Mark Twain

(Samuel Langhorne Clemens)

(1835–1910)

We write frankly and fearlessly but then we “modify” before we print. (Life on the Mississippi)

Born Samuel Langhorne Clemens, but best known as Mark Twain, this American literary icon was frank and fearless in both his personal life and his professional career. As a man driven by success in all his undertakings, Clemens was as invested in his personal financial success as he was in his professional achievements as an author. His public career as a popular author of humor and satire and as a widely admired lecturer on American life financed his personal quest for the fortune required to support his immediate and extended family. Beneath the gruff exterior of the persona he presented to the world lay a very complex and man who translated his frank and fearless experiences into fiction that would shape the American literary scene.

On November 30, 1835, John and Jane Clemens welcomed their sixth and second-to-last child into the world of Florida, Missouri. Two months premature and weighing a mere five pounds, the infant had a prognosis so bleak that Jane Clemens refused to name him. When John Clemens did name his struggling infant son, he named him after his own father, Samuel, and after a relative, Langhorne, neither of whom John regarded fondly.

The coincidence, however, of Clemens’s entrance into the world with Halley’s comet offered hope. According to Albert Bigelow Paine’s “Personal Memoranda” chapter from Mark Twain: A Biography, Clemens claimed in 1909 that: “I came in with Halley’s comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don’t go out with Halley’s comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: “Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.” Oh! I am looking forward to that.”

But according to historical biographers like Andrew Hoffman, the superstitious power associated with the comet instilled hope in Jane Clemens. Her family, with whom she was very close, saw the comet as a lucky omen and encouraged the Clemens to love and nurture their frail infant.

Four years later, the family relocated to Hannibal, Missouri, a place made famous in and by the writings of Mark Twain. A small frontier town on the Mississippi River, Hannibal offered the Clemens family multiple opportunities. While in Hannibal, John Clemens did his best to support his family by working in town as a general store owner, lawyer, and justice of the peace, while also working outside Hannibal as part of a circuit court jury. His position in town and his run for appointment as the circuit court clerk made the Clemenses relatively well known in and around Hannibal, despite John Clemens’s inability to break his cycle of growing debt and financial obligation.

With the death of his father in 1847 and the completion of five years of formal schooling, Clemens began his professional career. Apprenticed to a Hannibal print shop, Clemens learned to typeset and prepare the presses for the daily newspaper. His early career not only taught him the printing trade, but also launched his informal education as a student of the world and the people who inhabited it. Before beginning his career as a steamboat pilot, Clemens tried his hand at publishing his own articles while working in print shops in New York and Philadelphia. In need of a steady and larger income, Clemens returned south in 1857 to learn how to finesse the finicky Mississippi.

Conveyed to the public through his own travel narrative of his experiences, Life on the Mississippi (1883), his career as a steamboat pilot is best captured in his own prose. The close connection between his life as a steamboat pilot and his identity as an author cannot be denied, as his pen name stems directly from the years he spent on the Mississippi: Mark Twain signifies the safe depth of two fathoms, the depth needed for steamboats to navigate the Mississippi safely. His career on the Mississippi ended as a result of circumstances beyond his control. With the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, steamboat traffic on the Mississippi was at a near-halt. Although Clemens joined the Confederacy in their fight against the Yankees, his involvement in the war was short-lived. In the two weeks of his training and maneuvering with the Marion Rangers, Clemens saw enough of war to decide it was not for him. Instead of fighting, Clemens took Huck’s advice and “lit out for territory, ” following his older brother, Orion, to the Nevada Territory in the hope of striking it rich in the silver mines.

Although Clemens’s aspirations for quick riches were not fulfilled, Orion’s position as the secretary of the Nevada Territory provided him a wealth of connections. Such connections helped Clemens find work for the Virginia City newspaper as a columnist and worked to his advantage when he moved even farther west to San Francisco in 1864. Shortly after his arrival in San Francisco, Clemens finally achieved notable success and fame. In 1865, with the publication of “Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog, ” Mark Twain’s sharp wit spread across the nation as other newspapers picked up the tall tale in their columns.

