The 1906 book "What Is Man?" by Mark Twain features a discussion about the essence of man between a Young Man and an Old Man. The phrase "what is man, that you are aware of him" is found in Psalm 8:4, which is used in the title. It incorporates psychological egoism, determinism, and free choice beliefs. According to the Old Man, a person is nothing more than a machine that exists just to fulfill one's own wishes and find inner peace. The Young Man protests and asks him to elaborate and give his arguments in support of his stance. Instead of being sarcastic, the essay seems to be an honest and sincere discussion of his beliefs on human nature. He does, however, appear to have had different perspectives on human freedom. Before he wrote "What is Man?," Twain shared the Old Man's opinions. So, readers can read this novel to know human culture in a closure!
Mark Twain (30 November 1835- 21 April 1910) was born in Florida, United States. He was a Humorist, author, and lecturer. He grew up in Hannibal and later moved to California. In a California mining camp, he heard the story that he published in 1865 and made popular as the title story of his first novel, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County and Other Sketches, in 1867. From his humorous stories, The Innocents Abroad (1869) and Roughing It in 1872, to his appearance as a riverboat captain in Life on the Mississippi in 1883, through his adventure stories of childhood, he got a worldwide audience, mainly for Tom Sawyer (1876) and Huckleberry Finn (1885), known as the masterpieces of American fiction. The ironic A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court in 1889. His eldest daughter passed away in 1896, his wife in 1904, and another daughter in 1909. He expressed his depression about the human character in such late works as the after-death published Letters from the Earth (1962).
