Journal #2 Mark Twain

Shirly Ong
English 48B
17 January, 2008
Journal #2 Mark Twain

Quote:
“It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.”

Summary:
This is the conclusion Mark Twain made at the end of The War Prayer. He’s referring to the man who interrupted the ceremony and leaded the prayer. In his prayer, he asked God to help destroying the enemy of his own country.

Response:
In this piece of work, the war is supported by the citizens. They are proud to have a son fighting in the war. They believe that soldiers “die the noblest of noble deaths” in war. It seems Mark Twain was in favor of wars. However, this is only an illusion. To me, The War Prayer is an anti-war article.
In the stranger’s prayer, he prayed in the hope that God can help demolishing the enemies. He even described how the God could help demolishing them in details. Those are actually what happen in wars. Indeed, Mark Twain is trying to demonstrate the damage of wars through the stranger’s prayer. Written during the Philippine-American War, this piece of writing was not published at the time it was finished. Even though this article was not published until later, I think Mark Twain has made a conclusion to The War Prayer cleverly. In this quote, Twain claims that people think there was no sense in what the stranger said. By saying that the stranger who interrupted the ceremony was a lunatic, Twain indirectly points out his opinion - those who start wars are lunatics. In this way, he could not be easily accused of anti-war or anti-government even if the work was published.
On the other hand, I think Twain was also commenting on the religious belief of other people at that time through this piece of work. Some words of the strangers, which include “bearing a message from the Almighty God” and “you have heard your servant’s prayer,” represent the general religious believes. In other words, Twain thinks these make no sense. To my understanding of The War Prayer, Twain was neither in favor of war nor religion.