Mark Twain's Impact on American Literature

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Twain was not only one of the greatest humorists in American literature, but he was also a respected social critic of his time. For one, he was deeply concerned with the moral depravity evident among those who posed as arbitrators of American thought, such as politicians who tried to outlaw cigarettes while simultaneously puffing away at their own cigars (Babcock 129). After reading the morning paper, full of the usual "depravities and baseness and hypocrisies and cruelties that make up civilization," he put in the remainder of the day, Twain expressed, "pleading for the damnation of the human race" (qtd. in "Mark Twain, H.L. Mencken, and The Higher Goofyism"). Not only did he criticize those in power, but he also castigated common folk whose ignorance and naivety caused them to believe the fabrications. In Tom Sawyer, Aunt Polly attempts to cure Tom's emotional suffering with a new "Painkiller" that is clearly sham medication. Aunt Polly is only convinced to stop using the medication when the family cat has a negative reaction to it. As Twain said in the novel, "She was a subscriber for all the 'health' periodical and chronological frauds; and the solemn ignorance they were inflated with was breath to her nostrils." One of the major controversies of the mid-nineteenth century in America was slavery. Despite growing up in a slave state and having an uncle who owned over twenty slaves, Twain did not really understand or conform to the concept of slavery. He had many friends that were slaves growing up and the only subtle difference he saw between them and himself was the color of their skin. Uncle Dan'l, a middle-aged slave "whose heart was honest and simple and knew no guile" and John T. Lewis were both friends of Twain growing up (Popova). Both greatly influenced the character Jim in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. As Twain grew older, he understood the injustices of slavery and came to despise it. He criticized America as a whole for the brutal and poor treatment of African Americans before and after the abolition of slavery, especially during the Reconstruction Era when many freed blacks were forced back into working on the same fields they were just unchained from. Twain's views on slavery influenced the major progressive theme in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. In many of his works, Twain skillfully uses satire to mask his critical views and serious topics behind shades of humor. As Simeon Strunsky expressed, "The serious element in Mark Twain the man and the write, it would, of course, be futile to deny. His hatred of sham, his hatred of cruelty, his hatred of oppression, appear in..." (89).

Twain's own life and his countless experiences in it have all contributed dramatically to his greatest works. Twain drew a great deal from his life and his experiences provided him with the means of making his works seem real (Wagenknecht 141). One of his first works was a humorous tall-tale known as "The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County." Published in 1865, it inaugurated his flexible vernacular voice in American prose and founded the impression that Clemens's vernacular style derived to a large extent from the oral tradition of the West. The tale was in fact influenced by Twain's travels in the West. During one of his travels to Jackass Hill with his colleague Jim Gillis in the winter of 1864/1865, Twain heard a story in the mining cabin told by a man named Ben Coon (Hurm). In Twain's opinion, Coon was a very poor story-teller who mainly stated just history and statistics, yet the local miners and Coon himself failed that the basis of a first-rate humorous story had been told. Twain used these elements as well as his own vernacular and style to create a humorous tale still famous to this day. Twain's use of irony, local color, and references to popular political figures illustrate the clash between the erudite, cultured Eastern section of the United States and the rough and tough Western frontier (Tamm). Despite it being filled with humor, the story does feature themes that deal with human trickery and deceit as well as life's offering of no sure bets.

Two of Twain's greatest works, both the Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, are almost entirely shaped by Twain's own life and the adventures he had. Theodore de Laguna even stated, " Huck is evidently the prose, as Tom is the poetry of Mark Twain's younger self" (74). The characters in both stories are directly based off people that Twain knew in Hannibal. In Tom Sawyer, Judge Thatcher is based on his father; Aunt Polly on his mother; Huck Finn is patterned after the son of a local drunk; Mary and Sidney are based on Twain's own siblings, Injun Joe is another local, and Tom Sawyer himself is modeled after Twain and two of his boyhood friends (Bloom 16). Many of the events that took place in the novels actually took place in Hannibal, Missouri. As the St. Petersburg of Tom Sawyer, Hannibal is one the idylls of American literature as it is a town of sun, peace, and simple humanity but on the other side is characterized by a feeling of melancholy and fear (De Voto 51). In Huckleberry FInn, Twain drew Huck from Tom Blankenship exactly as he was. The son of the Town Drunkard, Tom was an ignorant yet kind boy whose liberties were completely unrestricted and he was really the only independent person in the community (Twain 137). Perhaps the most significant and largest part of the novel are the adventures Tom and Jim undertake while rafting on the mighty Mississippi. Through Twain's several years of travelling the river as a steamboat pilot, he was able to absorb a great deal of knowledge which he was later put to use in it works. Twain's vivid descriptions of the landscape, the river itself, and the little towns along the way proved just how much Twain had understood the environment. T.S. Eliot expresses:

On any level, Mark Twain makes you see the River, as it is and was and always will be, more clearly than the author of any other description of a river known to me. But you do not merely see the River, you do not merely become acquainted with it through the senses: you experience the River. (152)

The later years of Twain's life were unfortunately marked more by struggles than success. Three of his four children passed away at a young age due to various illnesses, and Twain maintained only a very distant relationship with his middle daughter Clara. During one of his travels in 1904, his beloved wife Livy passed away after a long illness. At the age of 74, on April 21, 1910, Twain himself passed away at his country home in Redding, Connecticut. Despite his death, his legacy and impression on American literature