Mark Twain The Damned Human Race Summary

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Mark Twain’s “The Damned Human Race” is a satirical essay that compares the human species to animals by saying that animals are basically better than humans. This type of essay can come off as rude, but with Twain adds humor to his essay so that it does not. During the essay, he talks about an experiment that he did with an Anaconda and an Earl. He talks about that animals are non-greedy while humans are. Lastly, he talks about how humans are ashamed, but animals are not. First, within the first bite of reading Twain’s essay “The Damned Human Race,” Twain uses ethos. He states “I have not guessed or speculated or conjectured, but have used what is commonly called the scientific method.” (Twain) This sentence will then help you to believe that he did in fact conducted the Anaconda Vs Earl experiment. It also allows the readers to believe that the results of the experiment are stated truly. Twain says that he conducted an experiment that consisted …show more content…

He has given the readers facts, but are they really facts? Can they be proven? No that is just the case here. He has his readers to believe every word that he has written within his style of writings, but not given any actual hard facts to back up what he is saying to be true. Twain uses many different pathoses throughout his essay to try and prove his experiments and/or beliefs like using the reader’s emotions. He uses the reader’s emotions to have them connect or to think on the subject to allow his point to be proven. He also uses ethos by saying that he is using the scientific method. This is trying to have the readers believe that he did conduct these experiments. However, even with the writing style, he uses there is still nothing to prove that animals are better than the human species. Maybe Twain’s attention of writing this essay was to try and convince the human species to

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