Morality In Mark Twain's Morals

In his essay Mark Twain speaks about how mankind invented all the evil in the world, from obscenities to wasteful use of pretty much everything. He states that humans are the only species that openly perform evil regardless of the moral sense. The comparison between humans and animals much to his dismay he is embarrassed that man is the least of the all the evolved species in the world. He was successful in his stance by motivating readers to really take a good look at their own morals, and ways that they are living life.

At the beginning Twain presents himself as if he is a scientist, and by doing so loses creditability to most readers. His stereotyping of the human race as everyone being cruel, greedy and unable to rationalize resources automatically identified with most of society as this is something that is consistently thought by most conservationists. Twain used the example of a buffalo hunt where men killed over seventy buffalo for sport and only used one of the buffalo for resources. The comparison is an Anaconda that has numerous calves but only kills and eats one, and shows no interest in the other calves that it could kill. This analogy essentially states that man is cruel

and destroy things regardless of if they have use for them.
Although Twain’s analogies being false statements, there are however some very strong truths to some of his statements in his essay, that demonstrate a reason for argument. When the comparison between animals and humans is made for example, he stated that man will accumulate excess amounts of money and other things regardless of need. However animals, will only gather what it needs and nothing more, essentially showing that humans have greed whereas animals do not. This is actually a very true statement, given the phrase the rich get richer, it is something that is commonly known to the human species.
The writing of the essay was written in a very biased manner, that forces the reader to look beyond the deeper meaning. The way it is written was to exclude the positive features that man possesses, he did so by stating “man’s moral sense was worse than the disease rabies” however he only stated a problem without a solution. This can lead a reader to believe that Twain’s thesis was not his only reasoning of writing this essay.
Twain uses exaggeration in the way that he identifies and addresses the problems that face society; however he does so without ever actually criticizing the reader. He uses mans corrupted view at war, and slavery, when in fact these are Twain’s feelings towards these issues. His utilization of pathos makes the reader take on and resemble the same anger that Twain himself feels. However by never single handedly identifying any one particular individual no one individual was insulted, thus allowing him to make his statement knowing without ever having to take responsibility for his thoughts towards it.
In his writing Twain persuaded the readers to take a look at their own morals indirectly.

He took that stance to attempt to get the readers to attempt to prove him wrong. His attempt to portray the human race as a “valueless race” thru well written words was successful. However the average person could look at a colony of ants as a species that enslaves other colonies of ants, just as human’s had. Therefore an educated human being would be able to debunk the entire theory that Twain is attempting to prove. His essay almost immediately drives the average person to attempt to prove the overall thought process completely wrong. However his attempt to make people see the error in their ways was completely and utterly a success, and hopefully something the human race looks at

improving.
. In conclusion, Twains ability to expose peoples stupidity in this particular context by using vivid metaphors, persuaded people to read and actually humor his writing of this essay. He took a stand that convinced or persuaded readers to take a hard look at their own morals and views and essentially ensure that they are not in any way living to these values or behaviors, that would be considered bad manners or morals. His ability to persuade readers to do such is nothing short of an act of brilliance in writing, and justify himself as one of the greatest writers to ever live.