Mark Twain Case
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Mark Twain / Mysterious Stranger Research Paper
Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born in Florida, Missouri, a village he described as “invisible”, on November 30, 1835. Clemens would go on to become an American
Literature icon, better known as Mark Twain. By the time of his death on April 20, 1910, he conquered many of his aspirations and had traveled throughout the world; he had also suffered much heartache and turmoil, including losing his entire fortune at one point, and the deaths of three of his four children. Twain confronted his grief through his writings and speeches, and through his works, was able to influence everybody, in one way or another, that had the extraordinary privilege to have read, or be in the audience listening to any of his speeches. Like most writers, Mark Twain used his own life experiences as inspiration for most of his work. If you ask the average person, he or she will probably be able to tell you who Mark Twain was, but they probably couldnt name a piece of his writing outside of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer or Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. There is one story written by Mark Twain that the average person probably has never heard of; The Mysterious Stranger, a story that almost never was. Originally entitled The Chronicles of Young Satan, The Mysterious Stranger was Twains final piece of work; it remained unfinished until after his death. In The Mysterious Stranger, Twain told a fictional tale through the eyes of others, that mirrored the same thoughts and beliefs that he himself possessed in real life.
This dark ages story takes place in a small village in Eseldorf, Austria, in 1590. It
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centers around a group of boys who are befriended by a newcomer to their small hometown. The visitor informs the boys that his name is Philip “Satan” Traum, named after, and nephew of, the fallen angel Satan. He claims to be able to foresee the future, and tells the boys of events that will soon befall the villagers. Until the series of unfortunate events begin, the boys are reluctant to believe their new companion. Satan puts a spell on the boys that doesnt allow them to speak of his true identity to anyone else. More and more mayhem ensues the longer Satan stays around, from witch trials and burnings, to hangings and death; an all around mass hysteria. Throughout this story, Twain makes you question your views of moral sense, how you perceive cultures other than your own, and how you would define “beast”.
After reading the story, and researching Twain, I realized that this story was no exception when it came to the number of views that mirrored aspects of the authors own life. One obvious view in this story was the way Twain felt about life and death. Throughout his years Twain was plagued with the despair and resentment that goes hand and hand with losing a close loved one—from losing his father at the young age of 11, to outliving three of his four children, as well as his wife, and five of his siblings; he understood quite vividly that death was the only certainty in life. At the end of The Mysterious Stranger, Satan tells the boys that there is no God, no universe. No heaven and no hell. Satan professes that man is merely only a dream. Perhaps this is how Twain truly felt when it came to life and death.
The earliest experience Twain had with death was that of the death of his father, John Marshall Clemens. Twain was 11 at the time, and it devastated the entire Clemens family. They never had much money and his father was the only member who generated financial support. Since his fathers death left Twain the “man of the house”, he was forced to go to work to provide for his mother and siblings. Perhaps Twain felt that if there truly was a God, why would he take a member of a family that is needed in so many ways. Possibly, he
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wondered how God could be justified by taking people who were so young, like his brother and sister, who were only nine and ten years old when their life ended. Even more emotionally devastating for Twain was losing his first born son, Langdon, who was a mere 19 months old when he died of a respiratory illness. We all have different ways of coping with our grief in times of despair; feeling that life is just a simple dream that you have no control over may have been the only way Twain was able to cope with such tragedy. Twain once stated “Death, the only immortal who treats us all alike, whose pity and whose peace and whose refuge are for all-the soiled and the pure, the rich and the poor, the loved and the unloved.” I would say that these last publicly spoken words by Twain sums up the way he felt when it came to the discussion of life and death.
Besides his strong views of life and death, Twain was also a man of many convictions; one that he was most passionate about was his disapproval of slavery. In his autobiography, he stated that throughout his school days he didnt have aversion to slavery. He admitted he was not aware that anything was wrong with it. When he was a boy growing up, in Hannibal, Missouri, nothing negative was said about the subject, and he was taught through church that there was nothing unholy about slavery and that it was approved by God. If anyone in Hannibal was more than subtle about their opposing views of slavery they were driven out of town, sent to prison, or even lynched. Having a father who was a judge in a slave state, Twain witnessed at least three abolitionist get sentenced to twelve years of hard labor in prison for helping slaves try to escape to freedom through the underground railroad. Twain would come to believe that “It would not be possible for a humane and intelligent person to invent a rational excuse for slavery”, so when his older brother Orion chose to defy those of his hometown and become an abolitionist (for political