Mark Twain in the 21st Century

Dr. Jocelyn Chadwick

Read her article on Gibben's attack on Huck Finn: "The Quintessential Assault: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn v. Political Correctness and Comfort

Read her article "Why Huck Finn Belongs in Classrooms"

wrote The Jim Dilemma

**The following notes are on the lecture I attended. Much of the words are Dr. Chadwick's words

• Two years ago, MLA asked if Twain was still relevant.
• Alan Gribben redaction of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Adventures of Tom Sawyer
• wanted to make people "comfortable"
• How do these works still work in our classrooms, and how do we become more prescriptive, rather than reactionary?
• Twain's goal
• provided an anonymous scholarship for the first African American law student at ...
• John Lewis
• Twain Admired
• based Jim on him
• hard working man pulling manure
• Critical thinking is the goal!
• English teachers don't teach "pretty" or "politically correct". We teach critical thinking through an historical context
• Prior to Huck Finn, Twain was just like Stephen King
• produced popular work
• married into a feminist family, and as he began to talk to the people of color around him, his thinking began to change
• Ann Plato - book of poetry for American ladies
• free woman in the North.
• not good poetry, but it was published
• friends with Harriet Beecher Stow, Frederick Douglass
• loved minstrel shows, but so did the African Americans
• think about BET or The Jeffersons
• Adventures of Tom Sawyer
• huge success
• Tiffany lamps and wallpaper
• three Story home
• servants living in the house
• would a racist man do that?
• first phone
• Twain thought it wouldn't sell
• European students know their history, but American students do not know their own
• we cannot assume they will understand just because they live here
• they don't understand
• there are two groups of African American
• women's subjugation
• founding fathers
• roles in slavery
• Twain builds on all of this

• He wanted to write the quintessential "boy's story", and everyone was waiting for the sequel
• but Twain was setting us up
• Tom is flighty, fake, doesn't care about family, friendship
• he is getting read to serve Tom up on a platter in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
• Twain takes on all of the unvoiced people when he writes Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
• Why Huck over Uncle Tom
• Twain said because Stowe stops and creates a negative character
• Stowe believed and wrote that black and white children are the same until age seven. Then they need to be separated because white people are superior

