Mark Twain as a Social Critic

Mark Twain is known best to the general public through his works of realist fiction concerning the lackadaisical, if mischievous exploits of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. These and other such stories, (an example being the short story, “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County”) those of seemingly no tangible theme, or serious implications concerning life’s greater truths, are heralded as his greatest achievements and often his only contributions to the world of literature. Indeed they are great contributions to the regionalist and realist traditions, however to limit one’s knowledge of the man is to paints a picture of a generally carefree, humorous but not very socially conscious individual who became famous by poking fun at important men, and prodding institutions to no real consequence.

In reality Twain was an incredibly prolific writer, who though humorous was heavily political in his writings. Throughout his career as a journalist, novelist, critic etc. he tended to emphasize the absurdity of the socially accepted tenets of western thought of the time. The satire he produced was often considered radical for his time, and had trouble publishing many pieces during his life time. His work not only called into question the entire tradition of Romanticism but the legitimacy of societal constructs and accepted institutions of his time; slavery, imperialism and nationalism that produced the idea of American Exceptionalism.

To those who are savvy of Twain’s social consciousness, he is perhaps best known for being especially aware of the challenges of race, and the general absurdity of the institution of slavery. As mentioned in class, this is famously portrayed in the story Pudd’nhead Wilson; a story which, in the most overt way imaginable, illustrates the superficial, and often hollow distinctions that condemned an entire race. In true convention of abolitionist literature, he draws two of the main characters “octoroons”, individuals who are considered black only by implausible technicalities. He emphasizes the ridiculousness and almost contradictory nature of the “fiction of law and custom” by switching the slave Roxy’s child with the master’s. The effect is completed when the scheme is successful in that no one notices the difference and the would-be slave is raised as a white boy; his own mother effectively deceiving even herself in the end.

Twain was also naturally a pacifist, and being vice president of the Anti-Imperialist League in the time of the American invasion of the Philippines, was vocal in regards to his opposition to the campaign initiated by President McKinley. The invasion, supposedly based on the alleged sinking of the ship USS Maine, by the Spanish, was in fact a massacre to secure the sugar market for American plantations and indeed secured a foothold for supremacy in the Pacific for the United States. He condemned a public that was hungry for war in a piece titled “The War Prayer”. The text can be found in full at this link: http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/twain1.html. It is a short story, in essence portraying a home town, and implicitly a country, that is in the throes of a fevered war frenzy.

“ It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and sputtering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spreads of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country and invoked the God of Battles, beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpouring of fervid eloquence which moved every listener.”


The constituents of the town believe they are justified, their mission is holy, to civilize the apparent savages, to dash to pieces the inherently evil ranks of the enemy. The story climaxes as the young volunteers, in their final preparations, are attending a sermon appropriately themed to encourage the hawkish public sentiment, to enflame nationalistic ideals, presumably initiated by bureaucrats and social leaders, that are driving the young men to their glorious demise for the “national interest”. At the height of the pastor’s “war prayer” a strange white figure appears in the door and claims to be a messenger of God. He brings to the attention of the parish the implications carried by their prayers for victory, the implied damnation of the faceless “others”.

"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle – be Thou near them! With them, in spirit, we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain…”

The bluntness of form is where Twain finds his edge. He has a way of shaking up the perspectives on otherwise typical situations of everyday life. This defamiliarizing effect is at the core of his work’s potency. This piece was considered so radical that while it was written during the US war in the Phillipines (1899–1902) it wasn’t published until 1923. Where can we find similar critics of public and foreign policy in today’s literature? And can one suspect that their messages are also being downplayed by a public and by leaders who are skeptical of progressive ideas? Perhaps years from now our generation’s literary legacy will be defined by such writers who are now unknown to us, but whose messages will seem as obvious then as the abolitionist, or anti-imperialist message does now.