In the following essay, Rule argues that "The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg" is an Edenic analogy, casting Satan in the role of the "man" of the title of the story.

"I have always felt friendly toward Satan," Twain wrote in his Autobiography. "Of course that is ancestral; it must be in the blood, for I could not have originated it." Perhaps it was "ancestral," for Twain described in another passage of his Autobiography his mother's sympathy for Satan. He wasn't "treated fairly," she claimed. After all, he was just a sinner, like the rest of us. Sinful man cannot save himself by his own efforts; his hope lies in "the mighty help of pathetic, appealing, imploring prayers that go up daily out of all the Churches in Christendom and out of myriads upon myriads of pitying hearts. But," she asked, "who prays for Satan?" It is doubtful...