Lesson FifteenLesson Fifteen

The Damned Human RaceThe Damned Human Race Mark TwainMark Twain

Pre-class work: What do you know about Mark Twain? Can you name some books he wrote?

About the author:

Mark Twain (1835---1910) was born Samuel Langhorne Clements in Florida, Missouri, but lived as a child in Hannibal, Missouri, on the Mississippi River. He took the pen name Mark Twain from the call of the pilots on the river steamers, which indicated that the water was twelve feet deep, a safe depth for a steamer.During his early years, he worked as a riverboat pilot, newspaper reporter, printer, and gold prospector. But then he turned to writing, and became one of the greatest of American writers.

His masterpiece:

Innocents Abroad 1869

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer 1876

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn 1885

Life on the Mississippi 1883

The Prince and the Pauper 1882

His writing style:

hilariously humorous

bitterly satirical

About the story:

The author writes about ugly human traits and dispositions. In his opinion, human beings are not ascended from the lower animals but descended from the higher animals.

Detailed Discussion of the Text

Paragraph 1

1.      I have been studying the traits and dispositions of the “lower animals”, and contrasting them with the traits and dispositions of man. I find the result humiliating to me.

I have been studying the characteristics of the so-called lower animals in comparison with those of man. The result of this study makes me, as a man, feel terribly ashamed.

traits and dispositions: characteristics; features; nature; qualities; personalities

humiliating: making me feel ashamed; embarrassing; mortifying

Notice the tongue-in-cheek way the author expresses his ideas. He makes it sound as if he were conducting and reporting on the result of a scientific investigation. In other words, he is deliberately using a pompous style to achieve humor.

2.      For it obliges me to renounce my allegiance to the Darwinian theory of the Ascent of Man from the Lower Animals and to name it the Descent of Man from the Higher Animals.

Because the result of my study forces me to give up (to abandon) my loyalty to (firm belief in ) Darwin’s theory of evolution and to change the theory of the Ascent of Man from the Lower Animals to the theory of the Descent of Man from the Higher Animals.

to oblige sb to do sth: to force sb to do sth; to make it necessary for sb to do sth

to renounce: to abandon or give up; to reject or disown

allegiance: loyalty, esp. to a nation or a cause

Darwinian theory

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1.      That is to say, I have subjected every postulate that presented itself to the crucial test of actual experiment.

In other words, I have put every theory or hypothesis there is to the decisive test of actual experiment.

to subject sht/ sb to sth: to cause sb/sth to undergo or experience sth unpleasant or difficult and often for a long time,e.g.

They were subjected to very cruel tortures.

The desertification subjected people living in that area to great hardships.

postulate: (fml) assumption; theory; hypothesis

that presented itself: that happens or exists, e.g.

when the opportunity presents itself you must seize it at once.

Paragraph 3

1.   It also seemed to suggest that the earl was descended from the anaconda, and had lost a good deal in the transition.

It also seemed to show that the earl came from the anaconda and had lost a lot of the anaconda’s good qualities in the process.

to be descended from sb: to be related to sb who lived a long time ago

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1.      I was aware that many men who have accumulated more millions of money than they can ever use have shown a rabid hunger for more, and have not scrupled to cheat the ignorant and the helpless out of their poor saving in order to partially appease that appetite.

I knew that many men who have more money than they can ever use have shown a mad desire to get more, and they have not hesitated to cheat poor people and their few saving in order to satisfy that desire.

rabid: uncontrollable (Note: it is related to rabies, which is an acute, infectious and often fatal disease of dogs, also known as hydrophobia, transmitted by the bite of the infected animal)

to have not scrupled to do sth: to have not hesitated to do sth because of trouble conscience or embarrassment from moral considerations

to cheat sb out of sth: to trick or deceive sb in order to get an advantage, e.g.

to cheat sb out of his money or job or land,etc

Compare: to talk sb out of sth; to trick sb out of sth

the ignorant and helpless: the uneducated and powerless people; the poor laboring people in general

to appease: to satisfy or relieve (hunger, thirst, desire, etc)

Paragraph 7

1.      Cats are loose in their morals, but not consciously so. Man, in his descent from the cat, has brought the cat’s looseness with him but had left the unconsciousness behind—the saving grace which excuses the cat.

Cats are immoral, but they do not know it. They just can’t help it. Man has inherited cats’ looseness, but not their innocence, which is what excuses the cat for its low morals.

to be loose in morals: immoral

the saving grace: the redeeming quality; the quality that makes up for the generally negative characteristics.

Paragraph 8

1.      Indecency, vulgarity, obscenity--- these are strictly confined to man; he invented them.

These are only man’s problems. They are limited to man. They only happen to man

2.      No--- Man is the Animal that Blushes. He is the only one that does it--- or has occasion to.

No, man is not the only animal that laughs, but it is true that man is the animal that blushes. He is the only animal that does it or has the need to.

to have occasion to do sth: to have the need or necessity to do sth

Notice that Mark Twain is saying here that only man needs to blush because he consciously does bad, immoral things.

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1.      Man--- when he is King John, with a nephew to render untroublesome, he uses a red-hot iron;In the case of King John who wanted to get rid of his nephew he used a red-hot iron to torture him.

