Essay on Vanity In The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg by...

For the love of Money, People will steal from their brothers, For the love of money, People will rob their own mothers†¦ People who don’t have money Don’t let money change you†¦ -- The O’Jays nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;After reading quot;The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg,quot; by Mark Twain, the (above) song quot;For The Love of Money,quot; by the ramp;b singing group The O’Jays resounded fervently in my head. The song’s ongoing message of the ill affects money can have on a person almost parallels that of Twain’s brilliant story of vanity, greed, revenge, and honesty, or should I say dishonesty. The story displays how much an entire town is willing to forsake in order to obtain that which has been known to destroy†¦show more content†¦Vain beyond imagination.quot; (Perkins 379) Although there are other numerous examples that I can pull from to describe the character of Hadleyburg, none do more to exemplify its character than the following passage: quot;†¦this town’s honesty is as rotten as mine is; as rotten as yours. It is a mean town, a hard stingy town, and hasn’t a virtue in the world but this honesty it is so celebrated for and so conceited about†¦quot; (Perkins 378) nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;The next example of characterization used by Twain to support the theme of the story comes through the character of the stranger. Even though the speaker of the story doesn’t reveal much about the stranger, we know that he is a very important character in the work primarily because he sets up the corruption plot of the story. We know little else about his character besides what we find out in the beginning of the story when the town offends him in some way that, for what ever reason, the author chose to leave out of the story. quot;†¦Hadleyburg had the ill-luck of offending a passing stranger†¦it would have been well to make an exception in this one’s case, for he was a bitter man and revengeful.quot; (Perkins 372) While this passage lets us know that the stranger is revengeful and bitter, it leaves us still with little else to go on in terms of his character. We also find out toward the end of the story that the stranger, whose name m ight have been Howard L. Stephenson, couldShow MoreRelatedAnalyzing Twain ´s The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg and The Mysterious Stranger1137 Words   |  5 Pages An enigmatic person strolls into a humble village secluded in the mountains, ignorant to many things. The enigma then enlightens the villagers to the truth whether good or bad. Mark Twain uses such a scenario in many of his works such as The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg, and The Mysterious Stranger. In both stories are set in small towns whos residents are oblivious to their own moral hypocrisy. The sudden appearance of a stranger spreading a sort of knowledge, initiates a chain of events the