His fame growing, Clemens, now known by his pen name, was sent to report on the wide world. First, the Sacramento Union sent him to the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) in 1865. With his hallmark wit, Twain’s articles revealed the civilized heathens and heathenish colonials in the clash between American interest and island culture. His observations on life and living were so invigorating that he expanded them into lectures and began his first of many well-received lecture tours. Two years later Clemens was sent over another sea, this time to observe a grand tour of Europe and the Middle East. Once again, his articles were very witty, and the fame of Twain as a humorist continued to grow. More importantly, the content of these articles would be reworked into the first novel, The Innocents Abroad (1869), attributed to Mark Twain.

One of the many myths surrounding Clemens concerns the personal significance of this journey. According to Clemens, he met his future brother-in-law, Charles Langdon, while on this trip and fell in love with Langdon’s sister. Standing at the rails of an ocean liner somewhere in the Mediterranean Sea, Langdon showed Clemens a miniature portrait of his sister, Olivia. With that one glance, Clemens claimed to have fallen in love with his future bride. When the group returned to the States in 1868, Langdon introduced Clemens to his family and his sister. Two years later, Sam Clemens married Livy Langdon on February 2.

In an effort to meet the financial obligations of providing for a wife and future family, Clemens took a position as editor of the Buffalo Post. Living in Buffalo, in the three-story brick house that was the Langdons’ wedding present, Livy remained close to her family and friends in Elmira, enjoying financial support from her family despite Clemens’s steady income. Within the year, the Clemens’s first child, Langdon, was born. Prospects for this young couple seemed bright.

Clemens’s hope to earn a living from his own writing and not merely the editing of others’ works prompted the family’s move to Hartford, Connecticut, nearer to his publisher. The Clemenses first rented a home in the heart of Hartford’s literary and artistic quarter, the bohemian Nook Farm. His literary works from this period continued to be primarily travel narratives and social commentary. Roughing It (1872), a collection of travel tales from Clemens’s adventures in the American West, and The Gilded Age (1873), a collaborative effort with Charles Dudley Warner, have the hallmark sign of Twain’s wit and humor, but neither can compare with the works Clemens would write in his next home, the Clemens’s large house on Farmington Avenue in Hartford, which they moved into in 1874.

For the next 17 years, Clemens would write in his study in the billiard room of this house. His most famous characters, including Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer, and Becky Thatcher, all came to life on the pages he wrote in this third-floor sanctuary. The tragedy of losing his son to diphtheria in 1872 was difficult to face, but the birth of their second child, a daughter named Susy, in the same year; Clara, two years later; and Jean in 1880 kept the Clemens household full of laughter and activity.

The successful publications of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), The Prince and the Pauper (1881), Life on the Mississippi (1883), Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889), among other works, provided the Clemenses with great wealth. Unfortunately great wealth does not always equal financial security. A series of ill-thought and ill-advised investments drained Clemens’s resources. Although his own publishing company, Charles L. Webster and Company, had success with the publication of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) and The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant (1885), the success was not long-lived. The ultimate financial fiasco of the publishing company is representative of most of Clemens’s ventures in business and investment. Either the technology, like that of the typesetter Clemens financed for use in the publishing house, was unnecessary or outdated, or the business was plagued with delays, broken promises, and untrustworthy employees. By 1891 Clemens was financially extended to his limit, and he and the family moved to Europe to economize.

Although Sam Clemens and his family were doing their best to meet the financial challenges posed by the publishing company and indebtedness incurred through Clemens’s other business ventures, the publishing company finally claimed bankruptcy in 1894, leaving Clemens, its primary investor, bankrupt as well. The failed business ventures and complicated legalities of Clemens’s connection as wronged investor drained Clemens of any will to write, or at least any will to write the positive social criticism of his early career. To recoup his losses, Clemens revived his alter ego and launched a lecture tour of Europe’s most prominent cities as Mark Twain. Despite his ability to recover from his financial troubles, tragedy struck again in 1896. Susy Clemens, staying at the Hartford home on Farmington Avenue, unexpectedly fell ill and succumbed to meningitis. The Clemenses could not reach home in time either to tend to her or to attend the funeral. The tragedy hurt the family deeply, so deeply that when the Clemenses did return to the United States, they never went back to the Farmington Avenue house.

In his remaining years, Clemens would never personally recover from these losses. While he still had to face the death of his wife in 1903 and that of his youngest daughter in 1910, just months before his own death, the death of Susy and his struggles with bankruptcy left a bitter mark on Twain’s sense of humor. His later works, which continue to focus on travel narratives, such as Following the Equator (1897), and social criticism, such as The Mysterious Stranger (published posthumously in 1916), are marked by a dark cynicism. Angry at his situation, Clemens used his pen to depict not the injustices he suffered, but the injustices he saw inflicted on others.

