Twain's "Letters from the Earth" p.307

Mark Twain is a very clever writer. I admire the way he uses fictional characters to express his point of view. For example, he uses Satan as a way of communicating how he feels about humans and God. Twain’s tone throughout his piece is that of mockery which makes him come across as very daring and bold. Not many people would dare mock religion and God, creating in him somewhat of a revolutionary figure for his time period. His boldness adds an intriguing element to his writing.

At the same time, he is very offensive toward what most religious people consider to be sacred. He writes, “Many men pray, not many of them like to do it. A few of them pray long, the others make a short cut” (Twain 311). We can truly see Mark Twain’s stance on religion and his attitude toward the sincerity or lack thereof of those performing its rituals. It is as though he thinks that religion is ridiculous and that people just pray for the sake of praying rather than for true spirituality. At first, I could not help but chuckle as I read these lines. Perhaps it may not have been humorous to someone reading this in the nineteenth century, but things have changed. Another line which struck me as humorous is, ”Most men do not sing, most men cannot sing, most men will not stay where others are singing if it be continued more than two hours” (Twain 310). I thought this to be very funny because I could relate to those men who can’t sing.

One of the passages that struck me as critical and controversial is in Letter number two, where he writes about the hatred that exists amongst races. He points out the irony in human actions. He explains that although humans have created the idea of a heaven free of racism, they continue to live in racism on Earth. Twain states:

The inventor of their heaven empties into it all the nations of the earth, in one common jumble. All are on an equality absolute, no one of them ranking another; they have to be ‘brothers’; they have to mix together, pray together, harp together, hosanna together—whites, niggers, Jews, everybody—there’s no distinction. Here in the earth all nations hate each other and every one of them hates the Jew. Yet every pious person adores that heaven and wants to get into it. He really does. And when he is in a holy rapture he thinks he thinks that if he were only there he would take all the populous to his heart, and hug, and hug, and hug! (313)

Twain comes across as a very pessimistic person. To Twain, it seems as though everything is wrong with the world, and that nothing can ever be done to fix it. He not only points out the racial conflicts taking place at that time, but the hypocrisy of humans as they create an ideal world of peace in heaven which they make no effort to live up to on Earth. He also mocks them for not practicing what they preach: why should they wait to achieve goodness in heaven when they can have it here on Earth if they so desired?