in certainly wasn't as politically correct as contemporary newsmen or politicians but his primary occupation was as a satirist. Even today successful comedians, from Saturday Night Live to The Tonight Show, use techniques similar to Twain's irony, satire and burlesque. Every serious Twain scholar knows of Twain's reputation as a burlesque humorist/satirist as well as his anti-imperialist and anti-religious tendencies. The scholar must be careful when labeling or categorizing Twain's work because of his frequent use of sarcasm but Twain definitely liked blacks and abhorred slavery. His treatment of Natives and the Chinese was questionable when looked at apart from his work as a whole, but he slammed the white race more mercilessly than he ever condemned any other race. Sadly, the cynical and sarcastic Mark Twain can never be fully understood because only he knew what thoughts he was trying to convey. Twain often used burlesques to get a point across by showing the ignorant how ignorant they actually are. In Huck Finn, Twain linked religion and slavery by showing how the former can pervert knowledge and cause acceptance of the latter over objections of conscience. When Huck is 'born again', he forgets his vow to aid Jim, and his euphoria as being 'born again' resembles the feeling of being 'light as a feather' that he experiences after deciding to turn Jim over to the slave-catchers (Fulton 83). This commentary is as much about the sorry state of slavery as it is about slavery's Biblical foundation. James L. Johnson dedicated Mark Twain and the Limits of Power to outlining how, like Emerson, Twain's solipsism is a fundamental ingredient in much of [his] best work (Johnson 8). Twain's characters had or wanted an extraordinary ability to dominate the worlds in which they find themselves (Johnson 1). Twain had little faith in a Christian God so he put more faith in the self. Johnson also thought Twain's bitterness increased as he unearthed that the larger and more masterful the Self became, the less benevolent he was likely to be (Johnson 7). Although Twain's life was common because it had limits he envisioned a character who might not have to make those accommodations, a hero who might break out of the prison of limitations into a brighter life (Johnson 187). Frustration with the world, hence a caustic temperament, arose as time wore on but Twain never lost sight and hoped for mastery over it and freedom (Johnson 189). In 1907 Bernard Shaw remarked to Archibald Henderson that, Mark Twain and I find ourselves in the same position. We have to make people, who would otherwise hang us, believe that we are joking (Clemens 5). This point is well illustrated by the fearless Twain in this excerpt from Mark Twain's Jest Book: In the spring of 1899, I was one of a crowd of some 1200 who attended at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York to hear a lecture on his adventures in the South Africa War given by a Lieutenant of Huzzars, one Winston Churchill - and the chair was occupied by Mark Twain. I remember it so well, and the deafening applause which greeted the old gentlemen when he rose to make his introductory speech. When, a long last, silence reigned, his opening sentence staggered me. He began like this: Fellow thieves and robbers! and when the roars of astonished laughter subsided, he continued, I take it that this audience consists of English people and Americans, so I commence my remarks, fellow thieves and robbers - the Americans in the Philippines and the English in South Africa. And more laughter followed when he said But never mind, we're kith and kin in war and sin. -Cyril Clemens (Clemens 15) Carl Van Doren discusses Mark Twain and Bernard Shaw in the March 1925 issue of Century Magazine. He writes, Mr. Shaw makes dramas out of the Lamarckian hypothesis, and Mark Twain out of the Darwinian (Budd 70). Further differences are illustrated by Mr. Shaw can no more dispense with the free will than Mark Twain can confidently use it (Budd 70)

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Approximate Word count = 4834
Approximate Pages = 19 (250 words per page double spaced)