While reading Mark Twain’s “Letters from Earth,” I
couldn’t help but wonder what God would have thought of Satan’s observations,
particularly those observations he makes in regards to what heaven is like in
the human mind. At the beginning of the story God discusses what humans will be
like. He says he will “put into each individual, in differing shades and
degrees, all the various Moral Qualities, in mass, that have been distributed…
among the non speaking animal world” (Twain 309). Here it seems that God wants
all humans to be unique and that no two people in the world will be alike.
However, as the story goes on and Satan reports back to
Gabriel and Michael from Earth, the humans Satan describes are far from God’s
vision. While humans are described as being unique from each other on Earth, as
God had intended, they all strive to be the same in Heaven. Satan first
describes the diversity among men and their intellects pointing out that every
man “possesses a skill of some kind and takes a keen pleasure in testing it,
proving it, perfecting it” (Twain 311). In other words, every man attempts to
make his individual traits shine. However, all men strive to go to Heaven,
where, according to man, everyone is the same. In Heaven, according to man,
everyone sings, everyone plays the harp, and everyone is celibate.
After reading Satan’s description of man’s Heaven, it is
not hard to believe that God would have been ashamed of humans for making their
ultimate goal to become like each other. God worked hard to make each
individual human unique and in return human’s all try to act like each other in
order to make it to Heaven where they will all essentially be clones of each
other. If God would have read Satan’s letters, he could have gained some
insight into human beings that he may not have seen because he is biased to
love them. Perhaps, if God had read Satan’s letter, the human race would have
been destroyed and started over again.
Twain,
Mark. "Letters From Earth." The Norton Anthology of American
Literature. New York: W. W. Norton &, 2007. Print.
I too wondered what God’s reaction would be while reading Letters from the Earth. I was hoping at the end to get God’s response to Satan. I disagree that God would “have gained some insight into human beings” from Satan’s letters. The Christian God is generally viewed as omniscient, seeing both the good and the bad in people, but because he loves them, he will forgive the bad. Also, he does acknowledge upon creation that all the humans will have a little bit of each quality – the good and the bad in him (309). I believe God would have a more positive view toward humans than Satan does, but he may express some disappointment in the “Human-Race experiment” as Satan terms it (309). I would have like to see his views on the humans after the creation, as the only ones we were provided with were his view upon creating them.
ReplyDeleteSimilarly, the entire time I was reading, I kept wondering what God would say in response to how humans perceive God. Satan distinguishes the God he describes in his letters from the God he personally knows by calling the God of people the “Bible God” (316). However, he never comments on how accurate humans are at describing the real God. It would have been interesting to see Satan note parallels or contrasts, and it would also have been interesting to see how God would respond to any misconceptions his creation has of him.
That's an interesting point about diversity on earth but similarity in heaven. Jessica also brings up Satan's distinction between "God" and the "Bible God," the latter described in the limited (rather than infinite) terms that human beings are capable of understanding.
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