Nostalgic Shift in Twain’s Works (Week 9)

Like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain’s 1894 short work Pudd’nhead Wilson relies a great deal on nostalgia for its success. However, whereas The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn relied on childhood nostalgia and a longing for a state of confirmed innocence, Pudd’nhead Wilson reaches for nostalgia of a time when, for many of the people present, life was not anything to be longed for. Published around a time when Regionalist writing was sought after and so-called “Plantation Romances” were rampant, Twain’s short work seeks to play off these successes and in traditional Twain fashion, shed light on what was a morally fraught period of time in both society and literature.

At the beginning of the novel, the short, lighthearted quips regarding how Pudd’nhead got his name establish the extremely particular tone of this work. This work is definitely a departure from his other pieces of humor writing – the humor is very much still present, but in a more calculated, subdued manner than with his two famous boy protagonists. This shift is in part due to Twain’s struggles with his bad faith history of slavery. Twain recalls his views of slavery when he was a boy, and how excused it was – the changing, maturing views of Twain regarding slavery conflict with his memories of his childhood because he is nostalgic for a time which he now knows is wrong. I believe that this uncomfortableness gets channeled into Pudd’nhead Wilson in order to satirize the Plantation Romance form, and question nostalgia entirely. How is one supposed to be nostalgic for such a time?

That said, in classic Twain fashion humor is still utilized to set up the story. When the town is described, Twain writes “Dawson’s Landing was a slaveholding town, with a rich slave-worked grain and pork country back of it. The town was sleepy and comfortable and contented. It was fifty years old, and was growing slowly—very slowly, in fact, but still it was growing. The chief citizen was York Leicester Driscoll, about forty years old, judge of the county court. He was very proud of his old Virginian ancestry, and in his hospitalities and his rather formal and stately manners he kept up its traditions. He was fine and just and generous. To be a gentleman—a gentleman without stain or blemish—was his only religion, and to it he was always faithful. He was respected, esteemed and beloved by all the community.”

The dichotomy of right and wrong is immediately hinted at here with the establishment of a description of slavery right next to the seeming pinnacle of moral righteousness. Nostalgia is utilized in that all seems like a time of prosperity, and it just seems so easy to be morally good in a time such as this. If Mr. Driscoll found it so easy to be a gentleman, why could not the readers do the same? Ultimately, Twain’s work relies heavily on a contemplative nostalgia rather than his usual childlike nostalgia to work through his own childhood traumas regarding slavery, and this is firmly established in the first few pages of the novel.

 Images taken from: http://homes.lmc.gatech.edu/~heneghan/11foreigners/PuddheadA.htm

http://twain.lib.virginia.edu/wilson/pwplayhp.html

All outside information is taken from class materials in Dr. Beringer's ENG 405 class.

Masculine Cowards and Mass Performativity in Huck Finn (Week 8)

Mark Twain’s novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is definitely a product of the late 19^th century. Firmly established within the genre of American Realism, Twain used his platform of cultivated, childlike perspective and careful Southern dialect to satirize popular aspect of culture during the time. One such aspect is this fascination of readers in the 1800s with public spectacles. As noted in Dr. Beringer's ENG 405 class PowerPoints, spectacles took many forms, from seemingly happy occasions such as circuses to horrific human rights crises, such as lynch mobs. Occurrences such as these appear in Huck Finn’s story, with one prominent incident being the speech of Colonel Sherburn to the lynch mob in chapter 22 of the novel.

At this point in the work, Colonel Sherburn is being sought out by a lynch mob for killing a townsman named Boggs. The crowd gets to his house and rushes his fence, destroying it, when Sherburn makes an appearance on his own roof, shotgun in hand, to address the mob. Colonel Sherburn addresses the crowd:

“You didn’t want to come. The average man don’t like trouble and danger. YOU don’t like trouble and danger. But if only HALF a man — like Buck Harkness, there — shouts ’Lynch him! lynch him!’ you’re afraid to back down — afraid you’ll be found out to be what you are — COWARDS— and so you raise a yell, and hang yourselves on to that half-a-man’s coat-tail, and come raging up here, swearing what big things you’re going to do. The pitifulest thing out is a mob; that’s what an army is — a mob; they don’t fight with courage that’s born in them, but with courage that’s borrowed from their mass, and from their officers. But a mob without any MAN at the head of it is BENEATH pitifulness. Now the thing for YOU to do is to droop your tails and go home and crawl in a hole. If any real lynching’s going to be done it will be done in the dark, Southern fashion; and when they come they’ll bring their masks, and fetch a MAN along. Now LEAVE— and take your half-a-man with you”— tossing his gun up across his left arm and cocking it when he says this.”

