The Mysterious Stranger

While The Mysterious Stranger was published in 1916, after Twain’s death, he wrote various drafts throughout the Gilded Age, which spanned approximately thirty years, from the 1870s to the early 1900s and 1910s. Extreme wealth inequality, widespread poverty, and power consolidated among a small but mighty ruling class defined the period in the United States and Europe. Twain’s vivid depictions of human suffering in industrial settings of time, as well as the effects of imperialism, can be interpreted as a critique of this time period. It is impossible to determine Twain’s original intent of the novel due to intervention from his literary executor. However, as seen in his more famous novels such as Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, Twain frequently employed political commentary in his work. Therefore, had he been alive to have more direct oversight over the manuscript’s publication, it is possible that we would be presented with a more robust political commentary.

Many of the events described in The Mysterious Stranger are evocative of issues associated with the Gilded Age. This association is prominently displayed in Chapter 6, when Satan takes Theodor to the French factory. A particularly pressing issue of the Gilded Age was poverty and wealth inequality. The French factory owners described in this passage provide the bare minimum for their workers and force them to live and work in squalor. This is an issue largely associated with the Gilded Age. Many early labor unions emerged during this time period to fight against employers like the ones Satan describes in this passage.

Twain offers a similar critique of the conditions themselves. The vivid language he employs would be evocative for turn of the century readers:

The work-hours are fourteen per day, winter and summer – from six in the morning till eight at night – little children and all. And they walk to and from the pigsties which they inhabit – four miles each way, through mud and slush, rain, snow, sleet, and storm, daily, year in and year out. They get four hours of sleep. They kennel together, three families in a room, in unimaginable filth and stench; and disease comes, and they die off like flies (41).

This passage is suggestive of the working and living conditions that were normalized at the time. During the Gilded Age, weak labor laws meant that employees were often subjected to long, arduous workdays. Gilded Age work environments were also notorious for unsafe conditions, and industrial disasters such as the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire in 1911 defined the period. Similarly, Satan’s description of “three families in a room, in unimaginable filth and stench” is similar to conditions associated with tenement housing, where working poor and immigrant families were often forced to live.

Twain also offers a critique of American imperialism, which was expanding rapidly during this time. Many Western governments sought to expand their influence in the Global South, excited at the prospect of commanding their wealth of natural resources. This was accompanied by rapid growth in American Christian communities, who sought to spread their religion and teachings in the name of “civilizing” the world. Satan frequently criticizes the church and its flawed moral code. In Chapter 10, Satan mentions that non-Christian countries tend to have more open-minded and accepting people. He takes Theodor to India, where he plants a magical fruit-bearing tree for some locals. They are soon interrupted by a “foreigner in white linen and sun-helmet” who claims the tree is on his property and attacks Satan for suggesting it should remain accessible to the villagers for another hour (100). Satan tells the man that he will continue to have “more fruit than you and the state together can consume in a year” (100). When the man continues to refuse, Satan ties his life to the tree, ensuring that he will be forced to stay in India to tend to it. On the surface, this is another journey that shows Theodor the failings of the Moral Sense. However, taken in the context of the time, it can be interpreted as a critique of imperialism and colonialism. The man’s dress references Western uniforms worn by explorers, which suggests he is part of these efforts. He is presented in a negative light and is punished for berating the villagers. In tying his health to the land, Satan forces the man to treat the property as he would himself. This goes against imperialist ideology, with many conquering countries believing that their religion and system of governing makes them superior to local residents and entitles them to take as they please. Twain ties Christianity to imperialism by saying “it will be recognized that all the competent killers are Christians; then the pagan world will go to school to the Christian – not to acquire his religion, but his guns” (82). The Mysterious Stranger uniformly criticizes the political and religious movements that defined the Gilded Age.