• Chapter 7 is the important chapter
• The "free professor" enters, who is a freeman, not a "free man."
• Twain did not want you to like the words "nigger" or "Injun". They should be difficult
• but the teacher sets the tone. the teacher cannot be nervous and everyone must participate in the uncomfortable conversation
• The students need  to feel the sting of the language, but be a little less sensitive so that we do not lose the books and the messages
• 19th century literature
• controversial
• women
• social justice
• Mark Twain is the first to deal with all of these issues
• Henry James is a great writer of women, but is not relevant anymore
• Mark Twain is relevant because we haven't gotten it right yet
• Themes Then and Now and Beyond
• Identity
• Voice
• Tolerance
• Social Justice
• Relationships: Family, Friends, Enemies
• The Global Community: No longer can any culture or country or economy or government exist in isolation
• Huck Finn is a statement that we are a part of that global community
• So what made him change his trajectory from a "Stephen King" like existence to this one?
• critics hated it, not because of the word "nigger", but because Huck was uncultured; he was a teenager; he was the unlikely hero
• the good Christian women and Tom who are "civilizing" Huck are portrayed as evil
• Judge Thatcher cheats  Huck out of his money (ponzi schemes)
• Langston Hughes: this is the most realistic vision of a runaway slave
• remember that Stowe's Tom doesn't run
• children test limits, teenagers ask questions
• Alice v. Huck
• teens have many voices, depending on the situation
• now they are multi-media voiced as well
• a sign of independence
• this is what Twain is talking about - a movement toward voice
• Pudd'nhead Wilson
• a movement toward a woman's voice
• prevalent in Connecticut Yankee, etc
• In Finn, Twain sacrifices the friendship for the voice
• should he have ended it with Chapter 21? ("Alright I'll go to hell!)
• remember the weight that had in the 19th century
• show image from Inferno
• they really believed that
• so then ... for whom would you go?
• for a person? for an ideal?
• Obama example of the church
• Twain was willing to "go to hell and take his family with him"
• So by chapter 21, we learn that Huck can talk the talk. You need the final fourteen chapters to see if he can walk the talk
• these chapters outline the rest of Huck's life
• friendshi - the code: you don’t betray, cheat, lie to a friend
• Huck says "I can't find any place to harden my heart" against Jim on the river and "I can't bring you into this... you're a gentleman"
• Huck believes Tom when he says he will help him
• Tom knows Jim is free from the beginning but wants the adventure.
• dialectic
• "What is Man?" - dark essay
• Every work after Adventures of Tom Sawyer is about social justice
• women's rights
• race
• Jews
• You cannot leave the books until we fix the problems and truly learn the lessons
• "You cannot rebuild your house with the master's tools"
• "nigger" is the same no matter how you pronounce it or who says it
• it still has blood and pain and too much history to be redacted
• the is no word without its weight and its consequences
• "sorry" example
• dogs had more rights than African Americans at that time, so when Huck takes 15 minutes to apologize to Jim who has just yelled at him, this is significant. He is processing the apology and internalizing it
• Twain discusses identity
• teens don't want to be invisible
• So if you redact these two books, where do you stop?
• Think about
• Shakespeare, Martin Luther King, Sandra Cisneros, Thomas Moore, Thomas Jefferson, etc
• they all use the word "Nigger" and other racial slurs, and those words impact the meaning of the piece
• You cannot change primary documents
• cannot "put the band aid of protection around our students"
• they can handle it and need to understand the "critical ideas upon which this " world is based
• we need  critical thinking people to recognize that differences and voice and identity are positives and substantive, and not things to kill each other over
• What do 21st century students take away from experiencing Mark Twain?
• Consubstantiation from a global perspective
• paved the way for Zora Neal Hurston, Toni Morrison and all of American Literature
• the themes continue
• those writers lost from the cannon are no longer relevant
• Modern comprehension of race, class, social justice on a global perspective
• Twain's literature is gritty and real, so you root for these unlikely heroes, and weep for them when they fall
• nonfiction works are important, but fiction works become monumental texts that help us as a society discover ourselves
• Henry James is not relevant
• wouldn't understand a woman taking her own name, going off to do what she likes
• Amy Tan has relevance
• a complete cultural experience
• intraclassism between races
• So where does this leave us?
• we need to claim the literature for ourselves
• we need to reclaim who we are as teachers
• day 1: talk about the types of works and questions we will study; let them know it will be uncomfortable
• don’t let them see you sweat. Practice and be comfortable.
• have a conference call with scholars
• just ask the authors... many will say yes, and not ask for money
• The point, then, is to walk the talk. Just as we will expect our students to learn these lessons, we must learn and live them as well.
• Watch 60 minutes on Sunday for a piece on this  topic
• Notes on questions and discussions after the lecture:
• This speaker is willing to talk to you. Talk to them.
• We are teaching Twain - and all of our pieces, for that matter - because they are still relevant. We still need to learn the lessons
• students watch shows we don't understand ... ASK them about it, and they will tell you why it is relevant
• On books like Pride and Prejudice or films that change the books
• do what you need to to "back into" the literature
• if it gets them to read it, if it brings the classics back, then we can reopen the conversation
• Taking out the word "nigger" is unreasonable
• students hear it
• it exists
• Pap is the quintessential racist - how can you change his dialogue and keep it "real"?
• The "free professor" cannot be called "slave" - he was never a slave in his life!
• Gribbens knowingly changed a primary source, and that is wrong
• Twain did read The Subjugation of Women;
• The philosophy is the same in any age classroom, but you have to know your students. They need to know and understand what is going to happen before it does so that they are sensitized and can understand the message
• Regarding age appropriateness:
• If the conversation starts early, then as they go though life and through school, we can open up the understanding of it and handle the more difficult texts
• Morrison believes that 9th grade is too early to teach The Bluest Eye
• Bullying: human beings have treated people this way a long time before Twain and keep doing it, so if the work bothers you, then maybe you are beginning to understand the problem
• The argument that only certain people should teach each work based on their race is ludicrous
• The students are resilient; it is the parents that do not think logically... and that is normal
• If you are uncomfortable teaching something, tell your chair and don't teach it. Please don’t teach it poorly.