Was It Heaven? Or Hell?

The Mark Twain I read was titled “Was It Heaven? Or Hell?” The basic premise of the story was that there’s a housheld of four women - Margaret, her daughter Helen, and Margaret’s aunts, Hannah and Hester. All the women are very devout Christians and absolutle hate lies. The two aunts are shocked when a doctor that examines Margaret lies and tells her she’s doing well, but explains that everyone lies, without exception.

The aunts are unwilling to accept what he says, but when Margaret’s daughter also contracts the fever they start lying and telling Maragaret she’s perfectly healthy, although they feel extremely guilty. Both mother and daughter die, and then it gets really fucked up - an angel asks the aunts, Hannnah and Hester, to repent their lies. They both explain that they were deceptive to keep the dying woman happy. The angel returns and decrees whether they’ll go to Heaven or Hell, than the narrator asks: “Was it Heaven? Or Hell?” and it ends.

So yeah, pretty strange. The story is basically a parable by Twain, who seems to be saying that lying is natural, and that even if it is a sin, good can come out of it. All in all this is similar to “The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg” in that he’s pointing out the same kind of hypocrisy. “Was It Heaven? Or Was It Hell?” definitely belongs with the whole “angry and bat-shit crazy” portion of Mark Twain’s life. It’s somewhat amusing and I agree with his point, but overall I didn’t enjoy it because of the whole…. you know, bat-shit crazy thing.