Mark Twain Biography

Superficially these stories may seem to present a thematic paradox. Is wealth good or is wealth bad? That, however, is not Twain's question, nor is it his point in writing these stories about money. Twain is not trying to make a blanket absolute moral statement about wealth. He isn't writing about money at all. Wealth is merely a means to write about another topic all together - integrity. In Twain's rags to riches stories which paint wealth as good, all of the characters maintain their integrity. They use their internal abilities, their mental acuity, or their ingenuity to grab a hold of circumstance and mold it to their advantage. It is the internal character qualities of these people which, in the end, produce their wealth and power, and it is these characters that are not ruined by their wealth. On the other hand, in the stories about the corrupting influence of wealth, the characters sacrifice their integrity for the sake of money. The citizens of Hadleyburg are dishonest, Aleck and Sally work on the Sabbath, and so on. These characters come across wealth by chance; they do not mold the situation that brings them wealth. Thus, they have no hand in their success. These characters then sacrifice their most sacred morals - their integrity - for the money.

Mark Twain experienced both wealth and debt, riches and ruin in his life. He saw himself rise to riches through his own labor, and then fall into debt through bad decision-making. When Twain lost his wealth, however, he did not sacrifice his integrity. Olivia told Twain to save that which was important - his name. This was not stubborn pride; it meant that Twain should dig himself out of debt penny by penny in order to maintain his integrity. Only then would the American public continue to cherish him. The heroism of accepting the financial responsibilities of his own mistakes enamored the public of Mark Twain. Twain could have declared bankruptcy, probably kept his house, and been on his way to success again if he only shirked his responsibility and declared bankruptcy. Instead, he decided to do what he thought was right and surrender the easy life and half a decade of income to pay his debts. Although Mark Twain's publishing firm, Charles L. Webster and Company declared bankruptcy in 1894, Twain himself never declared personal bankruptcy (Rasmussen 25). Twain saw the truth in his wife's advice; he did dig himself out of debt, he did maintain his integrity, and he continues to be cherished by Americans even today.

Twain's integrity presents itself in subjects other than wealth. One of the most startling paradoxes in Twain's writing involves his later years - those which are darker and more cynical. Twain seems to have two major themes in this part of his life. One is the corrupted and weak nature of humankind, and the other is a political diatribe against what Twain considers immoral social behavior, the most obvious example being imperialism. Both of these trends can be found in earlier writings to a lesser extent, but as Twain matured, these themes became more pronounced and outpaced his reputation as a humorist.

Twain seems completely and totally disillusioned with mankind. He considers them weak, fickle, and uncritical. In "Corn-Pone Opinions," Twain attacks humans for their tendency to adopt socially prevalent opinions uncritically. The basic idea is that a man's opinions are dependent upon where he gets his "corn-pone," or, in other words, his opinions are determined by his material conditions. For example, a slave in the south could not vocally have the opinions of an abolitionist - it would mean certain death. However, this type of corn-pone opinion is not that bad. It is an inalterable tendency of men. Twain does not concentrate on the honesty versus death type of decisions, where overwhelming factors force your opinions upon you. His emphasis is more upon the unthinking acceptance of all social paradigms. Twain says:

Broadly speaking there are none but corn-pone opinions. And . . . Corn-Pone stands for Self-Approval . . . from the approval of other people. The result is Conformity. Sometimes Conformity has a sordid business interest - a bread-and-butter interest - but not in most cases, I think. I think in the majority of cases it is unconscious and not calculated . . . (Twain[1] 285).

Here is a burning condemnation of humans - and Twain does not exempt himself. Here Twain tells us that human nature tends to conform not for self-interest, but for no definable reason at all - humans just conform. This cynical observation of human nature is quite a sober and philosophical thought from the man who wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. But even in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, the germs of this idea can be found in the fickle way that the townspeople first ostracize and almost lynch Muff Potter only to turn around when he is proven innocent and "fondle him as lavishly as [he was] abused before" (Twain[6] 151). Twain's commentary on society has matured from sarcastic, biting side-remarks, to searing indictments of human nature.

