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How Does Mark Twain Use Satire In The War Prayer

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Victory for War
In The War Prayer by Mark Twain,he talked about soldiers going to war and it relates kind of to all the wars that have happened before. He talks a lot about describing what the soldiers would go through and their families. He explained how soldiers were really patriotic about the war and the families saying a “ long prayer”. Twain uses satire to express what he thinks about war throughout his prompt he's describing about war and all the praying they did towards the soldiers who left to fight. For example, one way he shows satire is in the beginning of the prompt he says “country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism”(Twain). Twain is showing how the soldiers were ready for war that even their chest was on fire because of how much patriotism they had. When soldiers go to war I don't think there breast burned them for feeling patriotic. This shows how ironic he is because that didn't really happen. Twain trys to explain to the people how the soilders were so happy to go fight and knew they were going to win …show more content…

Like when saying “ if you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor's crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it”(Twain). He's explaining how when you pray for something for yourself you can be hurting someone else environment/living. Also when they pray the mention “drown the thunder of guns with the shrieks of there wounded” and “go forth from the sweet beloved firesides to smite the for”. This is saying to show compassion toward the enemy but yet they are in a sacred place where hate is not shown. This shows satire as well because the people are praying in a church for the soldiers to win a war which is something destructive. That's why this is a little confusing for us the readers to understand what the author is

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