The Dark Secrets of Mark Twain
A long, whitewashed fence.
The scene unfolds before you: A group of boyish faces, spattered with paint and perspiration. They’re smiling, as they drag the brush first up, and then down across the rough planks of the fence. A boy, standing behind them with neither paint nor perspiration on his face, is smiling more than anyone. There is no paintbrush in his hands. The warm Missouri wind, the summer flowers, the shouts of boyish laughter all combine to make what would be later described as a “white town drowsing in the sunshine of a summer’s morning.”(1) The idle boy – the one who has no paintbrush – steps back, grins widely, and examines his good work.
Tom Sawyer.
When most people hear his name, this is the first image that appears in their minds., and it all begins, with that long, whitewashed fence. This story, along with many of Twain’s others, has become immortalized in literature. A great humorist, author, and thinker, Mark Twain has become just as iconic as his own characters, becoming known as “the Lincoln of our Literature.” (2)
Tom Sawyer
Enter a tale where the imaginary games of little boys takes on a new drama of reality, as Tom Sawyer finds buried treasure, becomes a pirate, and gets engaged all at the grand age of ten. Mark Twain described this book as “a hymn to boyhood,” (3) and it is one of his earliest works.
Tom Sawyer, to Twain, was the ideal boy. With a spirit for grand adventure, Twain based much of Tom’s character off of himself. Mark Twain had grown up a willful and mischievous child, often driving his mother to despair. Later in life, when Twain reminisced of these times with his 80 year old mother he asked her whether she was greatly worried about him at that time of his life. “Yes, the whole time,” she answered. “Afraid I wouldn’t live?” Twain asked. “No,” she said, “afraid you would.” (4)
This personal connection with the main character, coupled with his great sense of humor, winsome style of writing, and unique ability to portray human emotion made this novel a wild success. Tom Sawyer exemplified all the beauty, wonder, and adventure Twain found so important, and a very real part of his world.
There was only one inkling in the novel not entirely pure. There is a subtle sarcasm throughout the book in regards to Christianity. Twain dismisses Christianity as merely ludicrous and absurd, but something happened later to strengthen this hostility.
As is well known, Twain was a steamboat pilot in his early years believing a pilot to be, “the only unfettered and entirely independent human being that lived in the earth.” (5) He convinced his 19 year old brother, Henry, to become one as well. It was in following this sincere advice that resulted in Henry becoming mortally wounded in a steamboat explosion. For the rest of his life, Twain blamed himself for his younger brother’s death describing it as “terrible, terrible…I cannot talk about it…(it has) blasted my youth and left me an old man before my time…the light of my life (has) gone out in utter darkness. ” (6)
Two years later, death visited Twain again – the death of hundreds of thousands of young men with the same spirit of adventure and idealism that Twain himself had – at one time. The Civil War. When Twain later lost three of his four children to illness, the last shards of his beautiful world collapsed.
At the deathbed of his daughter, Jane, he started writing. He was writing, he said, “to keep my heart from breaking.” (7)
Huckleberry Finn
One of the books he wrote within this dark period was Huckleberry Finn. Though a sequel to Tom Sawyer the two books were drastically different. Where Tom Sawyer was a hymn, Huckleberry Finn was a satire. Where Tom thought Christianity absurd, Huck found it disgusting. Most of this contempt sprung from a contempt of humanity – humanity Twain described as morally rotten and horrifically hypocritical.
Though not a Christian – far from it – Twain was a severe moralist. He could spot a double life behind his back with his eyes closed. But Twain’s repulsion of hypocrisy found himself doing mental gymnastics to try and conceal his own. It drove him mad. On numerous occasions he called himself a liar. In the margin of one of his notebooks he scribbled, “What a man sees in the human race is merely himself in the deep and honest privacy of his own heart. (Lord) Byron despised the race because he despised himself. I feel as Byron did, and for the same reason.” (8)
The book is full of escape: escape from slavery – not just the slavery of the century, but that of the ages – the slavery of societal conformity, social expectations, and moral obligations. In short, the supposed tyranny of humanity, religion, and God. In the end, after blissful hours of temporary freedom on the raft, Huck finds himself back in the bondage of civilization. It was a picture of Twain’s despair, and recognition of the fact that, in truth, there is no escape.
