The Enemy Conquered by Mark Twain. Short summary

5 seconds

While the narrator was waiting for his aunt, he was visited by his conscience, which turned out to be his worst enemy. He tried to deal with it to no avail. The appearance of his aunt gave him the opportunity to kill his conscience and become a criminal.

1 minute

The protagonist talks about Aunt Mary, who constantly tried to raise him. But when she decided to get him to quit smoking, he stopped paying attention to her. The aunt was going to visit him.

But instead of the aunt, an unpleasant little man showed up, like a parody of the hero. He behaved in a rude manner, like a host. He began to reproach the narrator for various bad deeds. It turned out that it was the conscience of the hero, his worst enemy.

The hero tries to cope with conscience, or better yet, to destroy it. But it would not let him have it, and mocked him in every possible way. Killing it was impossible. Then the narrator resorted to cunning.

He began to ask his conscience about the same creatures that possess other people, about their habits and weaknesses. The conscience babbled that it might fall asleep. The narrator used it. When his hated Aunt Mary appeared, the conscience fell asleep, and the hero killed her.

Having lost his conscience, the hero became a criminal and killed people in packs.