Kai-En Kyle Chou
ENG 372 Comedy
October 11th, 2014
Mark Twain Essay Though not a comedian in the modern sense, Mark Twain (born as Samuel Langhorne Clemens) helped to show the world how American English could become an art form. With just his mind and his mouth, he made audiences across everywhere laugh at his wild, comedic tall tales. Although meant to be entertaining and certainly tall, these stories were envisioned as a satirical response to the social inequities that he saw in his world. It was strange to see a Southerner talk about the injustices of war, gender, and, most notably, slavery. Some of Twain’s most notable works include Huckleberry Fin and Tom Sayer, but these stories are not the only things he has published. Short stories such as “Excerpts from Adam’s Diary”, “True Story”, etc., made Twain one of the most notable American writers. Within these famous stories also come Twain’s interpretation about the world around him. His writings become his reflections about his world, upon which Twain shares his experiences and his thoughts through fictional stories that sometimes weigh heavy on the heart, or just let us laugh our hearts out, although some stories were nonsensical such as “The story of Grandfather’s Old Ram” to the heart wrenching “True Story.” Twain was not only an author, but a great lecturer. With his “shows”, people from all over would come in and enjoy Twain storytelling/lecturing, all the while either knowing or not knowing Twain’s messages behind his stories. Twain, having been born during the Civil War times, had a lot of experience with war. Though, he did not participate in any battles, Twain still lived in an era, where brother fought brother and his tales reflect that era and the way people were living in those times. In “War Prayer,” we see a group of unknown soldiers gather together and prepare for the oncoming battle. They gather to hear a sermon and to be inspired by a minister, and after short and sweet sermon, a stranger approaches from behind and begins to delve into his own sermon. Now, this stranger’s sermon is seemingly both long-winded and very passionate, but in the end, we find that the soldiers were as baffled as we are hearing it. We all become baffled with the whole story and just laugh it off as a clever poke at perhaps religious zealots. Although a funny story, it shows us the fault of how blind patriotic and religious belief can blind people and make them do horrible and stupid things. Twain is clearly showing us how asinine these thoughts about how righteous and just their cause is, when really all they are doing is throwing their lives away for a cause that they have no particular reason to fight for. Notice how Twain did not describe the army that gathered to be Northern or Southern, rather it was just an anonymous coalition of soldiers. Twain does this because he does not believe one side is more just than the other, no, rather he is showing us that both sides are fighting for a cause and belief that blinds men to the fact that they are going to a war that they may not return from ever. Another story that echoes this theme, “The Private History of a Campaign that Failed,” regales a story about an inexperienced pro-Confederate militiamen called the Marion Rangers. Although militiamen, these men have actually never seen battle, nor are they ever exposed to. Rather, they flee and retreat at every opportunity they get, until they accidentally shoot an innocent man. Now this story is comedic because although these men are supposed to be militiamen that fight for the South, when really all they have done throughout the war is just retreat and flee from combat. These men reflect the young men that often eagerly sought “glory” in fighting for their own causes, even though none of them had ever seen combat before. Twain brings us these men because he wants to show us the folly of this type of thinking of fighting for glory and God. Though “noble” as these men were willing to risk their own life for their ideals, they jumped into a war that ended with one of the highest death rates in any single war. This story is also based on Twain’s own experience inside a Confederate volunteer militia. Twain never really talks about the causes or the just reasoning behind why people go to war, rather in all of his war related stories, he points out how foolish war truly is. Another theme that Twain touches upon is slavery, but not in the African-American slave sense that we are used to thinking about in this era (those themes can be seen in his novels). The theme of slavery that Twain talks about is the slavery of a person that is either willingly or ignorantly enslaved by the ideals of the country, religion, and social roles. Earlier I discussed how Twain found religion to be asinine and foolish because of how he saw his fellow countrymen and brothers-in-arms fanatically believed in fighting and dying for these ideals. These ideals dictate how people are supposed act and behave. The men are eager to fight, while the women stay behind and mind the farms and slaves. These people are in fact slaves themselves to their own ideals, believing that this is how life is supposed to be. So, Twain does what he does best, and uses satire to point out these flaws. Notice how in nearly all his stories about war, there was no woman character to be found. None of his female characters are portrayed as fighting soldiers or women proclaiming a desire to wanting to fight and die for their country. It is because in their society, they believe that women are essentially second-class citizens and the women who grew up like this are supposed to be slaves to both the system/society in place and to their male patriarchs. In “A Medieval Romance,” Twain gives us a story about how a girl, raised as a boy as a result of succession rights, is forced to endure her/his (not sure how to refer to Conrad, that is another essay I do not want to do at this time) father’s will and