            This passage, just a portion of two more pages of similar dialogue, expresses an interesting satire on society, both that of the time in which this novel was published, and applicable still to today’s society. At the time, Twain established a dialogue regarding the perils of conformity in a more appropriately individualist society as well as of the conventions of mobs in general, especially those in the southern region with the jab toward the KKK. However, there also seems to be a critique of performed masculinity within this passage. Sherburn repeatedly derisively uses the word “man” to call out what he finds cowardly about the crowd. This hits them in such a way that it actually disarms the crowd – it shames them into submission, precisely what Sherburn wanted. In addition to shaming the spectacle goers through rhetoric that shames the spectacle, Sherburn also jabs at the masculinity of the mob, calling out the necessity of large numbers to feel safe, the cowardice that keeps them from attacking him as he speaks, and the masculine performativity of this whole show. The critique then shifts from one of the show itself to a critique of the necessity of a show to feel masculine in this moment. By calling out this insecurity, Sherburn literally disarms the mob, and lives to shame other townspeople another day.

Image taken from: http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?67169-Boxing-Guard/page2

The Unexpected Wisdom of Huck Finn (Week 7)

Mark Twain’s 1884 novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn opens with quite an unusual preface in which Twain himself addresses readers and humorously sets up expectations for the novel by the brief notice that reads “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 a plot in it will be shot.” This early crack actually does mildly prepare the reader for the flavor of humor that is to come, though readers do not encounter the trademark dialect of the book until page 1, when Huck himself says “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 Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth.” The novel immediately begins with Huck’s distinct Southernisms and pulls readers into the setting of Huck’s childhood whether they like it or not. The first time I ever approached this book as an adolescent, the dialect is the very thing that challenged me about the story – it forced me to slow down, to hear the words being spoken, to go syllable by syllable just as if I was encountering a real person speaking to me, and I had to slow down in order to understand what they were saying.

The dialect is an important factor in the success of the novel. Situated firmly within the genre of American Realism, Twain departed from usual conventions by not including an educated mediating narrator, a la Thomas Nelson Page. Rather, Huck does serve as a mediating narrator, just not an educated one. Huck functions as a sort of guide to his own story. Twain writes Huck humble, and real, and Huck takes readers through his landscape with a charming authenticity made more so through his manner of speaking. In addition to this, Huck functions as a pseudo unreliable narrator – Huck believes in what he says and does, but Twain crafts moments where there is a sense of dramatic irony between Huck and the readers. However, rather than being a type of dramatic irony where readers know something about another character or plot in the story, the irony exists in that adult readers simply know more about the world than gullible, superstitious Huck. A moment where this occurs is when Huck and Tom and the gang are playing in the woods, and Tom convinces Huck that genies are real. Huck suspends his disbelief, and after a few days cannot stand not knowing so he goes into the woods to find out. Huck states that he “rubbed and rubbed til I sweat like an Injun, calculating to build a palace and sell it; but it warn’t no use, none of the genies come. So then I judged that all that stuff was only just one of Tom Sawyer’s lies.” Huck is endearing in his childlike beliefs, and this charm coupled with his young and distinct dialect serve to make Huck a narrator that readers wish to follow. Adult readers may know things about life, but Huck knows plenty about being a kid in the late 19^th century, and Huck himself is ultimately able to teach readers about his way of life if nothing else.

Images taken from: http://todaysinspiration.blogspot.com/2009/10/norman-rockwells-illustrations-for.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huckleberry_Finn

All addition information taken from the class materials for Dr. Beringer's ENG 405 class.

Childlike Resistance, Adult Longing (Week 5)

At the conclusion of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, readers experience a curious shift within the experiences and trajectory of the mischievous Tom and uncivilized Huck as their adventures come to a close. Throughout this piece, there are strong ties to the idea of childhood being portrayed as a condition rather than being a time in one’s life. The style of the story, such as the fact that the novel is written in the third person perspective rather than from Tom’s point of view, cultivates an audience reminiscence of the period of childhood which allows readers to both recognize the childlike experiences of Tom and Huck as well as form a space of nostalgic humor. Readers are especially able to grapple with these themes through The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

