Man is the only living thing that has done evil acts for their own purpose of pleasure and to gain power over others. Man is the only one that commits acts of torture. He is the only one that uses pain as a method of punishment. Not only do men use pain as punishment but they also use it to gain an advantage over others. According to Mark Twain’s satirical essay, “The Lowest Animal”, he expresses “Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, suggest anacondas, cats and squirrels have a mutual trait. That mankind has descended from these animals, contrary to the popular Darwinian Theory that humans are the most evolved animal species. Twain opposes Darwinism with effective pathos and logos, while comparing human and animal nature, and classifying mankind as the lowest creature of all. Twain claims; indecency, vulgarity and obscenity are qualities associated with the useless moral sense existing sole in mankind. Therefore, human’s cruel qualities and erratic behavior are inferior to animal species, which is exactly what Mark Twain defends in the sarcastic evaluation of humanity named, “The Damned Human Race.”
Nielsen Fotis Mr Winson Period 10 April 14, 2023 In 1955, the US involved itself in the conflict to help South Vietnam, a democratic country, fight against North Vietnam, a communist country. However, as citizens found out about corruption and undemocratic actions in South Vietnam, many of them became against the war, these people were doves. While citizens still focused on preventing communists from taking South Vietnam, they were called hawks. The Vietnam War heightened political, economic, racial, and social tensions in the United States because many hawks were for the war, but weren’t the people going to war, while many people going to war were poor or racial minorities.
Money and fine clothes could not mend the defects or cover them up; they only made hem more glaring and more pathetic.” (136)Even though he was a “white man”, he still acted as a slave. Twain is proving that the nurture, or family that someone is raised by shapes their true
Twain use rhetorical appeals and techniques to prove that mankind is the lowest of all. Mark Twain says that he placed animals and cage to create scientific experiences and to shorten this he stated that animals act preferable than human therefore they should be considered the higher animal. Among Twain's argument are humans are never satisfied and are always avaricious toward everything they have. He also demonstrated with examples how man acted in certain situation, an animal with knowledge ,with regard to this an example that can be considered is how animal only accumulate what they need while human are never satisfied , humans accumulated excess of what they can ever consume. Man is by nature avaricious the more they have, the more they desire
Through his writing, Twain displays how people follow the trend because they do not want to be left out in the society. 2. In the beginning of “Corn-Pone Opinions”, Twain uses “I” and then switches to “we” when he refers to the society and how conformity
For instance, “That slanting mark on the water refers to a bluff reef which is going to kill somebody’s steamboat one of these nights, if it keeps on stretching out like that; those tumbling ‘boils’ show a dissolving bar and a changing channel there…that tall dead tree, with a single living branch, is not going to last long, and then how is a body ever going to get through this blind place at night without the friendly old landmark?” (44-51). Here, the reader is able to comprehend that by contemplating about the negative aspects of the river and how it would result in certain obstacles for a pilot of a steamboat, Twains initial view of the Mississippi River was ultimately diminished. Therefore, the author contemplates whether possessing knowledge about the beauty of an aspect and its true connotation truly belittles it compared to only seeing its beauty without thinking. Likewise, Twain contemplates the position of doctors relating their possible viewpoints towards a patient with his circumstances.
Although it is believed that Twain and Douglass reveal that conformity is beneficial, they believe it is detrimental because it suppresses individuality, encourages the targeting
Now when I had mastered the language of this water and had come to know every trifling feature that bordered the great river as familiarly as I knew the letters of the alphabet, I had made a valuable acquisition. But I had lost something, too.(Twain) This single passage shows the essays topological voice by equating his knowledge of letters of the alphabet to the features of the river he begins to display metaphor. This metaphor allows the reader to understand the level of twains mastery of the river, this is the first perspective we are introduced to.
The essay “The Damned Human Race” by Mark Twain has been and still is a very controversial piece of writing. After reading "The Damned Human Race", One could say that Twain supports his argument with clear facts. Mark Twain’s essay used personality and outlooks between humans and animals by comparing them to one another. When analyzing Mark Twain ’s essay “The Damned Human Race” he uses a persuasive writing style that is clear and to the point, he uses pathos and logos to persuade the readers to continue to understand how the human behavior works.
The Lowest Animal by Mark Twain shatters the illusion that the human species is superior in every way to animals. The essay satirizes that animals are superior to the human species through the use of made up experiments. Twain utilizes these experiments to demonstrate the parallels between the behaviors of animals and man. These experiments showcase how animals are the “higher animals”. Even more, the experiments are attempting to prove how we, as man, have descended from these higher animals only to lose a few of their favorable traits.
These techniques revealed Twain’s attitude by showing his overall feeling of how knowledge affects one’s view of nature. In Two Views of the River, Mark Twain uses a combination of imagery, a shift in perspective, and figurative language techniques to reveal his attitude towards the river. Together, they reveal that Twain believes the
Human nature includes characteristics such as thinking, feeling and acting that are shared by all people. While human nature can lead us to be kind and loving, it can also cause us to be competitive, selfish and aggressive. “The Lowest Animal” by Mark Twain and “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July” by Frederick Douglas both display the destructive side of human nature. In Mark Twain’s essay, animals are compared to humans in a number of experiments. He describes humans as cruel, greedy and foolish.
(Twain, 13)” This is an example of greed, instead of using ones’ earnings that is useless to them and giving it to someone that could benefit more from it, one often keeps it. This proves mankind 's trait of greed is consistent, but who is to say that it is not also common in higher animals? Well Mark Twain put this to the test with his experiments, “ I furnished a hundred different kinds of wild and tame animals the opportunity to accumulate vast stores of food, but none of them would do it. The squirrels and bees and certain birds made accumulations, but stopped when they had gathered a winter supply, and could not be persuaded to add to it either honestly or by chicane (Twain,
Another example of metaphor in the novel is how Mr. Twain depicts the characters to enunciate his views of the bigotry of social norms pushing the reader in a sense to understand what he means. Huckleberry Finn with his innocence and Jim with a thirst for equality metaphorically portray the minorities, Pap the trope of humanity that are corrupted and deprived by those that are uncivilized. “You’re educated, too, they say—can read and write. You think you’re better’n your father, now, don’t you, because he can’t?
