The War Prayer

contributors). Mark Twain’s The War Prayer is one of the most controversial satires all this time. In the satire Mark Twain eloquently illuminate the shadows of our humanity, the feelings one doesn’t actually realize they have and his feelings on war. In The War Prayer, it was a time of abundant excitement. The country was at war. The people were excited about the war. Proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering on the young volunteers as they walked down the streets with voices choked with happy emotion.…

1.) In the story “Editha,” I think the real hero of this tale is George, Editha’s fiancé. He had his own opinions about the war; yet, he ended up going because he knew that was what Editha and the town’s people wanted from him. He did not back out of the position he was given by the town’s people in their military company, nor did he let Editha down when he knew this was what she wished. He buried his doubts and ideas about the war before heading off to combat with an idea of the odds against…

War Prayer: A Psychological Analysis Samuel Langhorne Clemens, or more commonly known by his pseudonym Mark Twain, wrote the brilliant and powerful short story War Prayer as a result of his views on American Imperialism. War Prayer was originally penned in 1905, by which time Mark Twain had already traveled the world quite extensively and had seen the impact that the policies American and British Imperialism had other on countries around the world. War Prayer is Twain’s satirical attempt to…

Mark Twain’s the The War Prayer uses satire to tie patriotism to religion and the religious patriots as ignorant zealots. The imagery Twain uses invokes a religious connotation to describe patriotism such as holy fire, bringing to mind the burning bush or the Holy Saturday. Twain continues to directly tie the church to patriotism by pointing out that the focus inside the church is not on any religious doctrine or deity but instead to patriotism with the sermon about the country and the country’s…

The War Prayer by Mark Twain is a short story about a town that was extatic for a war to start, but their excitement quickly shifted to fear as their prayers manifested into reality. The town didn’t realize the caliber of what they were praying for. The tone in this piece takes a sharp turn from happiness to fear. The tone is demonstrated through alliteration, diction, and deep irony. In the beginning of the literary work, it opens with imagery to set the scene of what the town looked like, it…

The War Prayer carries a heavy anti-war message using a cynical tone of religion. The setting of the poem is at height when Imperialism was the strongest. Twain used collective phrases to glorify war and emphasize patriotism. Twain is able to capture this setting by describing a celebration in the streets, “the drums were beat, the bands playing, the top pistols popping, the bunches firecrackers hissing and spluttering”, “flags flashed in the sun” (Perkins, 57). To further capture this image…

During war times, citizens of any nation partaking in the war begin to develop vigorous pride and faith in their country; though, author and humorist, Mark Twain, was not one of these citizens. Mark Twain wrote numerous pieces of satire that represent his idea of wartime emotions. An example of one of these satirical pieces is Twain’s The War Prayer. In Mark Twain’s “The War Prayer,” he uses various satirical devices, such as hyperbole and irony, in order to convey his opinion on the connection…

Mark Twain, in his juvenalian essay “The War Prayer” (1923) lambasts war and the motivations behind fighting them. He supports his argument by incorporating potent sarcastic diction, utilizing hyperbole, and by the use of hypocrisy. Twain’s purpose is to convey the absurdity of war and to examine what he believes to be the asinine motivations behind going to war, especially those of a religious and patriotic nature, in the hope that future conflict is avoided. He adopts an ironic tone (“An aged…

said “the essence of war is insanity. Destruction, death, women widowed, children orphaned, lands plundered, property destroyed, lives decimated一 it’s all bad.” Paulsen describes war, detailing the intimate and horrific details that occur throughout war. The words he employs display the harshness of war, conveying feelings of sadness and a state of uneasy. The ideas surrounding war are further examined in three different pieces of work; “The War Prayer” by Mark Twain, “Dulce Et Decorum Est” by…

“Shooting an Elephant,” “The War Prayer,” and “The White Man’s Burden.” This will give the analyzation of what these pieces of information states. So in regards to, “Shooting an Elephant,” this article gives the depth between a white man, a gun, and an ethnic group called Burmese. These people did not own a weapon, nor any type of machinery. They did not like the white man, but since he had the proper protection to save them…