What type of realist is Mark Twain?

Throughout his life, he grew up working many jobs and it was in the early years of his life he found his true passion for novel writing through his first job. He is now known as a great author for his use of realism in his novels. Today his books are known all around the world for his mischievous characters. Samuel L. Clemens, more famously known as Mark Twain, came to love his passion for writing and became a well-known author in the realism time period.
The literary time period that takes place during Mark Twain was Realism. This time period was very based on the world. He did not have much romance or fiction, they were very dull. This was easy for Twain because he worked in newspaper print shop and was very exposed to the journalism and society of his time. The Realism time period was very focused on the middle and lower class of society it depicted their lives in his stories. Most of his characters were based on these classes. One of his books was banned from public school systems, because many people found the book offensive, even though it spoke the truth about the society of his time (Herrera, Pauline). “Although Twain was indeed part of the Realist Movement, you could argue that he was in a class or a movement of his own.” (Herrera, Pauline). One novel he wrote with Charles Dudley Warner was The Gilded Age, this…show more content…
Samuel L. Clemens, more famously known as Mark Twain, came to love his passion for writing and became a well known author in the Realism time period. Today Mark Twain is know all around the world for his contribution to American literature. His books are read in schools all across America and is still known today as the father of American literature. When Olivia died of heart failure, he became lonely and sad in his last years his life (Encyclopædia Britannica). He died on April 10, 1910. His cause of death was a heart attack (Biography). Even though his book was banned from school, Mark Twain showed us the truth about society through his

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Realism brought about events and characters with-in stories that could be easily imagined and related too. The main contributor during the period of realism was Mark Twain with his novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Mark Twain incorporated his own real life experiences into the novels he wrote. Twain expresses many beliefs within society of the time period. Twain accurately and vividly describes settings, places, and emotions. Twain’s depiction of the morals and events of the main character in the novel are the most important part of how the story incorporates realism.

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Realism in American Literature was most prominent between the Civil War and the turn of the century. Realism incorporates many aspects of life so the reader is easily able to relate to the characters and events. Social class is very important within this period of writing. The characters are more important than any other aspect of the story, without a well developed and accurate character the story will fall apart. Realism writing does not include any type of poetic vocabulary. The vocabulary used in realism writing is “normal speech”, terms that people use every day that may not be proper English but a accepted among impersonal conversations. During the time period that this style of writing thrived America was growing and changing as a nation, this provided the perfect habitat for realism writing to flourish (Realism in American Literature).

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is about a neglected young teenage boy. His name is Huck Finn. His father is a mean drunk. The book begins in St. Peters Missouri where his father and he both live. The book tells about the Huck and Tom’s adventures in great detail. The novel is told using first person point of view. This viewpoint allows the reader to easily connect with the story because it is told as if the reader was right their interpreting the events himself (Twain).

Twain gives the two main characters of the book, Tom and Huck, realistic character traits. Both boys live befriend each other and the longer they are friends the more their friendship grows and develops. The boys portray a nice and sincere attitude, but they use a devious and teenage attitude much more. They both tend to get into trouble like any teenager would (Twain).

Twain’s dialogue throughout the story is “common talk”. This means the story does not include any poetic writings or anything of that nature. The dialogue is true spoken as if it was just a conversation between to normal people. No overly fancy words are used, just normal well known and common vocabulary. Using common vocabulary within story dialect is a crucial part in allowing the reader to relate to the characters. Mark Twain even tells the reader beforehand within the preface of the book about his dialects:

In this book a number of dialects are used, to wit: the Missouri negro dialect; the extremist form of the backwoods Southwestern dialect; the ordinary “Pike County” dialect; and four modified varieties of this last. The shadings have not been done in a haphazard fashion, or by guesswork; but painstakingly, and with the trustworthy guidance and support of personal familiarity with these several forms of speech (Twain Explanatory).

Mark Twain’s characters are well developed and described. The main character Huck is a thoughtful boy who is very intelligent as far as street smarts go, unfortunately he lacks much of a formal education (Lombardi). Huck is constantly forming his own conclusions about matters going on in the world during his life. An example of his conclusions about important matters in the world is the treatment of black people, Huck feels they are normal humans and should not be treated any differently then himself. This conclusion like many other of Huck’s conclusions goes against the grain of society. Tom, Huck’s best friend, is basically Huck’s other half; whatever Huck lacks in character Tom makes up for. Tom has a wild imagination and is a great thinker. Tom is highly influenced by society, unlike Huck. These influences and the effect they have on Tom encourage Huck is his choice to ignore and disregard the common society thinking and come up with his own conclusions on controversial matters (Byrne).

Mark Twain’s settings were vividly described. He was able to achieve such accuracy within his description because of past experiences with in his life; most notably his experience as a steamboat pilot. He used a memory of a sunset he had once seen while out on the boat. He describes this sunset in the novel. The vivid description can be seen within just the first several lines of the 1 page description:

The first thing to see, looking away over the water, was a kind of dull line – that was the woods on t’other side; you couldn’t make nothing else out; then a pale place in the sky; then more paleness spreading around; then the river softened up away off, and warn’t black any more, but gray; you could see little dark spots drifting along ever so far away-trading-scows… (Twain 163)

Mark Twain clearly influenced the development of realism with his novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The book was able to be related to be so many that it became very controversial. When the book first came out in the year 1884 it was not long after in 1885 that the book was banned from the Concord Public Library (Lombardi). Even through the banning of the book in some areas it still reached many people and had a huge impact. Twain paved the road for Realism writing and no other novel will have as much influence on the time period as his did.

