Arenas, 1

Jesse Arenas

Osman

English 3P, Period 0

13 March, 2019

What is Twain’s overall purpose in writing The Lowest Animal? How effective is his use of

satire in achieving that purpose?

Hypocritical Standards

Human beings are immoral, unethical, and greedy compared to other animals thus

making them the lowest animal. Mark Twain expresses this sentiment passionately in the

excerpt “The Lowest Animal,” nevertheless he uses satire as a way to deliver his message

effectively that the human race is incoherently abrasive. He provides many examples and

comparisons between the Human Race and the “lower” animals in the world.

An example of satire can be identified through Twain’s dismantling of religion in “The

Lowest Animal.” By making the comparison between humans and other animals in a cage, he

makes the statement that Humans are cruel. This is proven when he states: “These Reasoning

Animals had disagreed on a theological detail and carried the matter to a higher court” (Twain

186, 187-189). Twain essentially states how these humans had a difference in belief of religion

and killed each other to take it to a “higher court” meaning heaven. Humans perform

unnecessarily cruel acts compared to other animals, Twain exemplifies this through his examples

and use of satire.

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Humans are hypocrites, counterintuitively creating standards when they fall beneath their

own ideals. Twain can be quoted as saying: “Man is the Reasoning Animal...he blandly sets

himself up as the head animal of the lot; whereas by his own standards, he is the bottom one”

(Twain 185, 162/168-170). Twain conveys the overall message of this passage through this

quote by stating how Man’s own standards place him on the bottom of the temple of morality

and ethicality. Humans are immoral and cruel, although the definition of morality is up for one’s

own interpretation, it still ties into the theme of what’s ethical, and what’s unethical.

In a room filled with cruelty and immorality, man is isolated, with no other animal for

company. In “The Lowest Animal,” Twain also states on page 184, lines 116-117: “Man is the

Cruel Animal. He is alone in that distinction.” Twain argues that the only cruel animal is Man,

and goes on to state on page 184 how “Man is the only Slave. And he is the only animal who

enslaves.” He states how “higher” animals do their own work, and don’t enslave others to

complete the work for them. He then proves this by providing the example of birds who search

for their own food and provide for their families without enslavement, referencing the job of

Man, to constantly work for someone over them, and have people working under them.

The importunate abrasiveness of Human beings drastically sets them apart from other

animals, however not in the way most humans would like to believe. The unethical behavior of

Man is exactly what sets him as the “lower animal.” Twain uses satire and comparative

examples of man with other animals to express the message and overall purpose of “The Lowest

Animal” successfully. That message being that Humans are cruel, immoral, greedy, and

unethical, whereas compared to other animals, they (humans) are beneath them.
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Works Cited

Twain, Mark. “The Lowest Animal” ​California Collections, Grade 11.​ Kylene Beers, et al., eds.

Orlando: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017. 373-378. Print.