Summary of Mark Twain's Letters From the Earth

America's Foremost Humor Writer Looks at the Absurdities of Religion

Jul 27, 2009

Both darker and more plainly stated than ever, Twain's wit is razor sharp as he ponders what the Earth has done with religion, God, and Christianity.

During the latter years of his life, Mark Twain penned a series of letters from the point-of-view of a dejected angel on Earth. By analyzing the idea of heaven and God that is widely accepted by those who believe in both, Twain is able to take the silliness that is present and study it with the common sense that is absent. Not so much an attack as much as a cold dissection, Twain’s writings in Letters From the Earth (Fawcett, ASIN: B000HUF6RK, 1962) find him at perhaps his most quizzical and questioning state ever.

The First Three Letters

After a brief introduction by Twain, the story shifts to the letters written by Satan to his friends in heaven. In the first letter, Satan—who has been banished to Earth for one thousand “Earth days”— goes on to say that the people, the other animals, the earth itself are all insane. Nature itself is insane. This first letter is a very blunt statement on human arrogance and hypocrisy. He says goes on to explain his declaration over the course of the next ten letters.

The second letter explains the curiosity that is heaven as it is perceived on the earth. First and foremost, Satan points out that sexual intercourse is absent in this version of heaven. This is a peculiarity, due to the amount of emphasis placed on it during human life. He wonders why they would leave it out if they enjoy it so much on earth.

In fact, people have created a heaven full of things they don’t value. On earth, most men do not sing and/or cannot stand singing, very few people play instruments, people don’t like to pray, people are bored in church, everyone looks down upon everyone else, all “sane” people detest noise. Keeping that in mind, Satan wonders why then that “heaven” is full of endless church services where everyone loves everyone else while they all sing and play a musical instrument.

In letter three, Christianity is discussed. Satan claims that humans desire to be like (their) God, yet God is nobody to emulate. God punished Adam and Eve when he really had no reason to tempt them in the first place. He also continued to punish the next generations for a crime they did not commit (in regards to the forbidden fruit). People don’t treat their children that way, yet they claim to live in the image of God. He has set rules, yet he himself does not follow them.

The Fourth and Fifth Letters

Letters four and five deal with the great flood and the ark. The fourth letter is very brief, and basically states that Noah was instructed to build an ark (with no knowledge of ark building) and fill it with “business samples” of all the animals on earth. The next letter goes into detail, claiming that Noah had to leave off the large animals, and the world is still suffering from their loss. The large animals prayed, one would imagine, but God didn’t answer their prayers. Satan goes on to say that every prayer is unanswered, because God doesn’t care.

The Sixth, Seventh, and Eight Letters

The sixth letter, God is made out to be a hypocrite. The human-God is outed as being contradictory with the lessons he supposedly tries to teach (as seen in the bible) and the way he actually acts. This letter expands on the ideas expressed in letter three by saying that God is against jealousy, yet he demands that no Gods come before him. It also states that God puts disease into the world, yet he is known as Our Father. Satan implies that this is not very fatherly.

In letter seven, Satan describes the poor’s devotion to God, and how puzzling it is that they would worship the same person who made them less fortunate in the first place. God has never done anything good before someone else could do it first. The letter ends with a short story about a man who lives his life like the bible by ruining his family and being a bad person.

Letter eight deals with adultery and its unfairness towards women. Whereas adultery is a severe punishment towards woman, it is rather light for men. Woman are able to “receive the candle” for their entire lives once they reach maturity, but a man’s “candle” is worthless after a mere 30 years of use. It uses the analogy of the sexually ambitious goat and the libido-lacking tortoise as an example of this, as well as God’s Law being denied by humans.

The Last Three Letters

In the ninth letter, Satan goes back to the flood and states that God should have just ended the human race there, since it didn’t work out for the second time. Also, if God is all knowing, why did he even bother with the human race if he was just going to flood it once and then be let down by it again?

Letter ten deals with the two testaments. In the Old Testament, there is an emphasis on blood and war, but it was in the New Testament that God (as Jesus Christ) created hell. Satan then quote bible passages to point out that Biblical law says that killing is wrong, but the actions of God himself prove otherwise.

The final letter is an all-encompassing look at how God is more evil than anyone could ever be. It uses an Indian slaughter in Minnesota as a comparison to God’s destruction of 32,000 virgins. Satan claims that the Indians are not as brutal, because they merely raped and killed, which is more than can be said about God. It all ends with a statement about the Beatitudes should be read alongside Deuteronomy and Numbers to perceive God as he really is.

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