The Mysterious Stranger, by Twain & PaineVarious
web sources, like Wikipedia, will tell you right off the bat that The
Mysterious Stranger is Mark Twain's final attempted novel near the
end of his life. There is truth to this statement, but it is
ambiguous and inaccurate for various reasons. “The Mysterious
Stranger” is less the definitive title of a concrete work written
by Mark Twain than it is a collective reference to various, and Twain
is not the only author involved. The
first version of Twain's work that made its way into the public eye
was The Mysterious Stranger: A Romance,
a stripped-down and beefed-up version edited and revised posthumously
by Twain's literary executor Albert Bigelow Paine. Paine published
his version of Twain's work in 1916, and in time, as one might
imagine to be the result of tampering with a dead man's work,
controversy ensued. (Simmons 125)
It was not until 1969 that Twain's original writing was made available for public viewing. This was when William M. Gibson, a scholar unsatisfied that all there was for the literary world to criticize was a work not entirely written by Twain, published The Mysterious Stranger Manuscripts, a collection of the three original versions of The Mysterious Stranger—“No.44, The Mysterious Stranger,” What is Man?, and “The Chronicles of Young Satan”—written by Twain himself, two of which were unfinished.
Despite the ambiguity surrounding “The Mysterious Stranger,” we can use any of the versions aforementioned to explain the general ideas touched upon by Twain with sufficient accuracy. The primary difference between the four versions is essentially that they are different stories with different plots and characters, and that, as critics suggest, they propose different views of life and behavior, and perhaps even suggestions about the meaning of life and correct behavior that differ between versions.
Taking the path of least resistance, I read Paine's The Mysterious Stranger: A Romance, which is a revised version of “The Chronicles of Young Satan” that includes significant changes, such as the addition of the astrologer (a selfish, inconstant character who nonetheless plays a major role), and excludes text deemed “superfluous” by Paine and Joseph Duneka, a Harper & Brothers publishing company editor (Simmons 126). The Mysterious Stranger: A Romance, most of which has actually been written by Twain, is a criticism of human society presented to the reader through the story of three young Austrian boys visited in 1590 by a young angel named Satan, who appears from time to time at significant moments and teaches the boys about the atrocity and ignorance of the pitiful human race through direct and indirect means.
In “Who Cares Who Wrote The Mysterious Stranger?,” community college professor Ryan Simmons, who constructs his argument around the notions put forth in The Mysterious Stranger: A Romance, suggests that the sum of Twain's work views life through two major avenues of thought. Throughout the story, young Satan has the tendency to challenge the boys' beliefs in and about God, of which Satan knows only very incapable and misguided humans would conceive. The first option Simmons proposes is that of imagining that God exists, an idea that Simmons implies is very limiting. He says that, for the those whose belief in God is as a supreme creator, “the evidence of our senses, and of our inward reflection” is proof of God's master plan for the human race. Understanding and acknowledgment of this plan creates meaning in life for such believers, even if at the same time they are burdened by profound misunderstanding of the world around them, which God has created. Things that we cannot comprehend, which include the very unjust actions we witness daily and which we hold to be the obstacles that heed our transformation into a critical society, are looked at as just another part of this plan that we believe is designed to ultimately work in our favor (Simmons 127). In The Mysterious Strange: A Romance, the main character Theodor Fischer speaks of such a conception of God while describing his dreamlike town, tucked away in the middle of peaceful Austria:
“Knowledge was not good for the common people, and could make them discontented with the lot which God had appointed for them, and God would not endure discontentment with His plans” (Twain 2).
Within the story, Satan appears to condemn the tendency of humans to attribute human qualities to supreme beings, particularly to God, using himself to express this idea. While spending time with Theodor, Seppi, and Nikolaus, Satan interrupts Theodor's thought that having the ability to know what another person is thinking was Satan's most wonderful quality:
“No, it would be wonderful for you, but it is not wonderful for me. I am not limited like you. I am not subject to human conditions. I can measure and understand your human weaknesses, for I have studied them; but I have none of them. My flesh is not real, although it would seem firm to your touch; my clothes are not real; I am a spirit” (Twain 24).
