Mark Twain Pt. 2

Jennifer Tischler
02/25/2011
Mark Twain Journal 2
Lankford
48B

"But in the wake of Huckleberry Finn's success, it's easy to forget how long it must have taken Twain himself to make that journey toward racial reconciliation-and what a struggle it must have been for him. To put it plainly: Twain was not born an anti racist; he became one. This was indeed part of his great power as an American writer: he truly understood the sensibilities of his rural Southern character....their inbred and inherited racism"(Lankford, 130).

Part of this early racism stemmed from the financial frustrations of growing up in a poor Southern family. Twain's poverty as a youth made him very aware of differences in social class. As Twain later noted in his autobiography: "The class lines were quite clearly drawn and the familiar social life of each class was restricted to that class."

(twainweb.com) 

Upon hearing an alternative name for the mountain lake he felt so admirable towards, he openly degraded it with racial slurring and nastiness--something unlike the Twain most of America is used to.

At the age of writing his disgusted review of the name "Lake Tahoe," it is hard to say whether or not he knew better. I'm not really heading towards this in terms of chronological age--twenty-eight is far beyond the ripeness of knowing better. Now, I believe in my heart of hearts that Samuel Clemens was, somewhere deep down in his maze of a brain or heart, not a racist. This makes me think two things: he was not exposed too highly to anti-racism, and therefore did not really know how to properly express his dislike for the name of the lake; or he was looking for popular criticism in fear of a crashing career. To write a book as powerful as Huckleberry Finn, there had to be some very deep rooted anti-racism somewhere in that twice-gifted dome of churning wheels. I like the line: "He was not born an antiracist, he became one..." because it makes me think of the many times I've heard the opposite. It reflects another obstacle that Twain overcame. Whether or not your direct influences have certain beliefs or not, essentially a person will be thrown into an outside environment, and adapt to that. Imagine how easy it was to go around at that time, (and sadly, even today) and say "n---r this and n---r that," and fit in like a star in a shape block. Imagine, then, going from that, backwards. There was not much influence or support available for that decision--there was much confusion about what was right or wrong in that circumstance. It was something that was strongly reflected in Finn. Twain's great power was overcoming this, and writing about it in America's best selling novel.