'the War-Prayer' in U. S. Popular Culture

Abstract

New Perspectives on “The War-Prayer” Essays on “The War-Prayer” “The War-Prayer” in U.S. Popular Culture John HAN Since its publication, Mark Twain’s short but brilliantly crafted story “The War- Prayer” has been an archetypal text for screenplays dealing with the horror of war, as well as a popular tool for advocates of non-violence or pacism in the United States. Screen- writers use it as a dramatic vehicle to enrich the meaning of their screenplays and scripts, peace activists feature it at anti-war events and on the World Wide Web, and pacist Chris- tian sermons draw moral lessons from it. This essay examines how Twain’s satirical story functions as a moral and ethical framework for pacist discourse in contemporary Ameri- can popular culture. “The War-Prayer” constitutes part of the 1981 television  lm The Private History of a Campaign That Failed directed by Peter H. Hunt. (Based on Twain’s short story of the same title, it was released in the VHS format in 2002). Set in the Civil War period, this eighty-nine-minute action/adventure movie focuses on a group of scared teenage soldiers, who go to the battleeld without proper training, without understanding the reality of war, and without understanding the reason for war. The  lm ends with the arrival of the ghost of Edward Herrmann at a church, who delivers Twain’s “The War-Prayer” as an anti-war epilogue. Like the white-robed “lunatic” in Twain’s story, Herrmann exposes the dreadful implications of a sermon delivered by a jingoistic, triumphalist preacher (Twain 425). “The War-Prayer” was also an inspiration for the seventh episode of the sci- drama Babylon 5. Written by D. C. Fontana, author of Star Trek: The Original Series, it was orig- inally televised on March 9, 1994, and has been produced in both VHS and DVD formats. The episode entitled The War Prayer takes place in the year 2258. A heavy  ve-mile-long outer-space way station created to prevent another war, Babylon 5 is a place where hu- mans and aliens can work out their differences peacefully—a home away from home for diplomats, hustlers, entrepreneurs, and wanderers. Visited by various species, the station imposes one absolute rule for those who are onboard: no racism is allowed. In this particular episode, the clandestine Home Guard, a militant pro-Earth organiza- tion popular on the planet Earth, launches a series of attacks on prominent aliens on the station, thereby threatening to dash humanity’s last hope for peace. Babylon 5’s Com- mander Jeffrey Sinclair (Michael O’Hare) counterattacks the Home Guard with the help of chief security ofcer Michael Garibaldi (Jerry Doyle), Lieutenant Commander Susan Ivanova (Claudia Christian), and other characters. In the  lm, there is an unmistakable