Works Cited

• Byrne, William F. Realism, Romanticism, and Politics in Mark Twain. 24 March 2004. 24 December 2009 .
• Lombardi, Esther. About.com: Classic Literature. 4 December 2009. 14 December 2009 .
• Realism in American Literature. 14 July 2008. 12 December 2009 .
• Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1885.

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American realism is a literary technique that was most commonly practiced between the years of 1865 to around 1910. It was largely a response to the romantics of the period who believed that man could overcome evil, that he was some type of God. The realists differed, believing a man to be simply a man. It’s writers usually originated from the South or Midwest and included Mark Twain, W.D. Howells, and Henry James. Twain’s “The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyberg” is a fine example of realist literature and one that will be examined later in this essay.

Realism is often confused with another technique that sprung up during the late 1800’s, naturalism, but they are slightly different. According to Patricia Penrose, “American realists believed that humanity’s freedom of choice was limited by the power of outside forces… Naturalists argued that individuals have no choice because a person’s life is dictated by heredity and the external environment.” So, in the view of the realist, the universe had at least, in some part, control of their characters, but not complete control as a naturalist believes nor no control as the romantics might. In essence, a man is just a man within a world that is larger than he. Another distinction between the two can be made that naturalism often holds a deterministic philosophical view and focuses on lower classes. Realism is more widely known for focusing on the middle classes.

The key characteristics of American realism, however, include more than just man’s ability to choose. As Richard Chase notes, some of the other components are the importance of character, complex ethical choices as a subject, a focus on the middle class, plausible events, vernacular or colloquial language, objectivity, and the ability to write reality closely and with extreme attention to detail. Or as realist William Dean Howells simply put it, “Realism is nothing more and nothing less than the truthful treatment of material.”

Realism was often told regionally as writers tried to capture the “local color” of their towns as they slowly dwindled into urbanization. It largely came from the South and Midwest regions, although Howells was from New England, Penrose points out. Other key writers of the movement, including Howells, were Mark Twain, Henry James, Rebecca Harding Davis, John W. DeForest, Joseph Kirkland, E.W. Howe and Hamlin Garland.

As noted above, Mark Twain was a realist and was one of the more celebrated of them all. His works include such classics as “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” and “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.” Another story that Twain has written, which is very much realists in nature, is “The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyberg.” The story is a good example of realism because it focuses on a middle class, it is character based, and it has a complex ethical choice as it’s subject.

The characters that the story focuses on who live in Hadleyberg are all middle class. The “nineteen” who fall prey to the stranger’s plan are apparently prominent enough to gain respect from the fellow townspeople, but they are also not rich enough to buy all they wish to buy. At the part in the story where the women dream of spending the money they think will be coming to them, each spends $7,000 that night. They are obviously not rich enough to own everything they want, but also they hold honest moneymaking jobs (Wilson is a lawyer, for instance). Twain also points out other low class individuals in the town, such as Jack Halliday and general characters noted as “the tanner” or “the hatter.” The town also features the super-rich, the high class, in Dr. Harkness.

Despite the noted caste system in the town, however, the story is entirely character based on the middle class. Yes, the story is about the sack of gold, but the sack acts merely as a catalyst and a reason for the characters to become what they are in the story. For Twain does not spend much more than a total of a paragraph of prose speaking of the sack, but the rest of the time writing on the nature of the characters, their reactions, their dialogues, their insecurities. Twain is much more interested in whether Richards has his hand on his lap or his head than where the sack is at any given time.

Thirdly, the entire story is one big ethical choice for each of the prominent nineteen as well as a few others, such as Burgess. The fact that the title gives way to a town being corrupted is a hint at the idea and theme of this story. The Richards, perhaps, are the biggest focus of these ethical choices, having had to make the original decision of whether to keep the sack or do what the stranger ordered. The whole story is full with ethical choices, do they keep the sack, do they write the remark, are they justified in writing that remark to Burgess, should Mr. Richards tell Burgess that he could have set him free, does being poor justify one to steal, or does anyone deserve the money? On top of that, the entire premise that leads to these ethical conundrums is plausible.

Twain’s story is undoubtedly realist because of these elements and others that follow. He uses vernacular language, never getting lofty or high in his diction. He also has an acute attention to detail and is very much objective. As one of the most celebrated Realists, Twain is also one of the closest practitioners of it.

Works Cited

Campbell, Donna M. “Realism in American Literature, 1860 – 1890.” Literary
Movements. 2007. http://www.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/realism.htm.
(17 March 2008)

Penrose, Patricia. “American Realism: 1865 – 1910.” American Collection Educator’s Site. 2007. http://www.nctamericancollection.org/amer_realism.htm. (17 March 2008)