Twain's Rhetoric of Irony in 'the War-Prayer'

Abstract

Mark Twain Studies Vol. 2 Twain’s Rhetoric of Irony in “The War-Prayer” Helen LOCK The point made by Mark Twain’s “The War-Prayer” (1905) is simple, even simplistic: that the unspoken part of the desire for victory over the enemy is the desire that misery and death befall others. The irony, as noted by the stranger who comments on this silent prayer, is that it is directed supposedly “in the spirit of love” to “Him who is the Source of Love” (398). In fact, Twain’s piece makes this irony unmissable, as it ends with the failure of the congregation even to understand the stranger’s point, let alone to take it to heart: “It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he