The War Prayer

Mark Twain’s story can be read as an allegory with the characters acting as stand-ins for ideas. Through this lens, the stranger might represent pacifism or reason, while the church, standing in for society, represents ignorance and popular delusion. The story chiefly functions as social criticism with Twain relying on satire to make his points about the consequences of nationalism, the hypocrisy of organized religion, and the realities of war. He uses hyperbole, a key component of satire, to illustrate the patriotic fervor gripping the country, writing, “in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism” (Paragraph 1). Irony, another component of satire, is exemplified by the church praying, in the name of love, for God to help them kill their enemies. Another example of irony is the church labeling the stranger a lunatic when, in actuality, he speaks the truth.

The story’s social criticism is further evident in its central conflict. On one side is the stranger, while on the other is the church. The stranger, on a mission to effect change, takes a stand for peace. The church, however, proves unwilling or unable to learn from his words. They decided that “there was no sense in what [the stranger] had said” (Paragraph 11). This conflict can be categorized as the individual versus society. In this type of conflict, characters often find themselves combating societal forces that are difficult or impossible for one person to overcome, in this case, forces like nationalistic frenzy and religious zeal.

Writing from a third-person point of view, Twain keeps the characters at an emotional distance, allowing the audience to view them with greater objectivity. In addition, the characters are vaguely defined. None of the characters are given names, and aside from the stranger, none are given much physical description. The characters are faceless and nameless. This distance reinforces the notion that they stand in for ideas. Twain presents the characters as blank canvases so that ideas may be projected upon them. The anonymity of the characters also works thematically, depicting individuals as simply parts of a crowd. For example, the narrator says that “the country was up in arms” (Paragraph 1), suggesting little room for or interest in independent thought or dissension. The church is a mass rather than a collection of unique individuals, which fits given the story’s critiques of groupthink and mob rule. By not naming or extensively describing the characters, Twain allows readers to imagine them for themselves. The characters could exist in the past or present, in one country or region or another, and one religious community or another. The story takes on universal relevance, applicable to any number of wars.

Moreover, Twain does not include any back-and-forth conversation, suggesting that in times of war people do not listen to one another. The dialogue is less dialogue than monologue. In the opening paragraph, the narrator refers to half a dozen people who object to the war, but he does not include the words they say. Twain silences their voices just as the story’s hawkish majority does.

Tonally, the story shifts from hopeful to hopeless. In the beginning, the narrator describes the soldiers marching “down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms” (Paragraph 1), oblivious to the awaiting horrors of war. This image contrasts with one described later by the stranger: the image of a parade of refugees fleeing their war-torn homes, staining “the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet” (Paragraph 9). This tonal shift moves the story from idealizing war to recognizing the reality of war. The narrator goes from writing about toy guns and fireworks in the story’s beginning to writing about the “thunder” of gunfire and artillery shells by the story’s end.

Twain incorporates several rhetorical devices that encourage the text to be spoken aloud. These include frequent use of alliteration, such as “pistols popping,” and onomatopoeia, such as “firecrackers hissing and spluttering” (Paragraph 1). These devices create a vivid reading experience, drawing readers into the story. Twain also uses repetition, evident in the stranger’s prayer: “Help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded” (Paragraph 9). The repetition makes the prayer memorable. This attention to sound and repetition suggests the story is intended to be remembered, spoken, and passed down. If Twain’s generation would not take heed of the stranger’s words (the US had already occupied Cuba and the Philippines by the time it was written), perhaps future generations would.