By Madison Nef
Letters from the Earth was collection of Twain’s writings that were published 50 or so years after his death in 1910. These letters seem to be more personal, and it has been questioned if he was writing the letters to be published or if they were private. The papers seem to be his thoughts and feelings about God, Heaven, and he questions his own religious beliefs. Reading the letters, I think Twain was using them almost as a diary or a journal for his thoughts as they seem to be sectioned off and each has its own opinion.
The first few letters talk about humans having an unrealistic view of heaven. Twain had an excellent point- here on Earth, humans hate to be in church for more than 30 minutes, but dream of endless sermons in Heaven. How we don’t want to sing on Earth, but say we will sing the praise of God forever in heaven. It’s true; we have painted a pretty unrealistic portrait of what we want. Naturally that isn’t how I picture heaven- I picture heaven a place made out of clouds where you can eat all you want and not get fat!
All joking aside, some of the other letters are downright bitter- speaking of an unforgiving God and how humans are still held accountable because God holds grudges. Writing from Satan’s perspective, Twain goes on to speak of Adam and Eve’s choice to eat from the Tree of Life. He bashes God for holding it against us when it was only Adam and Eve’s mistake- and I can’t help but agree. Why should WE have to pay for THEIR mistake? At the point in life Twain wrote these letter, he happened to be going through a tough time himself.
His first-born daughter, Susy, got sick and died without him getting to say goodbye to her while he was away on a lecture workshop in Europe. Prior to her death, Susy had been a bit upset with her father because his fame as an author cut his time with her away. She also thought that he should get more recognition as a prestigious author than he did- at the time he was known to be a humorist more than anything in his speeches. Twain went away on a workshop, and Susy stayed behind because she had to recover from being seasick so she could study to become an opera singer.
She didn’t recover and got ill and passed away before Twain got back- before he could make amends. Perhaps Twain had began writing the letters before Susy died- and maybe he felt that God was holding him guilty for it and punishing him for it by not letting him have peace. I recently wrote a blog post about how the first step to forgiving someone is forgiving yourself- maybe Twain felt guilt over what he did (both writing crudely about God and about feeling like he didn’t have enough time with his daughter) and couldn’t forgive himself.
Just a few years after Susy died, Twain’s wife of 34 years, Olivia, died. Right after that a close friend of his died… and all the while he was in the middle of business struggles. I think that Twain may have struggled a religious crisis when all this happened. It must have hit him like a tidal wave, and it probably gave him a good reason to question God. I’ve met people who have been good Christians… and then a loved one dies and they start questioning everything. They begin to blame God for their own faults, and wonder if heaven exists… and these seem to be the themes of “Letters from the Earth”. Even the title makes sense somewhat- “Letters from Earth” being his opinions while here about life after death and what is away from Earth.
Years later, Twain is still a beloved literary figure whose works have never lost their touch. We’ll never know what REALLY inspired his personal letters- we can only ponder and guess. What do YOU think inspired them?
Maddie
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