Twain takes his commentary even farther. In "My First Lie and How I Got Out of It," Twain elaborates upon his observations on human nature. This time he concentrates on the lie. Twain's purpose is to immediately shoot down the concept of the spoken lie and move to the unspoken, more subtle lie. The unspoken lie, however, is also merely a means for him to come to the real criticism of the essay - the lie of silent assertion. The lie of silent assertion is presented by Twain in the example of slavery. He cites that in the north, during the early days of emancipation agitation, the abolitionists received almost no support or assistance. Ignored by the press, by the government, by the people, the abolitionists found no one who would speak out with them. Twain defines the lie of silent assertion as "the silent assertion that there wasn't anything going on in which humane and intelligent people were interested" (Twain[7] 257). Nobody was willing to speak out against slavery, against the morally repugnant idea that one can deprive a man of liberty and life because of the color of his skin - an idea so obviously skewed and unchristian that every citizen should have been up in arms. Instead, every citizen was noncommittal and subordinated their morality to the lie of silent assertion. There was nothing in this situation in which "humane and intelligent" men need be concerned. This very concept reeks of integrity. Maintaining the lie of silent assertion sacrifices one's integrity. If one knows that something is wrong in society yet does nothing to address or correct that wrong, you have sacrificed the one part of you that can see you through thick and thin. Twain may have subjected himself to his own criticism in the following statement, but at least he spoke out, even if he did not throw bricks:

"The silent colossal National Lie that is the support and confederate of all the tyrannies and shams and inequalities and unfairness that afflict the peoples - that is the one to throw bricks and sermons at. But let us be judicious and let somebody else begin (263).

Twain has still more cynical works than these, however. In "The War Prayer," Twain makes similar observations about men: they are fickle, they have corn-pone opinions, they maintain the lie of silent assertion. In this story, a messenger from God himself comes to speak to a congregation to show them the unchristian nature of their prayer, to put into words the unspoken part of their prayer: that part which beseeched "Him Who is the Source of Love" to cause destruction, pain, death, and a bitter end to their enemies (Twain[8] 624). The last sentence of this story leaves no room for a positive message, no room for a lesson, no room for integrity: "It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said" (625). With this statement Twain has condemned all of humanity for being either unable to realize their hypocrisy or unable to place their integrity and their morals above the lie of silent assertion. It is significant that Twain did not want this story published during his life because, as he said, "I have told the whole truth in that, and only dead men can tell the truth in this world" (Paine page unknown). Twain believed that this story which unconditionally condemns mankind was the absolute truth. He even implies that it reveals more truth than anything else he has written when he prevents its publication because it tells the "whole truth." Twain had no faith in the capacity of humans as a whole. He had no illusions in society. He expected nothing more than the least noble actions and thoughts from all people.

Why then did Twain bother to write works such as "To the Person Sitting in Darkness" and King Leopold's Soliloquy? If mankind is so utterly feeble and unable to do the right thing, then why is Twain attacking imperialism with such fervor? "To the Person Sitting in Darkness" is a bold story attacking America's role in the Philippines as the war is taking place. Twain is not here "being judicious." Instead, he is throwing the first brick and sermon. He condemns America's imperialism, undemocratic intentions, betrayal of the Filipinos, and beguiling politics of expansion and domination (Twain[9] 264-81). Such harsh criticism falls short of nothing, the criticism is complete. What makes the criticism even more powerful, however, is the fact that it comes from America's favorite citizen - Mark Twain. Twain does the same thing to foreign governments as well. In King Leopold's Soliloquy, Twain is condemning Belgium's role in oppressing the people of the Congo through King Leopold's self-defeating defense of his brutal and exploitative treatment of the Congo natives (Twain[10]). Again Twain, undeniably an embittered cynic, puts his pen to use to fight for justice in a world run by corn-pone opinions and the lie of silent assertion. Why? A logical answer would be: He's trying to change the way things are. But haven't we already shown Twain to be a cynic with no faith in the nobility or morality of mankind?

Twain was right, corn-pone opinions predominated as the American press remained silent on this Congo issue even though every statement from the lips of Mark Twain had a high probability of making the headlines (Heym 13). The reason for this comes into focus when we learn that American investors in the Congo included J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, Thomas Fortune Ryan, and Daniel Guggenheim. King Leopold's Soliloquy continued to be suppressed until comparatively recent times. Only in the last few years has anyone other than the Communist Party USA printed the soliloquy. At this point in Twain's life, he had been writing anti-imperialist works for at least 8 years, since Following the Equator. He could not have been surprised by the fate of his soliloquy. Again, the question arises - why did he bother to write?

This tendency of Twain to speak out against injustice can be seen in its embryonic form in previous works when he criticized aristocracy and slavery. Aristocracy has been criticized by Twain in most of his earlier works. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twain associated royalty with the two most immoral rapscallions in the novel, the Duke of Bilgewater and King Looy the Seventeenth. The very names of these two characters poke fun at royalty. The rancid image provoked by "Bilgewater" and the uneducated or, at least un-royal pronunciation of "Looy" are simply superficial images which Twain uses to deride aristocracy. The Duke and King, however, continue to degrade their royal status by their underhanded, immoral behavior. Huck comes out and assaults aristocracy and royalty directly with his discussion with Jim about royalty. He describes the evils of "Henry the Eight" with particular vehemence. Through Huck, Twain criticizes monarchy and aristocracy as asinine and immoral: "[A]ll kings is mostly rapscallions, as fur as I can make out" (Twain[12] 199). The idiotic warring between the aristocratic Grangerfords and Shepherdsons, the violence and ignorance of King Arthur's court in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, and King Arthur's scorn for common citizens of his country shows Twain's trend to expose the evils of aristocracy at every available opportunity. Twain's purpose in doing so is an integrity issue. Twain feels the obligation to point out what he perceives as wrong or unjust even in his less political works.

