Critical Essay of Mark Twain’s “The Damned Human Race”

Mark duette, by means of a operose dose of satire, irony, and a non-so-subtle contract at the scientific method, leads readers with an legal, exclusively flawed, argument as to why man argon the lowest of animals in his try on The Damned Human Race. darn the seek is successful in providing facts that support matess claim of tenders have descended from animals, and not the new(prenominal) way around, his diagonal and pessimism towards the human race in general powerfully emanates from the attempt, and he does not provide some(prenominal) luck for the reader to gather any evidence to the setback of his beliefs, further limiting the legitimacy of his argument.Twain provides several thinking(a) reasons for stating that humans argon worse than animals, all conveyed in an effective manner. He makes simple and definitive statements which are generally believed to be true of humans and not animals, and elaborates on these statements to pin present just what is wrong with human beings. For example, Twain states Man is the scarce Patriot (Twain). While most believe this to be a coercive trait of humans, Twain immediately follows this statement by stating that humans are the only species to kill unmatchable another for their countries, writing Man is the only Patriot.He sets himself aside in his own country, under his own flag, and sneers at the other nations, and keeps multitudinous uniformed assassins on spend at serious expense to grab slices of other peoples countries, and keep them from grabbing slices of his. And in the intervals in the midst of campaigns he washes the blood off his hands and kit and caboodle for the universal brotherhood of man, with his m turn outh.(Twain) Twain goes to on to point out that humans are the only species that channel slaves, are the only species to take more(prenominal) than they need, and the only species that claim religions, and provides specific examples of different types of animals behaving differe ntly in this regard (Twain). His points are effective arguments beca consumption he uses facts and quick language to solidify each point that he makes, and does so in a way that leaves petty(a) for argument.While the points that Mark Twain makes in his essay are for all intents and purposes true, and he conveys his beliefs in a very effective manner, the essay as a satisfying is not a successful argument, largely because he primarily uses only one of the three main means of persuasion. Twain provides facts throughout his essay that are generally hard to argue with in regards to the terrible things that humans are capable of that animals are not, but does not use emotion to trigger a response from the reader.This could be by design because of his use of heavy satire, and the fact that this was pen in a scientific manner quite, which generally are written to not contain the authors emotions. There is a clearly lack of ethical appeal, or ethos, in Twains essay because of the f act that he is writing this in an official scientific capacity, though he is clearly not a scientist. He also does not provide information that may contradict his beliefs, which prohibits the reader from convention opposing views of the story.Twain could have easily provided facts and arguments that point out the good things that human beings are capable of that animals are not, such as charities, social welfare programs, and health check care. With that said, The Damned Human Race is an essay containing heavy satire, something that Twain makes apparent almost immediately by stating I have not guessed or speculated or conjectured, but have used what is commonly called the scientific method (Twain).By the time that this essay was published in 1905, Twain was an established as a long-familiar author, known for his humor and famous works rather than scientific prowess. Also, at this point in his behavior, Twain was also very open about his boilersuit disdain for the human race in ge neral, maybe due to circumstances regarding his family and life experiences, though it has been debated that Twain had no more of a troubled life than most normal people (Byrne 19).All of these things prohibit his essay from being considered a legitimate argument, and points to it being more a rant by the author, however effective it may be. While Mark Twain provides galore(postnominal) solid facts about the human race that are true and should be noted by the reader, the heavy doses of clear bias and satire overwhelm any legitimacy the essay could possibly carry. It is also punishing to ignore the cynicism throughout the piece, even in the belong line when Twain is describing the human races declension from animals, stating, under us, nothing (Twain).