# XIV explained — Roughing It

> Chapter companion for Roughing It by Mark Twain.

## What happens

Mr. Street recounts his struggles with Mormon subcontractors who abandoned their contract to build telegraph lines across the desert, and how Brigham Young compelled them to fulfill their obligations, revealing Utah as an absolute monarchy under Young. The narrator also reflects on Mormon polygamy with ironic sympathy.

## Themes in this chapter

### Colonialism and Cultural Change

The clash between Gentile business practices and Mormon theocratic authority highlights cultural and legal conflicts in the expanding frontier.

### The Absurdity of Pretension

The narrator's mock-heroic sympathy for Mormon women satirizes the moral outrage over polygamy, exposing hypocrisy.

## Character check-ins

### Mr. Street

Telegraph contractor who sublets work to Mormons and faces contract repudiation; seeks help from Brigham Young.

### Brigham Young

Mormon leader who enforces the contracts, demonstrating his absolute authority over the subcontractors.

### The Narrator

Relates Mr. Street's story and offers ironic commentary on Mormon women and polygamy.

## Key lines

> I was in dismay. I was under heavy bonds to complete my contract in a given time, and this disaster looked very much like ruin.

Mr. Street was panicked because he was legally obligated to finish the telegraph line on schedule, and the Mormons abandoning the work threatened to bankrupt him.

_Highlights the business crisis caused by contract repudiation._

> Then carry them out to the letter, if it makes paupers of you! Go!

Brigham Young ordered the subcontractors to fulfill their contracts exactly, even if it ruined them financially.

_Demonstrates Young's absolute authority over the Mormon community._

> No—the man that marries one of them has done an act of Christian charity which entitles him to the kindly applause of mankind, not their harsh censure—and the man that marries sixty of them has done a deed of openhanded generosity so sublime that the nations should stand uncovered in his presence and worship in silence.

The narrator sarcastically suggests that marrying a Mormon woman is an act of charity, and marrying many is an act of sublime generosity deserving universal praise.

_Ironic commentary on polygamy, mocking both the practice and its critics._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/roughing_it_se/chapters/xiv
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/roughing_it_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/roughing_it_se/chapters