Mark Twain's Impact on American Literature

Daniel Sudit

Mr. Lunetta

English

2 June 2015

Mark Twain's Impact on American Literature

        Upon the culmination of the Civil War in 1865, a new era of American literature emerged in the form of realism. As the United States grew rapidly after the Civil War due to industrialism and urbanization, there was also a great shift in culture with an expanding immigrant population and a relative rise in middle-class affluence. Due to all of these spurring changes, realism emerged as a style of writing that presents a careful, accurate description of everyday middle-class life in a straightforward manner. According to William Dean Howells, "Realism is nothing more and nothing less than the truthful treatment of material" (Carter 36). Countless notable authors have been credited for founding this literary movement through their famous works, such as Howells himself, Henry James, and Hamlin Garland. Perhaps the best-known author of realist works, and one of the greatest American writers of all time, was and always will be Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by his pseudonym Mark Twain. Writing grand tales about Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn and the mighty Mississippi River, Mark Twain explored the real American soul with wit, buoyancy, and a sharp eye for truth. Twain's significant impact on American literature  can be observed through the distinct vernacular, universal themes, and whimsical humor featured in his world-renowned works as well as his lasting legacy to this very day.

        Twain was born on November 30, 1835 in the small town of Florida, Missouri. At the age of four, his family moved to nearby Hannibal, Missouri perched directly on the grand Mississippi River. Sadly, his father passed away when he was only twelve and his family was forced to deal with several years of tough economic struggles that would greatly influence his later works (Bio). Despite this, the adventurous Twain had a childhood filled with jubilation in Hannibal, from indulging himself in books from the town library to witnessing the arrival of the steamboats and other festivities such as circuses and minstrel shows. By the time he was fifteen, Twain was working for his brother Orion at the Hannibal Western Union as a printer and writer. Though, Twain's wanderlust and desire for adventure caused him to leave his brother and achieve his dream of becoming a steamboat pilot at the age of twenty-one. Twain described his experiences on the Mississippi as a pilot as joyous, fulfilling, and some of the best years of his life. Twain's piloting days also contributed greatly to his literary development by allowing him to carefully  examine the river and the people that lived along its banks. Twain later wrote, "In that brief sharp schooling, I got personally and familiarly acquainted with about all the different types of human nature that are to be found in nature that are to be found in fiction, biography, or history" (Bloom 12). The arrival of the Civil War in 1861 would change his life, as it meant the conclusion of Twain's steamboat pilot career and the beginning of one as a world-renowned writer. He trekked westward with his brother Orion on a stagecoach headed for Carson City. At first, Twain prospected for gold and silver but nothing really panned out for him. In need of money, he became a "reporter" for Virginia City Territorial Enterprise and it was here that Twain established both his pseudonym, steamboat slang for twelve feet of water, and his literary career. Churning out editorials, stories, and sketches filled with humor and satire, he quickly established a reputation for audacity with the publication of a hoax entitled 'Petrified Man' (Bloom 14). In 1865, Twain obtained a national reputation as a humorist with the publication of his short story, "The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County." From there on, Twain's literary career grew and expanded to new, unprecedented heights.

        Twain was indeed a realist, but more specifically he was a local-color realist. Local-color realism focuses on the characters, dialect, customs, topography, and other features particular to a specific region, and in Twain's case this was the Southwest (Campbell). Twain's vernacular and style of writing was unique to himself and the Southwestern region of the United States, which differed greatly from the sophisticated and urbanized diction of the East. As opposed to Eastern diction, Twain's writing featured a distinctive, earthy vernacular that included humor and a great attention to seemingly insignificant details.

        Twain is often recognized as the first truly American writer and his works marked the beginning of a continental literature independent of European influences. Around the time of Twain's birth, America's own literature was still largely undeveloped. Alexis de Tocqueville stated in his famous study, "The Americans have not yet, properly speaking, got any literature. Only the journalists strike me as truly American" (47). When Twain published Innocents Abroad in 1869, it was greeted with an overwhelming enthusiasm from the American people. The novel's humor, disdain of European Culture, and frequent exaggeration into burlesque all shocked the nation with a sense of delight (De Voto 49). Twain's novel displayed his indifference and disregard to Europe and its culture. He was looking inward toward the Mississippi rather than outward toward the Atlantic. Twain, through his works, was able to democratize literature in America by introducing vernacular into it and creating a much looser narrative style. The way characters spoke in his novels truly sounded like real speech, and no two characters ever sounded the same. Hamlin Garland stated, "I thought him then as I think him now: one of the greatest of American Authors. Not of the cultured type, but of the creative type. A figure to put beside Walt Whitman as a representative of our literary Democracy" (72). Twain, in his writing career, was able to draw that national type, interpret the national character, and express the individuality of the nation as a whole (Thompson 68). Twain refrained from using English vocabulary that was "undefiled by pernicketty precision," since he understood that such words lacked character. Despite using distinct, local vernacular and phrases such as 'feller' and 'dangdest', his diction is as pure and vivid as it is simplistic and direct. Such diction was distinctly Twain and distinctly American, too. Brander Matthews asserted, "Self-taught as he was, no apprentice to the craft of composition ever had a severer teacher. He so mastered the secrets of our stubborn tongue that he was able to write it as he spoke it, with precise accuracy and yet with flowing freedom" (86). As Twain once stated himself, "I did not speak English at all—I only spoke American" (qtd. in "Pure American English").