¶ … Satan has many names in literature, beginning with the Bible, and they are not limited to the image that people have come to associate with his person. For example, Lucifer means "Angel of Light" (apparently the station from which he fell), but he has also been called "The Prince of the Power of the Air," "The Devil," "The Prince of Demons," and, more in line with the needs of this story, "Mephistopheles." He, or a character very like him, is seen as the central opposite of good in many legends, stories, religious writings and artistic depictions throughout history. It seems every culture has to believe in the dichotomous good and evil, so there has to be a primarily "good" character, and a primarily "bad" character. The two stories selected for this comparison contrast paper, Mark Twain's "The Mysterious Stranger" and Goethe's "Faust," use Satan as a central theme, but they explore that theme in very different story lines. This paper summarizes the two stories, evaluates the contents with regard to a comparison, and then contrasts how the two stories have depicted their "Satan" character.
Summaries
Mark Twain is known as a writer of satirical pieces that may sometimes approach metaphysics and the occult, but his stories never quite devolve from their humorous undertones to take on more serious matters directly. Of course, it could be that Twain (nee Clemens) never though that the other world that other people believed in was all that serious in and of itself to be neglected in his satirical views of the world as a whole. Like others were beginning to believe at the time, he could have believed that intellectualism trumped (or trumps) spiritualism since one deals with the tangible and the other very intangible, therefore unreal, matters. Whatever his thoughts about the worlds of gods and demons, he included them both in many of his stories.
The last novel, or it could be said to be a collection of short stories, Twain ever wrote was about a boy who can do wondrous things and called himself Satan; not the Satan of the Bible, but his nephew (Twain 14). The book is appropriately entitled "The Mysterious Stranger." Twain had long been trying to reason with people regarding the true nature of God and the devils, but he was not able to get across to people what he believed was the actual personality of the devil. In this story, it can be seen that "Satan" is a demon who is subservient to the real Devil because he mentions the relationship that they have. The fact that he is not the real Devil and that he does some things that seem good, at least at the time, puts the main characters in the book at ease.
The interesting point, at least for the purposes of this paper, regarding Satan is what type of character he exhibits. Many times during the narrative he tries to put his little friends at ease and make them believe that he just wants to play with them. But, from the first he demonstrates powers that are beyond the ken of the youth. One of his first acts upon meeting the three at play is to create a small village out of mud which has tiny living people. He acts toward these creations as a god, and eventually destroys them (much to the chagrin of his playmates), but he seems to have no compassion toward them (Twain 18). The angel tells them that he can do no wrong and then explains why creating a tiny world and destroying it is a kindness rather than something that seemed like murder to the boys. He explained his reasoning to them by telling them that the difference between an immortal and a mortal made this a kindness (Twain 28).
The tale to contrast this one was written by Johann Goethe and is called "Faust." It is a famous tale and has been reworked into many another book, movie...
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