No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger | Terrible Dreams of Creative Power: The Question of No. 44
In the following essay, Royal examines the enigmatic nature of the character of No. 44, finding him ‘‘neither ominous nor upbeat, but an unstable mixture of both that is representative of many of Twain’s later figures.’’
In his later fiction Twain most fully explores the dynamics of authority and its relationship to the culture of his time. In A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Pudd’nhead Wilson, and the Mysterious Stranger manuscripts, he wrestles with larger troubling issues in ways that he had not, or could not, in his earlier works, and invests these ongoing dialogues in three of the most dominating characters in his canon. Whereas most of their predecessors were either two-dimensional or exceedingly forthright representations, Hank Morgan, David Wilson, and No. 44...
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