His satiric revelations of the abuses of power in American and western European dealings with colonial holdings, as well as his caustic revelations of social injustices endured by the citizens of these so-called civilized nations, did turn some readers and publishers away. However, even in his later years he maintained a loyal following. His 70th birthday party, held at Delmonico’s on December 5, 1905, was well attended by powerful men and authors who had made their fortunes alongside Clemens, as well as future authors, such as Willa Cather, who would use what they learned from Mark Twain’s writings to create 20th-century modernism. During these fi nal years, he was able to reestablish himself and build another home, aptly named Stormfield, in Redding, Connecticut. On April 21, 1910, in the presence of his faithful friend and assistant Albert Bigelow Paine, and his only surviving daughter, Clara, Samuel Langhorne Clemens passed away while Halley’s comet blazed across the night sky.

CRITICAL OVERVIEWS

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876)

One of Twain’s best-known and best-loved works, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer captures the idyllic world of childhood imagination and adventure. Although Tom and his band of friends live in the relatively calm world of the small, close-knit river community of St. Petersburg, Tom’s schemes transport the boys beyond the town, the classroom, and the prim expectations of Aunt Polly. His rascality prompts him to take chances and push the limits of fantasy with his imaginative plots as he, Becky Thatcher, and Huck Finn find themselves in a series of misadventures and encounters with the fearsome Injun Joe.

Although the narrative reads relatively easily, Twain had trouble writing his fi rst novel-length fiction. Charles Norton’s study of the book, Writing Tom Sawyer, outlines the struggles Twain endured during the writing process. Not only was his writing interrupted by projects in his more familiar and comfortable vein— Roughing It, a travel narrative published in 1872, and a witty social commentary, The Gilded Age (1873), co-written with Charles Dudley Warner—but finding the right words to portray the rambunctious Tom Sawyer and his cohorts eluded Twain for at least half a decade (2). Perseverance paid off. With the appearance of the illustrated American edition of Tom Sawyer on December 8, 1876, Mark Twain reached newfound heights of fame. His tongue-in-cheek nonfiction may have drawn a growing number of readers, but his seemingly simple fictional tale of Tom Sawyer represented his most dramatic popular success and guaranteed Twain’s arrival as a major figure in American letters.

Although it is impossible to tell whether or not Twain anticipated the lasting impression this impish boy would make when he first put pen to paper, the impact of this novel, and its more popular brother, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, is immeasurable. Norton’s catalog of the novel’s power only begins to outline the reach of Tom Sawyer’s charismatic grin and simple tale: [ Tom Sawyer ] would remain in print and continue to sell throughout [Twain’s] lifetime,... when the Bicentennial Celebrations would occur a hundred years hence, it would be ranked by many as his second best book, ranked by some critics as his “best constructed” novel, and... Tom Sawyer would become one of the most widely recognized characters in American literature. Essentially, then, Tom Sawyer marks not only a turning point in Twain’s career, but a turning point in American letters.

So what is so special about a narrative written from a young boy’s perspective? How does a novel that combines children’s risky adventures with over-the-top exaggeration and a small dose of reality become canonical? What is it about Twain’s use of a simple dialect that endears the words of the novel’s cast of characters to generations of readers?

An obvious answer is the simple readability of Twain’s plot. The basic premises of the tale have been retold to many readers. Girls and boys have always created adventurous tales about “monsters” like Injun Joe to scare each other around campfires in woods. Men, like the childish Tom, have always bragged about their ability, cunning, and nobility. Women, like Becky and Aunt Polly, have always focused on purity of self and the domestic needs of hearth and home in order to glorify their own efforts despite their limited social status. While such a division of interests by age and gender is “politically incorrect” in today’s world, Twain’s ability to target all of these audiences at once ensured his novel’s popularity during his time and has continued to speak to readers across time. Although modern readers may not share the same social values as the characters of Twain’s St. Petersburg, the inclusion of adult and child, female and male voices encourages readers to find parallel characters in their own life experiences.

