Mark twain's multi-dimensional humor

الملخص EN

The present paper proposes to probe the embedded duality of Mark Twain's humor and seriousness in depicting the baffling contradictions and continuing conflicts during his lifetime.

As a humorist, Twain combined the role of the comedian and the buffoon with that of the philosopher, cynic and satirist.

He believed that life was basically a bad dream, that money ruled the world and that money was intrinsically evil.

He was a savagely cynical realist as well as an idealist who had his own Utopia to project.

Although Twain's works are full of humor that makes the reader laugh, they possess a serious side for they depict a bitter, cynical humor as a result of black depression and loss of faith in the very meaning of existence as in his later novels like A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court and Pudd'nhead Wilson and short stories like The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg and The Mysterious Stranger.