Letters from the Earth

Sing Ruby Siu
English 48B
February 27, 2009
Journal #16 Mark Twain

QUOTE:
“We have witnessed a wonderful thing; as to that, we are necessarily agreed. As to the value of it – if it had any – that is a matter which does not personally concern us” (307).

SUMMARY:
In From Letters from the Earth, Mark Twain wrote a short but ironic story about a brief introduction to God, angels, the Heaven in contrast to people’s vague ideas and vain yearnings for them. The storyline has a great emphasis on the speaking, thinking and acting of Satan, one of the Archangels who happened to stand beside God but was later sent to the Earth for banishment. The above quote showed Satan’s character and attitude towards God in the first place. While the other two archangels were too timid to start commenting on God’s behavior, Satan was the first to break the silence and brought up a heated discussion. He commented boldly on the impracticability and lack of democracy of their existence and discussion. Later in the story, he was reported of his hidden sarcasm and criticism for God by some spies.

RESPONSE:

According to the description of this book in Wikipedia, it is said that “the essays were written during a difficult time in Twain's life; he was deep in debt and had lost his wife and one of his daughters.” In the book, he ironically challenged the intention and morals of God, and he dispelled the unnecessary and ridiculous stereotypes possessed by the religious believers. Twain especially emphasized how God dominated people’s fate and what people’s false hope and expectation were. By ridiculing both ends of the religion, the holy figures and the worshippers, Twain wanted to convey a deep message about the irreversible dead-end of religion.

The most intelligent part of the book is in whom Twain positioned himself. Twain cleverly outlined Satan as a traitor of Heaven who was also amused by the insanity of human beings. Twain was the Satan, who distinctively separated himself from both parties. He made Satan an ex-archangel who was sent to the earth for banishment, symbolizing his own past belief in God. To God and the believers, he was the so-called “devil” who disobeyed God’s demand and tempting the angels and readers to agree with him by writing letters. He separated himself from the human beings beings because he also claimed a charge against their naivety and false hope. He did not belong to the mortal mode of thinking either.

Throughout the story, Twain gradually revealed Satan’s thoughtful and positive characters, which acted as a further destruction to the religious belief that Satan was an ultimate bastard. For example, while all angels acted cowardly, Satan was the one who “gathered his courage together – of which he had a very good supply” (307). This implied an extraordinary character of Satan that even could not be ensemble by other angels. Satan, by breaking the silence, also implies his ability in leadership and innovative approach to the corrupted religion. In the very quote I cited at the beginning, we can see angels were “necessarily agreed” with God’s decision, which showed an inhuman, dictatorial and undemocratic political environment adopted by God. Satan, among all, was the only one who had the courage to challenge the authority and expressed bold thoughts. Ironically, Satan was “ordered into banishment” just due to his sarcasm. By presenting the fearless and straightness of Satan, his situation reflected the lack of logic behind God’s decision.