And despite his exuberant cheekiness, or perhaps partly because of it, Tom Sawyer is the all-American boy. His ingenuity, first revealed in the now-famous fence-painting scene that opens the novel, emphasizes his shrewd intelligence, an intelligence that saves him from work and makes him money. His sense of adventure, epitomized in his spinning of stories to keep Huck pirating, embraces the American quest to conquer the unknown and win the respect and admiration of others. His self-sacrifice to save Becky Thatcher from punishment is rewarded not only by the adoration of the young girl his action saves, but also in the realization that some things really are more important than pride and pure profit. In essence, Tom becomes an American hero not because he disobeys and disregards the rules of society, but because he learns when to challenge and when to accept social expectations. At his core, Tom is a good boy with good morals who recognizes that some rules—like those against hurting others or stealing from others—are cardinal rules that should never be broken even if accepting those rules precludes a new adventure.

His sidekick, Huck Finn, is similarly developed. Huck may have had a rougher life than Tom, but they share similar characteristics. Like Tom, Huck is ingenious in tracking the robbers who stole from the Widow Douglas, but his ingenuity does not necessarily save him work and make him money. Although it is Tom’s imagination that pulls Huck into the adventures, Huck is more than willing to participate in most of Tom’s schemes. Twain goes to great lengths to differentiate Huck from Tom in the last chapters in order to explain why Tom wins the heart of Becky while Huck never can. The great difference that divides these two friends is their understanding of civilized society. Tom recognizes that as the two boys mature into adulthood, they will have to give up part of their dreams to be pirates and robbers and instead become respectable citizens. For Huck, making that transition to respectability is much more difficult.

Despite the Widow Douglas’s efforts and apparent care for Huck’s well-being, he, unlike Tom, turns his back on all that she and St. Petersburg can offer. The list of the horrors the Widow Douglas forces Huck to endure seems rather ludicrous: Huck Finn’s wealth and the fact that he was now under the Widow Douglas’ protection introduced him into society—no, dragged him into it, hurled him into it—and his sufferings were almost more than he could bear. The widow’s servants kept him clean and neat, combed and brushed, and they bedded him nightly in unsympathetic sheets that had not one little spot or stain which he could press to his heart and know for a friend. He had to eat with a knife and fork; he had to use napkin, cup, and plate; he had to learn his book, he had to go to church; he had to talk so properly that speech was become insipid in his mouth; whithersoever he turned, the bars and shackles of civilization shut him in and bound him hand and foot. For Huck these social expectations are too much to bear. Not only has Twain set up his next great novel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, with such a closing chapter to Tom Sawyer, but he has also established the significant difference between the his two young heroes. It is up to the reader to decide whether Tom’s acceptance of his future in society or Huck’s continued rebellion against society is the more honorable path.

Of course, any interpretation of the final scene between Huck and Tom must consider the hierarchy of rebellion. Tom’s reasoning may seem purely manipulative, as his reasoning is often meant to make others act in a desired way. However, a sense of propriety distinguishes Tom’s band of robbers, with their stash of weapons, from his pirates and their search for treasure along the Mississippi River. Such a self-imposed hierarchy reflects Tom’s changing understanding of fundamental differences between the socially isolated, island-hopping pirates and the socially connected, community based brethren of the caves.

Tom’s experiences have changed him. Realizing the pain he has caused his family when they think he has died, Tom feels remorse that has visible repercussions on his subsequent actions. His guilt after allowing Muff Potter to be accused for the murder of Dr. Robinson when Tom had actually witnessed Injun Joe’s killing him festers until he is induced to come clean. His bravery at facing Injun Joe, not only in the courtroom but also in McDougal’s Cave, shows a true strength and integrity in his character.

Subtly included in the narrative are themes and motifs that enrich the dialog—and the plot—of the novel. Superstitions abound as both Tom and Huck base their actions on fantastic rules that govern their life and spur the plot’s development. If they had not been in the graveyard in search of a wart cure, they would not have witnessed the central crime of the novel. If they had not witnessed the crime, then they would not have become blood brothers sworn to hold each other’s secrets. The theme of romantic criminality similarly recurs. Tom’s pirates and his band of robbers play with the romantic ideal of crime without committing any real crimes against others, while the true criminal of the novel, Injun Joe, represents the reality of crime and its actual impact on the community.

Such an overview is merely an introduction to this American classic. The real value of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is what each generation of readers can add to the novel with their reading. The adventures of Tom, Huck, and Becky are not adventures of the past; nor are they merely the adventures Twain captured in his novel. Instead, they are adventure we each travel every time we read their narrative of St. Petersburg.