46 pages • 1 hour read
Mark TwainThe Mysterious Stranger
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1916A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 7-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary
Marget hosts a party since she is no longer shunned. Satan arrives, drawing attention from the townspeople, who whisper about the handsome stranger living in Eseldorf. The astrologer, who attended uninvited, is determined to prove the presence of witchcraft. After knocking over a bottle of wine, he tests his theory by pouring it into a bowl. The astrologer is able to fill the entire bowl while the bottle remains full. As guests panic, and Father Adolf blesses the house, Satan possesses the astrologer. The frightened guests flee the party.
The tumult draws the rest of the villagers out of their houses, where they see the astrologer wreaking havoc in the middle of town. They fear God abandoned Eseldorf and consider what may happen if news of the astrologer’s possession spreads. The villagers spend hours discussing how to purify their town but cannot agree on strategies. As the conversation ends, Theodor returns to Marget’s house to check on her. She is distraught, believing her house to be cursed.
Later that night, Satan wakes Theodor and asks where he would like to travel. They arrive on a mountaintop in China. Theodor confronts Satan about his behavior and warns him to consider the consequences of his actions. Satan says he knows the outcome of everything that will happen. He describes humans as having “suffering-machines” and “happiness-machines” (58). Since these machines are constantly attempting to balance themselves, a brief moment of sadness can lead to happiness in the future. Satan affirms that he does not hate the villagers; he feels nothing for them because they are fundamentally different from him: “Man is to me as the red spider is to the elephant. The elephant has nothing against the spider [...] I have nothing against man. The elephant is indifferent; I am indifferent” (59).
Satan’s actions are meant to positively impact the villagers’ “careers,” or life paths. This fortune may come in days or in generations and will be the result of Satan’s intervention. An individual’s actions determine their career, and they are relatively easy to change. He says that he altered Nikolaus’s career while changing that of Lisa Brandt, a young girl in Eseldorf. Nikolaus was slated to live sixty-two years but will now die in twelve days while trying to save Lisa from drowning. Theodor is horrified, but Satan explains that Nikolaus’ original sixty-two years were destined to be spent bedridden from illnesses incurred while saving Lisa’s life. He insists this change is merciful. Satan’s promise that Father Peter’s name will be cleared and that he will live a happy life comforts Theodor, but he is concerned when Satan says that he will be unaware of his innocence.
Chapter 8 Summary
Theodor is unable to sleep, thinking only of Nikolaus. He recalls times when he treated him cruelly and feels grateful that Nikolaus always offered him grace. He and Seppi vow to be with him for the rest of his days to ensure Nikolaus’s happiness. When the boys see Nikolaus after learning of his fate, he notices they are upset and tries to cheer them up. He tells them he is excited since Satan, hearing his jealousy of Theodor’s trip, promised to take him on a wonderful journey. This is planned for the day of his death. Despite their emotions, the boys fulfill their promise. Theodor reflects, “It was an awful eleven days; and yet, [...] they are still a grateful memory to me, and beautiful” (70).
After Nikolaus spends his final night out late, his mother grounds him. The next day, Theodor and Seppi ask his mother to keep him company, thinking he might be saved. His mother says she let Nikolaus leave the house because Lisa Brandt’s mother came by, frantically searching for her daughter. When news of Nikolaus’s noble sacrifice reaches his mother, she is inconsolable, believing she sent him to his death. Lisa’s mother is similarly distraught, recounting previous dreams about her daughter being in danger and her prayers to God to spare her. She vows to never pray again.
The town raises money to give Nikolaus a burial to prevent him from going to purgatory. A carpenter to whom Lisa’s mother is in debt steals her body. It rots for four days before being buried in a cattle pen. This causes Lisa’s mother to go insane and walk the town cursing God and the church. The boys beg Satan to help, unable to stand the suffering that his interventions have yielded. He changes Frau Brandt’s career, causing her to argue with Fischer the weaver. This will lead to her burning at the stake for witchcraft. Since he knows that Frau Brandt will go to heaven, she will have more time there than she originally would have had. Fischer will live comfortably and die at ninety but will now go to Hell. The boys resolve to stop asking Satan for help.
After Frau Brandt dies, Satan offers to show Theodor and Seppi the entire progress of the human race. When they see the advent of Christianity, Satan observes that it “[leaves] famine and death and desolation in [its] wake” (80). In the future, Christianity will be used to justify atrocities. He also says that humans will be endlessly subservient to “a parcel of usurping little monarchs and nobilities who despise you” and questions why they would choose to perpetuate such a miserable existence (81).
Chapters 7-8 Analysis
Until now many of Satan’s ideas have appeared to be nonsensical. He claims to be aiding the villagers; however, so far, most of his actions have been catastrophic. The wallet leads to Father Peter’s imprisonment, and the lucky cat causes Marget and Ursula to be accused of witchcraft. These chapters give the reader a glimpse into why Satan’s actions seem cursed. He is trying to help humans balance their “happiness-machines” (58). This balance may not occur right away, but since he is an omnipotent angel, he knows it will happen sometime in the future. These ideas relate to his disparaging view of the Moral Sense. Since the Moral Sense fails when individuals misinterpret right and wrong (either out of ignorance or malice), Satan steps in to carefully guide their actions and change their careers.
Satan’s intervention leads to the very thing he despises; he thinks that Eseldorf is too beholden to religion, but in possessing the astrologer, he increases the town’s religious fervor. The astrologer’s behavior causes the town to believe that God is no longer watching over them. They are driven to increase the frequency of their witch hunts in hopes of appeasing God. It could be argued that Satan knows this will bring long term happiness to the village. However, another interpretation is that Satan is lying about the extent of his powers. One of his only consistent views is his disdain for humanity, and this calls his motives into question. It is possible that his actions are all part of a cruel trick.
Nikolaus’s death is forces Theodor to confront his past moral failings. Upon learning his days are numbered, Theodor is haunted by “cases where I had wronged him or hurt him [...] and my heart was wrung with remorse [...]” (67). He realizes the admiration and care he felt for Nikolaus were not always represented in his treatment of him. The hypocrisy Satan has been discussing throughout the book is finally clear to him through his past mistakes. Although his perspective is not directly considered, it can be inferred that Seppi is experiencing similar feelings. On one of his final days, he tells Theodor, “We always prized him, but never so much as now, when we are going to lose him” (70).
Though Frau Brandt is despised by the town at the time of her burning, Twain presents her as a sympathetic character. Her daughter’s corpse being desecrated in a cattle pen prompts her mental breakdown. She is also reacting to another hypocritical deployment of the Moral Sense: The carpenter believes he is in the right to punish her for failing to repay her debt, but he is merely trying to retain his power in the situation and gain revenge by tormenting her. Similarly, the Moral Sense leads to her death: Fischer the weaver reports her after she argues with her, assuming that is a reasonable reaction to the situation. Even though Frau Brandt is repeatedly failed throughout her short time in the novella, she still manages to die with grace. She refuses to succumb to the mob mentality during Frau Brandt’s burning, and she tries to appeal to their common upbringing, telling them, “We played together once, in long-agone days when we were innocent little creatures. For the sake of that, I forgive you” (79). Though Eseldorf is plagued by villagers who will stop at nothing to conform to whatever hateful lie is being spewed, she uses her dying moments to try to establish genuine commonality with her former playmates.
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