Huckleberry Finn is a book about a child, but to Twain, it was not a children’s book.
Twain had been raised by a religious family. His strength and aspirations were driven from a well-spring of love for beauty, chivalry, humor, stories and adventure – all very Christian aspirations. Twain loved deeply and intensely. But time after time, what he loved was found empty, and those he loved were taken from him. When his wife passed in June of 1904, Twain said, “An hour ago, the best heart that ever beat for me and mine went silent out of this house, and I am as one who wanders and has lost his way.” (9)
Death is horrible. Twain felt this inexpressibly. But death was also bitter escape. It had taken each of those he loved, and passed him by over and over again. He believed that life was nothing more than poisoned happiness, and in every drop of joy there is a strain of bitterness. He said, “(life was) the heaviest curse devisable…but death was sweet…death healed the bruised spirit and the broken heart and gave them rest and forgetfulness; death was man’s best friend; when man could endure life no longer, death came and set him free.” (10)
It was death, and the haunting despair resulting from death, that tore him in two. He truly fulfilled his name: Twain between two different worlds.
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
These two worlds met in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, when a modern day, educated, brainiac is transported back in time to King Arthur’s England. Twain no longer dismissed Christianity as ludicrous as in Tom Sawyer, or disgusting as in Huckleberry Finn. It was now the cause of all evil, hypocrisy and malice. It held the world back from the advances of science and technology, in a perpetual dark age, void of reason. Connecticut Yankee, like much of Twain’s happiness, ends in death. The death of thousands and thousands of people, blinded to the truth, lost in darkness, and enslaved by their own absurdities.
But Twain had once before observed that what you despise in the race is really just your own reflection. Could it be that Twain himself was just as blind, lost, and enslaved as those he accused? You see, Mark Twain’s quest was a quest for hope. First, hope in humanity. Then hope in reason. But in the end, both these things failed him, and he died without hope. As Christians, we know that the hope we have is founded in God, who is sovereign over humanity, who created reason, and who also has given salvation for those who trust in Him. Who find their hope in Him.
Beyond Whitewashing
Mark Twain traveled a long way since his books were called hymns and his motivations were pure and lighthearted. The world has traveled with him. But now, we can have a new perceptive.
The scene unfolds before you. A group of faces is clustered nearby. One is mine. One is yours. Mark Twain steps back to examine his good work. Stretching before us is a long, whitewashed fence. It is alright to pick up the brush, and set it to the rough wood of our imagination. But we have to do so knowing what is passing through Twain’s mind. Before we set paint to picket, we need to know why he set pen to paper.
The Christian, along with over a century of literature lovers and scholars, can truly enjoy Twain’s winsome style, iconic characters, and lively sense of humor. Twain possesses an insight into human nature and an amazing ability to put into words that which few people can. His command of language stands in a sphere that is renowned and venerated – and rightly so. But when you pick up that brush to paint a story upon your mind, know what colors you’re going to use. A grand decision awaits you. Adventure. A wonderful tale. But don’t laugh yourself blind to the truth. It all begins with what you decide to do when faced with that long, whitewashed fence.
Soli Deo Gloria,
(1) Twain, <museum.state.il.us>
(2) Hemingway, Ernest. <verbivore.com>
(3) Twain, Mark. <newsouthbooks.com>
(4) Twain, Mark. <history.com>
(5) Twain, Mark. <twainsquotes.com>
(6) Twain, Mark. <twainsquotes.com>
(7) Twain, Mark. <history.com>
(8) Twain, Mark. <twainquotes.com>
(9) Twain, Mark. <pbs.org>
(10) Twain, Mark. <twainquotes.com>