Mark Twain's The War Prayer

284 Words2 Pages
The War Prayer In the story, The War Prayer , Mark Twain establishes his message to emphasize the realities of war by exaggerating patriotism, showing the peoples unreasonable views of war, and showing the true actualities of war. In the first part of the story, Twain shows the towns patriotism towards the soldiers. He says it was “a time of great and exalting excitement” then a few lines later says the people were “choked with happy emotion” and “tears running down their cheeks”. Twain shows that this town has the full support of the men fighting in this war. And in every chest had “ the holy fire of patriotism” which shows the “excitement” in the town. But, Twain started to exaggerate. He says there were “nightly mass meetings, listened..