Letters From The Earth Analysis

Superior Essays
Letters from the Earth
The entirety our our semester has focused on one major theme: the disappearance or hiddenness of God. Various texts, including the Disappearance of God, centralize this argument based off of observations and evidence alone. Diving solely into Letters from the Earth, Mark Twain illustrates God’s hiddenness with a satirical piece separating God’s perspective from human’s and even Satan’s viewpoint of God’s involvement. The widened gap of views, from God, humans, and Satan, show discrepancy in the religious world that Mark Twain presents. From there, readers can observe parallels into our present state with God. The three distinct views combine to prove the disappearance of God and align to the continuation of the issue
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Starting with the highest of the three, God’s view of his relationship with humans strikes up the most peculiarity. According to God, he created Earth, animals and humans alike for the purpose of an experiment. He recognizes no involvement in human affairs. He created them and sat back telling others, or angels, to “Observe them, and be instructed.” He even goes so far as to say, “Time will show whether they were worth the trouble.” No emotion is tied with God and his creation. He made them with the Law of Nature and disappeared. One cannot argue in Mark Twain’s depiction that God did not disappear for the fact that he is not present in the book after the prologue. This relationship between God and humans is important because readers are asked where is God during the whole book? This could be stretched to say God is more behind the scenes, controlling and inputting humans lives. However, Mark Twain’s depiction gives off the impression that God was never even there for humans. He was never involved in their lives and he never put much care into their …show more content…
He emphasizes the disappearance of God and lack of unity between the group’s ideas. Behind all of his wit lies an underlying message: God has disappeared or become less publically involved. Just like the oblivious humans depicted, many today still see no change. I grew up in the church yet failed to think deeper into these philosophical questions. Why has God hidden himself? Did we do this? Why are there no more public miracles and so on? In a way the three angles serve to represent different types of people. It could be parallel to different religions or different theories. We all see things in different lenses and this gap is always going to exist. The fact is that you can’t avoid the truth. What do you do with this information? Why must we read such information? Even though Satan attacks Christianity and the bible throughout his letters, reflection and action should be the outcome rather than upset. Questions may be raised but you can work towards a closer bond with God, your religion, or your own growth. By reading Mark Twain’s sharp attack, we can hope for improvement to be better than we are. Additionally, we can hope for religious thoughts to surface after reading similar texts. Letters of the Earth opened my thought process into not simply reading the Bible for what it is. I now understand that you must dive in, looking for patterns, questions,

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