In personifying God, such as attributing to God human qualities like pleasure or displeasure, sympathy, love or anger, humans make the assumption that through particular actions they are able to evoke emotional responses from a supreme creator. Consequentially, many believe that as long as they remain faithful, the atrocities that they commit will be forgiven. They place responsibility for their own life and the actions they take in the hands of another. This is obviously a path in life that Twain chose to condemn in his writing. I feel inclined to believe he intended for the ambiguity that surrounds the works collectively referred to under “The Mysterious Stranger” umbrella. Why? Because he set out to question the notion of God and, interchangeably, authorship. In The Mysterious Stranger: A Romance, as well as other versions of the work, Twain uses Satan's conversations with Theodor to present the idea that no man can be rightly called an author, for he has only the capacity to imagine, and creation is an ability possessed by gods alone. In What is Man?, the prophetic stranger relaying detached wisdom is an old man. He suggests to a boy he is talking with (who is much like Theodor), that even Shakespeare, held in human hearts as high as the heavens, is not a creator but a machine:
“The threads and colors [found in Shakespeare's writings] came into him from the outside; outside influences, suggestions, experiences (reading, seeing plays, borrowing ideas, and so on), framed the patterns in his mind and started up its complex and admirable machinery, and it automatically turned out that pictured and gorgeous fabric which still compels the astonishment on the world” (Simmons 133).
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The second possibility Simmons proposes is that of accepting that the previously mentioned evidence of God's existence comes, perhaps in the postmodern era, to challenge the belief in God's existence as a supreme creator with human limitations. Simmons suggests that perhaps in this case the notion of God, the supreme creator, has been stretched so far beyond limitation that humans are no longer able to accept it, for “if he did, and if he behaved as claimed, he could only be described as a cause of unhappiness and should not be tolerated” (128). When Satan tells Theodor that he has business elsewhere, in another world well beyond the grasp of his imagination, and must part for good, Theodor asks Satan if he will see him, his dear friend, in another life. Satan shatters Theodor's perception of reality, telling him that life is but a dream:
“Strange, indeed, that you should not have suspected that your universe and its contents were only dreams, visions, fiction! Strange, because they are so frankly and hysterically insane—like all dreams: a God who could make good children 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; who gave his angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body” (Twain 150).
If we come to terms with believing that God does not exist, the physical and metaphysical aspects of life (eating, sleeping, imagining, constructing, communicating) do not change. The purposes behind our pursuits may, but I believe that even if we accept that there is no omniscient author of our world, no grand plan for our species, we can still find meaning. Some very spiritual people which we hold in high esteem, such as the 14th Dalai Lama, believe that the purpose of life, at its simplest, is existence itself. Simmons and others argue that devoting our existence to a supreme creator is very limiting. For all intents and purposes, it dictates our actions, giving us only one way in and one way out. Accepting that God does not exist opens a world of possibilities.
My interpretation of Twain's work nearly parallels Simmons'. After reading The Mysterious Stranger: A Romance, which is practically a religious text in itself, I feel the need to answer questions left entirely up to me, the reader, by Twain. In “Terrible Dreams of Creative Power: The Question of No.44,” Derek Parker Royal takes a closer look at No.44, young Satan's counterpart in “No.44, The Mysterious Stranger.” Royal says that a majority of criticism on Twain's work has focused primarily on trying to interpret its ending, in which the protagonist, whether it be Satan, the Old Man, or No.44, suggests that life is an illusion, but “few have attempted to place their critical finger directly on No.44.” No.44, like Satan, is a very mysterious character. He is at once visible and tangible yet mystifying and elusive. He is indifferent to self-imposed human sorrow yet expresses sympathy toward humans and interest in human life. He is a supreme entity of the Imperishables, an immortal with the power to create, but he has chosen to spend time on Earth in the company of men. Royal does not necessarily advocate, but rather offers for consideration the possibility that Twain's failure to complete his vision is a result of his own incomplete understanding of No.44, and, as I interpret the situation, of life. Royal describes Twain as many before have done—as a man in whose mind are held entirely opposing contradictions, such as utter condemnation of the illusion of government yet a degree of involvement in Capitalism, from which he benefited. In this respect, Twain apotheosizes the intellectual, one who is able to entertain two or more opposing ideas at once. Satan, Old Man, and No.44 seem to reflect Twain himself. It is difficult to say with certainty, but it seems logical to discern that Twain's failure to finally define the character of the mysterious stranger may reflect the state of irresolution he continued to find himself in at the end of his life. Twain's work was an attempt at resolution. In Twain, we had a man who with undying wit and incomparable genius could win the world many times over with the power of his words, yet who in his “finally attempted novel” attacked the very notion of authorship, asserting that no man can justifiably call himself an author, for he is only a machine with a programmatic imagination. Critics agree that Twain's work is very “incoherent” in nature. It is home to countless contradictions, contradictions which define the very essence of humanity.