King John: was the youngest son of Henry II. During his brother Richard I’s absence on the third Crusade, John himself declared king and later held his brother in captivity.He was believed to have murdered his nephew Arthur I of Brittany. This and many other cruel things he did made him extremely unpopular, and finally a civil war resulted during which he died, presumably poisoned.

to render sb untroublesome: to cause sb to become untroublesome; to prevent sb from making trouble for him (King John’s throne had been stolen from his nephew. Therefore he thought his nephew posed a threat to him.)

King John

  

King John

2.     …in the first Richard’s time he shuts up a multitude of Jew Families in a tower and sets fire to it;

the first Richard: Richard first, King of England , otherwise known as the Lion-Hearted.

to set fire to: to make sth start burning

Notice that it does not mean the same as “to make/light a fire” or “to build a fire”.

The Lion-Heart of England

The Lion-Heart of England

3.      The cat is moderate--- unhumanly moderate,… she doesn’t dig out its eyes, … or drive splinters under its nails--- man-fashion; when she is done playing with it, she makes a sudden meal of it and puts it out of its trouble.

unhumanly moderate: reasonable, not so violent, not so excessive or extreme, unlike human beings( Unhumanly is not to be mixed up with inhuman. It is actually a word coined by the writer.)

man-fashion: like man; as man does

to be dong doing sth: to finish doing sth

to make a meal of: to eat it up

to put sb out of his trouble: to end sb’s trouble

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1.      There is not an acre of ground on the globe that is in possession of its rightful owner…

Not a single pieces of land is in the hands of its original owner. Every piece of land has been stolen.

Mark Twain is referring to the fact that the world has been, in the course of history, divided and re-divided countless times through war.

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1.        Man is the only Slave. And he is the only animal who enslaves. He has always been a slave in one form or another, and has always held other slaves in bondage under him in one way or another.

Mark Twain is referring to the idea that in the history of human civilization, our society has always been based on some kind of exploitation of man by man. No one is free. Everyone is a slave of one form or another and at the same time enslaved those under him.

to hold sb in bondage: to keep sb in the state of being a slave

Paragraph 13

1.      … and in the intervals between campaigns he washes the blood off his hands and—works for “the universal brotherhood of man”---with his mouth.

…and when they are not fighting each other, they will start talking about peace and universal brotherhood, but without any sincerity. Man, according to Mark Twain, is not only cruel and warlike, but also hypocritical.

to work for… with his mouth: to pay lip service to …; to give empty promises to…

the universal brotherhood: the idea that all living human beings are brothers and sisters to each other四海之内皆兄弟的思想；博爱Note that the word man= humankind （ men and women ）。 The world brotherhood also includes women in this sense.

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1. Man is the Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion--- several of them.

Man claims to be the only animal capable of religious belief. Religion of course is considered here something much more important and noble than animal instincts because it emphasizes the spiritual and moral life of human beings. But Mark Twain sneers at this because the different religious in the world have resulted in endless religious suppressions, persecutions and wars.

2. He was at it in the time of the Caesar’s, he was at it in Mohammed’s time, he was at it in the time of the inquisition, he was at it in France a couple of centuries, he was at it in England in Mary’s day, he had been at it ever since he first saw the light

to be at sth: to be engaged in a certain activity

The Caesars: in the times of Caesars, the early Christians were cruelly persecuted by the Romans.

Julius Caesar

Mohammed: in Mohammed’s time, the Muslims were cruelly persecuted. Inquisition: it means that “inquiry” or “investigation”. Specifically, it refers to the former tribunal in the Roman Catholic Church directed at the suppression of heresy. (Queen) Mary: in Mary’s day, the Protestants were persecuted. to see the light: to come into existence, to be born.

Mary Tudor:

commonly known as Bloody Mary, Queen of England.

Paragraph 17

1. And so I find that we have descended and degenerated, from some far ancestor--- some microscopic atom wandering at its pleasure between the mighty horizons of a drop of water perhaps… down the long highway of perfect innocence, till…

And so I find that without knowing it, we have descended and deteriorated from our ancestor---some tiny atom which moved about freely and happily in the huge world of a drop of water perhaps… perfectly innocence during this long process of change… until we have fallen to the bottom, to the lowest stage of our development and become human beings.

to do sth at one’s own pleasure: to do sth when you want to

microscopic: extremely small, only seen under a microscope

mighty: awesomely huge

the long highway of perfect innocence: the long process of our change from one insect into another, one animal into another and one reptile into another, all completely innocent, until we become human beings and lose all our innocence.

Organization of the text:

This slightly abridged essay is organized like a paper to report results of a scientific experiment. It has a thesis statement at the beginning and a brief summing-up at the end. The main body is arranged according to the various straits and disposition of human beings as contrasted to the “higher animals”. However in the second part of the body the author begins to use a polemic tone. He seems to be arguing with people who believe in man’s superiority because they can reason, have moral principles and religion, and love their neighbors and country.

Conclusion of the text:

It is wrong to think that Mark Twain is pessimistic or cynical. He is neither. Behind all the bitterness is a warm and human heart. Mark Twain does not really believe that human beings are incurably cruel, greedy and wicked. Otherwise he would not have bothered to write those essays. He writes about ugly human traits and dispositions precisely because he thinks human beings are capable of mending their ways if they can open their eyes to their own weaknesses and understand the conditions that give rise to them and nurture them. In other words, his policy is to frighten in order to enlighten.

Homework:

In Book 3, there is a text entitled “We Are Only Human” in which the author strongly argues that we human beings should be and can be superior to other animals. But in this article, the author feels strongly that human beings are the least fit for survival. What do you think of these two authors’ views?