Difference between revisions of "Talk:Mark Twain"

Revision as of 00:05, June 22, 2007

"His personality and his humor have been an integral part of American life for so long that it has seemed almost impossible to realize an America without him.[1]"

Passive voice, normative statement, non sequitur. Not needed.

And why isn't his contempt for Christianity mentioned? In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck constantly grapples with how he'll go to hell if he doesn't turn Jim in to the authorities. And the way the king and the duke dupe the religious people into giving them money can be seen as obvious jabs at Christianity and organized religion in general. Also, I quote from Wikipedia: "In later years, Twain's family suppressed some of his work which was especially irreverent toward conventional religion, notably Letters from the Earth, which was not published until 1962. The anti-religious The Mysterious Stranger was published in 1916, although there is some scholarly debate as to whether Twain actually wrote the most familiar version of this story. Twain was critical of organized religion and certain elements of the Christian religion through most of the end of his life, though he never renounced Presbyterianism[19]"

Shouldn't this material on Twain's religious views be mentioned too? The entry on here right now strikes me as being liberally biased.

--WOVcenter 03:16, 10 March 2007 (EST)

Did you really mean to say liberally biased?

I agree with you with what you say about Twain's religious views, above. And I've said on the Talk page that I believe he should be removed from the list in Homeschooling. Although if his religious views are to be mentioned, something must be said about his book on Joan of Arc... Dpbsmith 07:25, 10 March 2007 (EST)

Religion

I think that the religion section treats Twain harshly. He was a practicing Presbyterian, but the deaths of most members of his family (his son Langdon, his wife, and two of his three daughters died in his lifetime) by the end of his life made him very bitter towards God and religion but didn't mean he was necessarily an atheist, just angry that life had treated him poorly. I don't know how strict this site is on sources, but the Ken Burns' documentary "Mark Twain" is where I'm getting this information. I know this is a conservative website that considers the kind of humor regarding God that Twain utilized to be sacreligious but that doesn't mean that he wasn't a Christian or anti-Christian. I'm going to try to reword the section without ruffling any feathers :). Ripberger 19:29, 21 June 2007 (EDT)

I do own a copy of Letters to the Earth, which hardly seems like the work of a practicing Presbyterian. I do know it wasn't published during his lifetime, but maybe it could at most be said that he was outwardly a Christian? DanH 19:40, 21 June 2007 (EDT)

It's times like these I wish someone who was an expert could comment on this. I honestly don't know too much about Twain, I just know that he really blamed himself and God for a lot of the heartbreak in his life. Whether or not he truly gave up Presbyterianism and Christianity all together by the time of his death is beyond me. There is a book out called The Bible According to Mark Twain that may answer this, but I don't have it or ever read it. Ripberger 20:05, 21 June 2007 (EDT)