be raised as a boy, so he can become king. However, his cousin Constance, who was supposed to be next had she been born a boy, had taking a liking to Conrad. With this revelation, Conrad refutes Constance and her advances, causing Constance to be put on trial and be asked to name her partner and names Conrad. Although impossible seeing as how Conrad was born female, Conrad cannot reveal this information, for then she would be executed either as her partner or as an imposter. Themes in this story include both gender roles, slavery, and a little bit of trickster. Obviously gender roles is a big one that many people would catch upon, with how Conrad is being forced to listen to his/her father and obey his will, regardless of her gender. These stories always show a paralleling theme of how men are always the dominant gender and women have no say or no power. Look at how the succession rites were decreed in the story. If neither child were born male, then the throne would go once again back to Constance and her house, however, if Klugenstein bore a son then the throne would go to him and his house. So, after hearing about Constance, Klugenstein then lies about his “son,” giving his house the throne. The decree regards males as the superior gender, regardless of age, experience, or wisdom. Conrad also takes part in this because she is obeying her father’s will and his ruling is absolute, making Conrad a slave to both her father and her role in her true gender. Although, the “inferior” gender, Constance actually shows us how wrong we are in the story. After being refuted by her cousin, Constance goes off and gets herself “stained,” whereupon she is now put on trial and is asked who it was that stained her. It is here that Constance cleverly takes the role of the victim and turns it into one of power and uses it against her cousin, naming her/him the perpetrator. This clever little trick, whether intentional or unintentional creates a lose-lose situation for Conrad, for he could not reveal his true gender to the world without exposing his neck to hanging for being an imposter. Twain did this story with great finesse and precision, getting all the themes down with wit and ease. With this clever trickery, we also see an underlying theme of how Twain thinks about tricksters. Tricksters in those times are commonly associated with those of African-American slaves that, while slaves still manage to make the best of their situations by becoming clever and turning their disadvantage into an advantage. Just like how Constance turned her “staining” and her lowly role of a woman into one of power by calling out Conrad because there is no viable way to prove that Constance is lying, unless Conrad reveals himself/herself. Although not a direct response to slavery and the slaves themselves, Twain has seen slaves and knows that in order to escape their adversity and situation they employ wit and cleverly outwit their “superior” masters. Another story, or rather stories, that deals with gender is “Excerpts from Adam’s Diary” and “Eve’s Diary,” both that based off on the biblical characters themselves. At first, both Adam and Eve were born and have no idea what each other were. In both separate diaries, we see both characters begin to discover one another and to try to figure each other out essentially. Adam seems to find Eve to be an annoying creature, while Eve is at first docile but interested in Adam and seems him as a companion and hopes to befriend Adam. The two have already met other creatures and have aptly named each other things such as a lizard or fish, all the while not realizing that they are in fact the same yet different. These diaries reflect societal views on both gender from each other’s perspective pretty accurately, and although they are supposed to be comedic, the two diaries show us things beyond that just of initial physical differences. The diaries are stereotypical of how both genders operate and think, with Adam being stoic and quiet, while Eve is eccentric and energetic. However, as the two progress throughout their discovery and journeys, we see the two interact with strange and some hilarious results. An example would be that of when Adam built a shelter to avoid the rain and Eve attempted to join him, but he shunned her, only to find that she made a “strange” sound. The two diaries are just basically two different point of views of single events that happen and what the two characters are thinking at those times when they are involved in those incidents. The diaries themselves are hilarious if only to laugh at how even though both creatures are so vastly different, they still manage to find love in one another. These diaries are a hilarious examination of how gender roles function by overly exaggerating the genders stereotypes, but also portray how misunderstood Eve is when being examined closely upon by Adam. He shows us that women are trying so hard to be accepted by the men, yet they are refuted at each turn and yet somehow down the line the two will manage to fall in love, despite the inequality between the genders. Twain also shows us that women are not merely tools or objects to be pined for, but rather they too are creatures of thought and that they should be allowed to express themselves freely for their logic and wit can surpass those of men. In all, Twain was by no means a comedian, and yet somehow he made us laugh with his stories that somehow also made us scratch our heads and wonder why there was laughter in the room with those stories. His wit was way ahead of its time, cleverly employing his wit into daily life for many Americans everywhere, including slaves, and giving us keen insight into the America and its faults, all the while making us laugh and bringing joy to the strange times that he was living in.

Works Cited
Twain, Mark, and Charles Neider. The Complete Short Stories of Mark Twain. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1985. Print.