Theme Essay About the Auto Biography of Mark Twain

Dual Personalities
Essa Rizkallah
pd.1b English

2.23.12



The Autobiography of Mark Twain is a story about Twain’s life in which he pretended that he became mesmerized. He was lying to everyone. After he admitted that he had lied nobody believed him. This story shows that a lie can cover the truth. The message conveyed from Mark Twain is “A lie can hide one's true identity.” It's a bad thing because you can lose sight of who you really are. That is shown through one's actions, words and others’ thoughts on the character.

Firstly, Twain used his words to tell everyone he was mesmerized. He used a magic disk to make him “mesmerized.” Twain responded to the many commands and things people said were around and people were actually interested with this. All this time he is pretending giving people an idea that it isn't a lie, but in all honesty it is a lie.

Actions can show a lot about a person. Everybody knows that hypnotists aren’t real and magic is not either. The fact that he fell under temptation to put himself under memorization shows he is an odd being. In the story it says “Do you see the snake?” and he lies about actually seeing it. Twain is building the tangible lie that everyone is believing and is be amused by. After that he had said “I should be ashamed to confess”

By the end of this story Twain is tired of living his alternate personality and tells the truth to the whole community. He says “I should be exposed and denounced. Because of his great acting and lying he put himself in an inescapable hole. people are not believing him. Is he being mesmerized to say that? who knows? Everyone was so amused reality left them because of the lie.

Altogether this story is a great representation of what a lie can do. If simple stupid lying can lead to change many peoples’ minds, wonder about   how much damage can or will be done with a serious or dangerous lie.