Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
Jim is ruined as a servant because he claims to have seen the devil and been ridden by witches, implying supernatural explanations for his downfall.
In plain terms
He blames his ruin on supernatural encounters.
What can you take from it?
Superstitions can be used to explain personal failures.

Where it applies

  • discussing folklore
  • examining personal blame

Putting it to work

  • question supernatural explanations
  • seek practical causes

Questions to consider

  • Why do people attribute failures to supernatural forces?
  • How can we address underlying issues without myth?

Another view

The claim may be metaphorical rather than literal.

More from Samuel Langhorne Clemens

  1. You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twai…

    Permalink to quote #80
  2. We catched fish and talked, and we took a swim now and then to keep off sleepiness. It was kind of solemn, drifting down the big, still river, laying on our ba…

    Permalink to quote #82
  3. Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find…

    Permalink to quote #79

Related quotes

  1. In every adversity of fortune, to have been happy is the most unhappy kind of misfortune.

    Ancius BoethiusAncius Boethius quote #3
  2. L'homme n'est ni ange ni bete, et le malheur veut que qui veut faire l'ange fait la bete.

    Blaise PascalBlaise Pascal quote #4
  3. When the loud day for men who sow and reap Grows still, and on the silence of the town The insubstantial veils of night and sleep, The meed of the day's labour…

    Aleksandr PushkinAleksandr Pushkin quote #5