3rd Annual Academic Symposium - Justin Bradley

Mark Twain was a man who wore many masks. He was a writer, husband, father, Missouri native and veteran: however, the mask least explored, and the one Twain’s family fervently tried to keep concealed, was that of religious skeptic. Raised by religious parents who somewhat sympathized with the plight of the forsaken Satan, Twain was a man that loved to question God and critique the world He had created. Upon extensive analysis and research, it has come to light not only that Twain questioned God as to why pain and suffering existed in a world He could alter at any point, but also that Twain believed that God was ultimately at fault for man’s fall from grace and that Satan, not Jesus, was the true champion of the human race. By examining works like “Eve Speaks,” “That Day in Eden,” “Letters from the Earth,” and “The Mysterious Stranger”, along with critical commentaries on Twain’s works, I have concluded that Twain believed that man was a “poor joke – the poorest that was ever conceived…played by a malicious…Creator with nothing better to waste his time” (qtd. in Sloan 90), and that Twain would become so entrenched in his despair, so consumed by his blaming, so disheartened by the truth, so devoted to his heroic Satan, and so obsessed with the blameless Adam and Eve that he would become completely agnostic.