Twain was a man often consumed by thoughts of the future or
ideas of seeing into what was to come. A skeptical man, Twain was, for a time, interested
in spirituality, though these fascinations faded quickly after the loss of his
young firstborn son. In class, we read a selection of Twain's writings that
were centered on ideas of Heaven. In The Bible According to Mark Twain,
we encountered an alternative account of happenings within the Garden of
Eden. In this account, Adam is portrayed as a bumbling presence, while Eve has
more complicated, intuitive feelings. These writings portray a deeper mistrust with
religion as a whole – as a man who had lost his faith with the institution of
religion, this work displays an inherent distaste for traditional presentations
of Biblical stories and provides an almost parodic view of the classic creation
story.
The addition of strict gender roles within this perspective
adds greatly to the overall critique of Christianity. The story begins with
Adam’s point of view. Adam takes on an inept persona, and is highly annoyed by
Eve. When Eve’s perspective is shown, however, the meanings of the story shift
the way readers interpret masculinity and femininity.
What is especially interesting about these roles is the
pervasive idea of performativity – during one of our class sessions, my
classmates performed dramatic readings with selected scenes from the Garden of
Eden portion of Twain’s writings. Reading the words is one experience, but
being able to see an even further dramatized interpretation of the interactions
between Adam and Eve truly shows off the performative nature of such gender routines.
What is especially fascinating is how easily we all slipped into these outdated
systems of interaction – though we live in a modern era, supposedly free of
gender based relations and specific modes of behavior, it still seemed natural
that Adam and Eve would potentially interact in a gender-motivated and biased
manner, which was satirically portrayed by our short performances through the
theatrical adaptations of Twain’s writings. That Twain felt that he was able to
express his doubts through satirical writing is significant because Twain faced
censorship in the time he was writing as well as with his works that are still
utilized in public school systems today, such as the infamous The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
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Izaak van Oosten - The Garden of Eden |
Since our class has been discussing Twain’s thoughts of
religion and skepticism of afterlife, a concept I have been considering has
been what Twain’s ideal Heaven might look like. Surely, there would be plenty
of drinking, smoking, and swearing; he would be surrounded by his often
scattered family once again; he would be able to lecture and entertain for
pleasure rather than through an obligatory and exhausting lecture circuit; he
would possess his lavish land holdings and worldly items without the issues of
debt. Twain once said “If I cannot swear in heaven I shall not stay there,” and
as readers we can all hope that Heaven has a smoking section for the notorious
Mr. Twain.
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