Twain's subtle attacks on slavery also show Twain's tendency to speak out against injustice. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck's words are incisive when he contemplates that not turning Jim in will send him to hell for sure: "All right, then, I'll go to hell" (272). He then tears up the letter he wrote to reveal that Jim was a runaway. Huck has just decided that he would rather do the immoral thing, that which he knows is wrong in society's and in God's eyes, rather than turn Jim, his friend, back in to slavery. Twain uses sarcasm and irony to condemn slavery. Twain does the same thing in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, when he has King Arthur and Hank sold into slavery. Only after being wrongfully enslaved and maltreated for weeks does Arthur finally decide that slavery is an unacceptable evil that he will abolish if he ever recovers his throne. Again, we see Twain's integrity compelling him to criticize injustice - this time, slavery. Although his criticisms seem initially flaccid and half-hearted, it is the fact that he did speak out that proves his integrity. He did not mature into a full-fledged polemicist until his later years when he took up anti-imperialism.

Another effective method of trying to understand Twain and his integrity is by understanding his historical development as viewed through the eyes of his contemporaries. In retrospect, it is easy to see aspects of Twain's flippant humor and his scathing sarcasm in nearly all his works. In the eyes of his contemporaries, however, Twain received little recognition for anything but his humor, and even that recognition was condescendingly given. Due to his initial successes with humorous short stories, especially with "Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog," Twain was tagged by critics as another professional funny man. In his early days, few people gave Twain recognition for being a satirist, a philosopher, a social critic, an American spokesman, or any of the titles he is now freely granted. There were a few lone voices, however, even at the beginning, who saw a potential in Twain for something more than humor - more than just a potential. In 1867, Charles Henry Webb, editor of the Californian wrote in his "Advertisement" in The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calveras County, and Other Sketches the following:

"Mark Twain" is too well known to the public to require a formal introduction at my hands. By his story of the Frog, he scaled the heights of popularity in a single jump, and won for himself the sobriquet of The Wild Humorist of the Pacific Slope. He is also known to fame as The Moralist of the Main: and it is not unlikely that as such he will go down in posterity. It is his secondary character, as a humorist, however, rather than in his primal one of moralist, that I aim to present him in the present volume (Webb 12).

When the entirety of America viewed Twain as nothing more than a humorist, the publisher of his first book proclaims him as primarily a moralist. This sort of recognition, however, was scarce and in the scant minority. Bret Harte and William Dean Howells were the first two leading American critics to show an early appreciation for some of the more subtle depth of Twain's early works (Foner 39). Even after publishing The Innocents Abroad and Roughing It, Mark Twain was still accepted only as a humorist. The humorous short stories with which Twain entered the literary arena would haunt his reputation as a man of letters until shortly before his death, when the honorary Doctor of Letters degree awarded him by Oxford caused even the most ardent anti-Twain proponents to reconsider (52).

A series of factors prejudiced the literary circles of the east against Twain. Primarily, humor was looked upon as an inferior use of language and a flippant career unworthy of the title of literature. The established literary giants and, in fact, the entire literary culture center of the eastern seaboard viewed Twain as an inferior upstart from the west, attempting to write literature when he would do best to stick with his limited abilities - humor. Twain also sold his books by subscription, thus making more money, but keeping the books out of the hands of the literary circles who frequented bookstores. This also made Twain appear more commercially oriented and less concerned about the artistic value of his work. His audacious and ill-conceived remarks at the Atlantic dinner to John Greenleaf Wittier convinced the genteel eastern critics that Twain was the awkward, ill-mannered, unsophisticated humorist they took him for long ago (41-42). As his reputation and his book sales proved, however, Twain had already been accepted as an author by the populace in general. The literary critics tended to justify Twain's popularity by debasing the public. A typical view is as follows: "Whatever is widely liked must . . . appeal to the general public, which is a vulgar body with crude tastes, and, generally speaking, anything which satisfies it is bad" (42). But the critics were wrong. What endeared the public to Twain was not some level of vulgarity, but a furious honesty which wrote about the real world, disregarding the artificial intellectualism and the big words in favor of reality and integrity.