Simmons asserts that if there is any concrete advice “The Mysterious Stranger” has to offer readers, “it is that the desire for coherence, for an 'author' who can reveal a unitary truth, demolishes opportunities for enlightenment in a non-unitary world” (129). This point becomes of great interest when we look at Twain's work for what it really is: a great literary work without a definitive attachment to its author. I think the ambiguity surrounding “The Mysterious Stranger” was intentional on Twain's part. He wanted readers and critics alike to ask themselves whether or not a substantial literary work, which in this case symbolizes life (a grand creation), is meaningful when we are definitively uncertain that there is a sole creator (God) responsible for it. The Mysterious Stranger: A Romance is very meaningful to me even though I am uncertain if it justifies Twain's original intentions, or whether or not there were intentions at all (God's plan). He believes that other than this bit of insight, the only other “moral assertion” offered in “The Mysterious Stranger” is to be cautious of persuasive speakers. We all know what happens when an ego-maniacal political leader bent on destruction has a way with words (Hitler). Simmons is correct; these two things are the only moral assertions offered in Twain's work. However, even while it can be characterized by grand irresolution, profound meaning can be constructed from these two assertions. First and foremost, The Mysterious Stranger: A Romance, along with the other three versions, is a call for awakening; it does not offer coherent advice to be adhered to in life because it strives to illuminate the fact that life is what you make of it, and that arbitrary principles imposed upon man long before even his own conception, the evolving social phenomena that precede our very existence, should be questioned. We should be questioning all that we know and all that we should come to know; we must question ourselves. Accordingly, The Mysterious Stranger: A Romance is a call for action. What good is it to have or acquire the gift of intellect, the ability to question the reality that has been constructed for us by external forces, when one fails to act upon gained wisdom? No good at all, I tell you. And what good is there, furthermore, to be told that life is what you make it—to accept that you can take the burden of God's stern gaze off of your shoulders, run around free feeling the wind in your hair and smelling the flowers without a care—if you fail to do so and continue to devote your existence to a purpose set in motion by some shadowy figure with its own personal agenda thousands of years before even the thought of your conception occurred? None at all.
The Mysterious Stranger: A Romance may baffle readers, but the answer to the question of its purpose is simply that there is no particular purpose. The Mysterious Stranger: A Romance is what you make of it, and so is life. Dispelling the notion of God, the supreme creator does not make life meaningless. It does not mean that we must banish any notions of the metaphysical world or spirituality, but rather it opens many doors for many meanings, and gives substance to each and every one of our very individual personalities and the paths we take which may diverge from society's limiting intentions. As blasphemous as any Capitalist figurehead will certainly tell you this is, accepting that there is no such divine plan of God's paves the way for true and limitless spiritual development. Accepting that there is no plan, or no purpose for all-powerful Man, may come as a devastating shock to some people. Regardless of whether or not Man is intended to fulfill a particular destiny, we are here on Earth anyway, and we are destroying our only home and each other. Young Satan, Old Man, and No.44 forced their subjects to look at the actions of their own species from the outside in, and we should be doing the same.
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