The insightful mysterious stranger
Floating in our boat on the last Sunday of summer, Joe and I are sitting across from each other reading. I’m reading the last chapter of Mark Twain’s The Mysterious Stranger. We’ve been slowly floating back to shore, faster than either of us expected. Joe interrupts my reading to bring my attention to the fact that I need to grab the oars and take us back out a little before we end up hitting the shoreline. (When we first acquired this boat, I made the mistake of showing Joe how efficient I am at rowing, so guess who’s in charge of it regularly now.) I toss my book at him so he can read aloud to me the last paragraph of the entire story while I slave away:
…”It is true, that which I have revealed to you; there is no God, no universe, no human race, no earthly life, no heaven, no hell. It is all a dream–a grotesque and foolish dream. Nothing exists but you. And you are but a thought–a vagrant thought, a useless thought, a homeless thought, wandering forlorn among the empty eternities!”
He vanished, and left me appalled; for I knew, and realized, that all he had said was true.
Trust me, I haven’t ruined this great story by revealing the last lines. In fact, I would like to believe that I’ve sparked interest in reading the whole story if only to see what formed this conclusion. In fact, I have another way to intrigue you into reading this story. Check out this great claymation video I found when I did a search for any literary interpretations. It’s right out of the first chapter:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqi5F5MqqTQ
Now, I haven’t attempted to read Mark Twain since I was a very sorry student during my first attempt at college many years ago while failing an American Lit class. I had much shallower things on my mind at that time and couldn’t grasp the depth of insight within Twain’s writing. He was a master at making fun of the human race while bringing to light some powerful messages, many with quite a political twist. Like Shakespeare, his writing can be interpreted into many different time periods and still remain extraordinarily relevent.
The main character is Satan. Or that is, Satan’s nephew who is also called Satan. He comes to visit earth during end of the 16th century and befriends three teenage boys in Austria. Throughout their friendship he reveals truths about human nature that we as the simple creatures that we are, (which Satan consistantly finds quite amusing if not endearing at times) are too inept to ever see ourselves.
During one such revealing experience, the boys and Satan witness a young woman being accused of witchcraft. These boys, even though they felt sorry for this woman, join the crowd of accusers by throwing a stone at her body after she was hung. Later, after leaving this scene, Satan is laughing at the boy’s natures. Asked by the boys to explain his thoughts, Satan replies:
“…I know your race. It is made up of sheep. It is governed by minorities, seldom or never by majorities. It suppresses its feelings and its beliefs and follows the handful that makes the most noise. Sometimes the noisy handful is right, sometimes wrong; but no matter, the crowd follows it. The vast majority of the race, whether savage or civilized, are secretly kind-hearted and shrink from inflicting pain, but in the presence of the aggressive and pitiless minority they don’t dare to assert themselves…”
The boys, not liking their race being called sheep, try to convince Satan that it is not so. But Satan continues:
“Still, it is true, lamb…Look at you in war—what mutton you are…There has never been a just one, never an honorable one—on the part of the instigator of the war…The loud handful–as usual–will shout for the war. The pulpit will—warily and cautiously—object—at first; the great, big, dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes and try to make out why there should be a war, and will say, earnestly and indignantly, ‘It is unjust and dishonorable, and there is no necessity for it.’ Then the handful will shout louder. A few fair men on the other side will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing and be applauded; but it will not last long; those others will outshout them, and presently the anti-war audiences will thin out and lose popularity. Before long you will see this curious thing: the speakers stoned from the platform, and free speech strangled by hordes of furious men who in their secret hearts are still at one with those stoned speakers—as earlier—but do not dare to say so. And now the whole nation—pulpit and all—will take up the war-cry, and shout itself hoarse, and mob any honest man who ventures to open his mouth; and presently such mouths will cease to open. Next the statemen will invent cheap lies, putting blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.”
Is it me, or is this speech from Satan eerily relevant to the state of our own nation’s voice today and this war we seem to think we have every right to be involved in?!
Mr. Samuel Langhorne Clemens, aka Mark Twain of course, was an extremely intelligent and insightful man. Many of our modern “leaders” could greatly benefit from reading his works.
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