The Mysterious Stranger Honors Blog

Mark Twain develops the theme of perceived religious misconceptions through imagery, allusion, and paradox.

There are many allusions throughout the book, and many of them pertain to the Christian Bible. For example, when the angel that comes to the 3 main characters introduces himself as Satan, the author very strongly references the bible by saying "It caught us suddenly, that name did... Satan laughed, and asked what was the matter. I said 'Nothing, only it seemed a strange name for an angel.' He asked why. 'Because it's - it's - well, it's his name, you know." Here, he was referencing the devil, who in the Bible, is named Satan. Mark Twain is introducing a character who's name implies that he is the Devil, and yet he plays the role of an angel. This helps to develop the theme of biblical misconceptions, this this is a major renovation to common belief.

Mark Twain also uses imagery to further develop the theme. In this scene, he implies that in the face of chaos and tragedy, an angel can still be happy. He uses a series of visual adjectives to represent this scene. "He was full of bubbling spirits, and as gay as if this were a wedding instead of a fiendish massacre... the looks that went out of our eyes came from our hearts, and their dumb speech was worship." In the second part of the quote, he describes how the boys were manipulated to be in awe of the Angel, and represents this with the image of a feeling of awe flowing from their hearts into their eyes.

At the end of the book, Mark Twain uses paradox to represent the theme, which is probably the most effective method of doing so. It is revealed that the world, the characters, and all existence is but a mere thought, and Satan explains the paradoxes of the biblical interpretation of the universe in order to prove this. He says "A God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it..."

The way I interpret The Mysterious Stranger is that it is meant to disprove religion. Throughout the book, Mark Twain pokes holes in the ideology, using many allusions to the bible, and imagery to describe it, then at the end, he uses paradox to disprove the entire Biblical interpretation to the best of his ability. I feel he did this successfully, and through his understanding of the Bible, the book is a wonderful social, political, and (especially) religious commentary.