Contradictions In America

After the Second Great Awakening at the beginning of the 19th century, more citizens of Western nations began to practice protestant religions. This is especially true within in the United States. After the growth of protestantism occurred in the United States, missionaries of the faith began to establish a great influence overseas, specifically in China. During the late 19th century and early 20th century an increasingly large amount of protestant American missionaries began to start lives in China, converting the Chinese to Christianity. By 1900 about 1,000 American missionaries were present in China (SOURCE). The goals of the missionaries were to not only convert the Chinese people to Christianity, but to also Westernize them, which they …show more content…
Simultaneously domestically in the United States, from around 1860-1865, The Civil War was fought, largely due to the slavery problem (SOURCE). The aftermath of The Civil War created severe racial tensions in The United States which lead to an abundance of discrimination and hate crimes directed at African-American people. Both of these events occurring concurrently demonstrated certain contradictions within the mentality of American Society. As a society America was attempting to convert another civilization to be just like their own but in actuality, America was rancid with many issues, specifically those regarding race. This idea is presented in three paragraphs from an essay written by American author Mark Twain named, “The United States of Lyncherdom.” Mark Twain is considered the father of American literature. During his career he gained fame and notoriety for his works such as Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Besides his work in American fiction, Twain was also a notable anti-imperialist and abolitionist. Both of these ideas seeped into his essay “The United States of Lyncherdom” written in March 1901. Throughout most of the essay, Twain is commenting on the recent lynchings of three African-American men is Mississippi. He outlines his problems with …show more content…
All three techniques are utilized in different cases to highlight the disparity between Twain’s perspective and the general perspective of the common American people. Specifically ridiculing the normalized perspective of the time. For example, when he warns his reader to be careful about westernizing China because, “Once civilized, China can never be uncivilized again.”(TWAIN). This idea pokes fun at the need of Americans to constantly bring the cornerstones of their civilization to other cultures in an attempt to make them “better.” Although this sarcasm is meant to serve an important purpose in Twain’s writing, in terms of reception there was a slight risk, especially since the hegemonic mindset of Americans was very much belittling the Chinese. Sarcasm could be interpreted as truth. This was the case for the poem The Heethen Chinee by Brett Harte, which was intended to disprove Chinese stereotypes. The poem was meant to be interpreted as sarcastic, but since many people agreed with the outlandish ideas of the poem, it only further perpetuated the stereotypes. In using a sarcastic tone Twain ran the risk of misinterpretation, although the potential for confusion can never be truly assessed because the essay was never published. However, since Twain was such a notable writer, people may have been more familiar with his writing style and therefore, not have so easily