are explored and exploited. Thinking their time is their own is good material for attacking the patient's mood and making him exasperated and impatient, Screwtape says, especially when someone impinges upon "his" time. It is good to raise his expectations of what life owes him so his snappishness at not getting his way may be properly aggravated.

Human beings' conceit in thinking that any thing on earth is theirs is treated with suitable Screwtapian contempt. It is, he says, absurd. He makes the point that people did not invent time; they cannot add to it or restrain it. It comes to them as a gift. Theoretically, for Christians, they owe every particle of time to the service of God.

Their bodies...