Twain and Religion

I love the excerpts from Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar at the beginning of each chapter. A lot of the quotations have definite religious meaning, particularly alluding to the garden of eden story. At first I thought this was kind of odd, especially since the book doesn't have strong religious undertones, but maybe that's the point.

I think the calendar quotations may sort of parallel the interjections Jane Austen made within Northanger Abbey; Twain's comments are just embedded into the text a bit more gently (sorry Austen, but you personal tangents were a bit disruptive to the novel's flow). In Northanger Abbey it seemed to me that Austen's use of disruptive anecdotes reflected her intense need to strongly articulate a particular point. The novel itself presents several themes about literature, but Austen seemed to have had such a need to be heard that she literally inserted herself into the text rather than trusting the plot or her characters to vivify her opinions.

In this sense I think Twain's use of the calendar differs a bit since the quotations don't actually disrupt the flow of the novel. However, the purpose seems the same. It seems to me that Twain is also very plainly inserting his own opinions and themes within the text. The calander allows him to make statements about life that may deviate slightly from the themes the plot is building, while still presenting a memorable opinion that is concise and often humorous.

That being said, maybe the religious comments in the calendar are not so much meant to parallel or strengthen a developing religious theme within the book. Perhaps Twain is simply using them as a medium of getting an opinion off his chest. This seems especially plausible when looking at Twain's own religious life. Though he was a Presbyterian, he often criticized organized religion; some of these quotations can definitely reflect that view. I read online that though he believed in God he didn't believe in an afterlife or the Bible as a divine revelation. Many of his statements, like i mentioned earlier, poke fun at Adam and Eve. That could definitely be interpreted as his criticism of organized religion.

With all this being said, I think Twain probably chose this medium to comment on religion as it is fairly non-confrontational. Because religion can be a delicate subject, Twain probably chose to shroud his opinions in harmless jokes, while still intending for them to leave an impression.