Curiously enough, a character that perfectly portrays this condition is not Tom, but Huckleberry Finn. At the conclusion of the work, Huck is adopted by the Widow Douglass for a brief time, but then runs away when he learns that civilization is not for him. Tom tracks Huck down in the forest, and Huck confides “I’ve tried it, and it don’t work; it don’t work, Tom. The widder’s good to me, and friendly’ but I just can’t stand them ways. She makes me get up just at the same time every morning; she makes me wash, they comb me all to thunder; she won’t let me sleep in the woodshed; I got to wear them blamed clothes that just smothers me, Tom; they don’t seem to any air git through ‘em, somehow; and they’re so rotten nice that I can’t set down, or lay down, nor roll around anywhere; I ain’t slid on a cellar door for – well, it ‘pears to be years; I got to go to church, and sweat and sweat – I hate them ornery sermons! I can’t ketch a fly in there, I can’t chaw, I got to wear shoes all Sunday. The wider eats by a bell; she goes to bed by a bell; she gets up by a bell – everything’s so awful reg’lar a body can’t stand it” (Twain 317).

Huck’s soliloquy in this moment is brilliantly written – the use of dialect and nostalgia play off one another in such a way that even though Huck is miserable, and adult readers can recognize that what Huck wants is decidedly unsuitable for both himself and for older people, readers are still captivated in a way that transports them back to a childhood state and renders a desire for the simpler time of childhood. This ability to transport readers into such a state plays perfectly into the idea of childhood as a condition rather than being a set, finite time in one’s life. The condition of childhood here becomes transient through Huck’s fears and whining. By so clearly articulating his childhood desires, and by placing it in such a disarming dialect, nostalgia takes over and allows for Twain’s success in creating a childhood space for readers to coexist in.

Image found on: http://www.mad-doctor-mcdowell.com/marktwain.html

Outside information taken from Dr. Beringer's ENG 405 class powerpoints.

Foreign Scenes, American Spectacle (Week 3)

            Mark Twain’s writings in Innocents Abroad communicate both humane and unjust aspects of the human experience as opposed to experiences of other societies around the world. Twain details his touristic experiences through such locales as India, The Middle East, Italy, and more. His experiences transplant the witty sardonicism of a Mississippi raised humorist to areas of the world that are incredibly diverse and separate from Western understanding, yet Twain finds himself still firmly rooted in an Americanized lens of experience as he is traveling with a group of stereotypically insensitive Americans that often pervert his experiences.

            Particularly, this is witnessed in the section of Twain’s reflection on the Middle East, as Twain and company experience the Pyramids and the Sphynx in Egypt. Twain and his group are here engaging in a blatant act of thanatourism, which is a particularly dark type of tourism that allows tourists to visit sites of death or grief for a variety of purposes, from education to entertainment to memorialization. Twain’s Egypt writings convey a definite sense of thanatourism as the group experiences the Sphynx.

Twain recounts of the Sphynx “It was gazing out over the ocean of Time – over lines of century waves which, further and further receding, closed nearer and nearer together, and blended at last into one unbroken tide, away toward the horizon of remote antiquity. It was thinking of the wars of departed ages; of the empires it had seen created and destroyed; of the nations whose birth it had witnessed, whose progress it had watched, whose annihilation it had noted; of the joy and sorrow, the life and death, the grandeur and decay, of five thousand slow revolving years. It was the type of an attribute of a man – of a faculty of his heart and brain. It was MEMORY – RETROSPECTION – wrought into visible, tangible form. All who know what pathos there is in memories of days that are accomplished and faces that have vanished – albeit only a trifling score of years gone by – will have some appreciation of the pathos that dwells in these grave eyes that look so steadfastly back upon the things they knew before History was born – before Tradition had being – things that were and forms that moved in a vague era which even Poetry and Romance scarce knew of – and passed one by one away and left the stony dreamer solitary in the midst of a strange new age and uncomprehended scenes.”

Here, Twain describes the dark fascination he holds with the creature, which in reality is merely a crafted artifact of a different time, a different civilization – yet, he personifies the Sphynx and imagines the decay it has witnessed. However, it is import to distinguish that while Twain seems to utilize this moment of thanatourism to muse on and memorialize ages passed, the group he is with does not hold the same reverence, as evidence by the incident of one of the “reptiles – I mean the relic hunters” attempting to chip off a shard of the Sphynx’s ancient face as a souvenir. This instance reminds the reader that Innocents Abroad recounts not only the historical and societal observations that Twain has made – rather, members of his own country transform into touristic objects of spectacle within the foreign nations as well. 

Images taken from: clip art; http://paulbradleysmith.blogspot.com/

All outside information taken from class materials in Dr. Beringer's ENG 405 class.