Book after book after short story was received coldly by American critics: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, "A True Story," etc. Finally, by the publication of The Prince and the Pauper in 1881, major literary critics began to take notice of what Howells called "that unappreciated serious side of Clemens' curious genius" (44). Slowly, a critical appreciation of Mark Twain as more than a humorist began to take hold. He failed again in critics' eyes with Huckleberry Finn in 1885, but by the 1890's, Twain was being taken as a serious writer. Twain's subject matter matured over time, which is what eventually forced the literary critics to accept him as more than a humorist. Against the opinions of all but a handful of critics, Twain exited the realm of pure humor, advancing to increasingly blatant social criticism. This trend can be seen in the child-like innocence of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, which matured into social commentary on aristocracy in The Prince and the Pauper and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, and on slavery in Huckleberry Finn and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. This trend ultimately evolved into critical condemnations of human nature and human society and anti-imperialist propaganda, where Twain wrote explicitly for the political purpose of exposing a social evil. Throughout this trend we see varying levels of social understanding and social awareness, but always the same acute, critical Twain forcing the truth to show itself - again a product of Twain's integrity.

Twain was no longer a humorist with a biting edge of criticism. He had now developed his satire and his social conscience, and they worked together to compose some of the harshest criticisms of American society, politics and religion during his lifetime. Shortly after his death, Twain was being placed with the literary likes of Irving, Swift and Carlyle, and even his harshest critic, Van Wyck Brooks, admits that Twain had the ability to be "a Voltaire, a Swift, a Cervantes" (57).

Mark Twain was always a moralist, always a satirist. His contemporaries took time in learning to see the depth, satire, and social criticism which he made use of from the beginning. From the start, however, Twain was adamant in his dedication to telling the truth as he saw it. His conception of the truth might have changed over time, but the one constant in Twain is his integrity. He always spoke out, he always satired, he always criticized - even though he knew he did not have all the answers.

For example, in 1867 Twain wrote from Honolulu: "You will not always go on paying $80 and $100 a month for labor which you can hire for $5. The sooner California adopts coolie labor the better it will be for her." The next year Twain was exulting over the Burlingame treaty with China which gave the Chinese the same privileges as nationals of the "most favored nations." By August 4 of that same year, Twain had come to the conclusion that the coolie labor trade was "infamous" (Smith 78). This progression is typical of Twain: accepting the social dogma or dominant paradigm and upon reflection, realizing that there was something terribly wrong with it. He would then arrive at a mature and informed opinion of the matter. This is why Twain never exempted himself from his own criticisms. It is also why there are so many seeming paradoxes in Twain - he kept on educating himself, considering various opinions, and changing his mind. Even though he did not have the "answers," Mark Twain had one thing which enamored the American public of him. That thing was his integrity. Even though the American public may not have known what to expect next from Twain, even though every person could find something in Twain they could relate to, they knew they could count on one thing - his blatant and unrepentant honesty. His integrity was so well accepted and so well known, that he may very well have been the only person in American who could have spoken out so effectively against imperialism in the early twentieth century.

Unfortunately, there is no way to prove what Twain's motivation was. However, considering his cynicism toward mankind and his genuine love of freedom and hate of injustice, a consistent idea is that of integrity - Twain wrote because he felt it was his duty, his responsibility to do so. In Twain's "The Turning Point of My Life," he posits his belief that men are made of "circumstance" and "temperament" (Twain[11] 341). He explains that what becomes of a man is largely dependant upon the events and experiences that happen to fall his way. The way he reacts to these circumstances, however, is dictated by his temperament, by the nature of his being. If applied to Twain himself, most people would agree that Twain's temperament was honest, diligent, and responsible - all of which can be derived from evidence of his life and his writing. I would add one more - Twain's temperament was dictated by integrity. Twain was a man who set out to write about the world and to be viscously honest, albeit humorous in style. He is considered the greatest American author for one reason - he wrote about America and captured its essence. He did this through his honesty and integrity. He wrote what is considered the greatest American novel - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Again, why is this novel considered so great, especially when it was received so reticently and critically? It is because Twain shows us the real America. He shows us the beauty of childhood, the evil of slavery, the atrocity of America's acceptance of slavery, the beauty of the Mississippi, the adventure of a rafting trip. As an honest observer, he shows us the excitement, the pride, the shame, and the beauty of America. He does so with an unerring pen. The truth of his novel is not circumstance; it is the direct result of Twain's dedication to honesty and his integrity as an author, as an observer of the American and other cultures, and as a human being. This is what made and still makes Twain great. Although it is unlikely that Twain can ever be successfully understood as capitalist or socialist, as liberal or conservative, as rich-man's cohort or poor-man's friend, he can most certainly be understood as a man of integrity who attacked perceived injustice and hypocrisy with unabated ferocity. It is through Twain's honesty and integrity that he can be understood as an author and as a human being.