The Mysterious Stranger
The Mysterious Stranger by Mark Twain is a philosophical novel set in 16th-century Austria. Three boys encounter a supernatural being named Satan, who claims to be an angel and demonstrates miraculous powers. He manipulates reality, exposing human hypocrisy, cruelty, and the illusion of free will. As he performs miracles and disrupts lives, he challenges morality, fate, and existence itself. Satan argues that life is meaningless, controlled by illusions and predetermined suffering. In the end, he vanishes, revealing to the narrator that reality itself is an illusion. Left questioning everything, the narrator realizes that nothing truly exists, making the novel a deep exploration of existentialism and human nature.
