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HUMORISM AND MARK TWAIN. HENRY JAMES AND COSMOPOLITANISM

In this topic I am going to deal with two of the best American writers and two of the most
characteristic elements in their writing: Mark Twain and his humorism and Henry James
and his cosmopolitanism. I will divide this topic into four different sections. I will start with an
introduction about the historical background of the United States in the 19 th and 20th
centuries, the period when these writers wrote their works. In my second section, I will
provide a literary background in order to understand better the kind of American literature
written at that period. Then, I will move on to deal with Mark Twain and his humorism.
Finally, I will centre my attention on Henry James and his cosmopolitanism.
But before I go any further, I would like to mention the books I’ve consulted in order to
develop this topic:
- P. High’s An Outline of American Literature, 1986.
- Ward & Trent’ s book The Cambridge History of English and American Literature,
2000.
- And the web page www. britannica.co.uk
Before beginning with my topic, I would like to mention the fact that Mark Twain and Henry
James’ styles and main themes are very different, but they are united by the historical
context in the U.S.A. as well as by the literary trend called “Realism”.
First, I will deal with the historical context. The Civil War was one of the most important
events in the history of the U.S.A From the beginning of their existence there were
differences between the Northern and Southern colonies. But the most striking difference
between them was the subject of slavery. Southern states defended slavery, but most
northerners opposed it for moral and religious reasons. The American Revolution (1776-
1783) had been fought to validate the idea that all men are created equal, so from the
Northern States’ point of view, African slavery was the antipathy of the principles on which
the Constitution was based. In addition, westward expansion emphasised sectional
differences, in the sense that both Northern and Southern colonies were eager to acquire
territories in the West, not only to find gold, but also to have allies. When Abraham Lincoln
was elected president in 1860, polarisation of the States took place. South Carolina
followed by 10 Southern States announced their withdrawal from the Union with their plans
to set up a new independent government, the Confederate States of America. Lincoln

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denied the Southern States’ right of secession, and refused to recognise that the Union
could be divided. He sent troops to Fort Sumter in April, 1861, provoking, in many
historians’ opinions, the Confederate to fire the first shot. This shot marked the beginning of
the American Civil War, which lasted until 1865. The North’ s defeat of the South resulted in
the preservation of the Union, the abolition of slavery, the citizenship of former slaves,
universal male voting rights and increase in technological development.
.After the Civil War, American industries grew quickly. In fact the American Civil War has
been called the first industrial war.
The period between 1861 and 1914 is regarded in America as the period when the great
era of national prosperity set and big fortunes towered up. Business was the main source of
prestige and power in the country and was producing the “great men”. It was the time when
the systematic development of the continent began. The expansion of industry was
accompanied by increasing tensions between employers and employees and by the
appearance for the 1st time in the U.S. of national labour unions. By 1900 the US was the
richest and most productive industrial country in the world.
Having set the scene in which Mark Twain and Henry James wrote their works, I will move
on now to deal with my second section of this topic, the literary background.
Both Mark Twain and Henry James belong to the period of the literary American Realism. In
American literature, the term realism encompasses the period of time from the Civil War to
the turn of the century during which William Dean Howells, Rebecca Harding Davis, Henry
James and Mark Twain among others wrote fiction devoted to an accurate representation
of American life.
Realism is a literary technique defined as the faithful representation of reality or
verisimilitude. Although strictly speaking, realism is a technique, it also denotes a particular
kind of subject matter, the representation of American life.
While romanticists tried to find the ideal and naturalists were interested in the conditions of
society, realists centred their attention on the immediate action the here and now.
Mark Twain and Henry James reflected the changes and problems in American society at
that time, but in a different way: Mark Twain with humour; Henry James from a
cosmopolitan point of view.
I will focus now on Mark Twain (1835-1910) and his humour. He was born Samuel
Langhorne Clemens. The Mississippi River plays a central part in Twain’s works. It became
an important symbol of “the human journey”. Twain had grown up on the river in Hannibal,

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Missouri. This was the perfect place for the young Twain to grow up. There, he could hear
many Indian legends and listen to the stories of the black slaves. But the life of the river
itself influenced him the most. The arrival of the big steamboats excited his boyhood
dreams of adventure. For four years, Twain worked as a river pilot on one of these boats.
He loved this profession so much that significantly he chose his pen name from a river
term: mark twain meaning “two fathoms deep”. He reflected his memories of being a pilot
on his work Life on the Mississippi. When the Civil War destroyed the riverboat business,
Twain went to spend some time as an army volunteer, a gold prospector in Nevada, a
timber prospector and a journalist. Many of these experiences appeared in his later writings
such as Roughing It. Influenced by the two best known American humorists of the time,
Bret Harter and Artemus Ward, he began a successful career as a travelling comic lecturer,
a career he continued until late in his life. He did not became nationally famous because of
these lectures, but also because of the publication in 1865 of his short story The
Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calavaras County. Based upon stories he heard in the
Californian mining camps, the story is about an apparently innocent stranger who cheats a
famous frog racer and beats him. It is a typical western humour story called a “hoax”. A
hoax is an attempt to trick an audience into believing that something false is real. Many
hoaxes are provoked by a desire to satirize or to provoke social change. Like all the
Western humorists, Twain’s work is filled with stories about how ordinary people trick
experts, or how the weak succeeded in “hoaxing” the strong. Twain’s most famous
character, Huck Finn, is a master at this. Hoaxes were not only present in his works, but
also in his personal life: when Twain’s newspaper sent him to Europe and he is taken to
see the great old paintings, he plays a hoax in his guide by asking him very stupid
questions. His experiences in Europe led him to write The Innocents Abroad. In this book
he makes fun of American tourists in Europe. He laughs at tourists who pretend to be
excited by the art treasures they see there. But they are only excited because their guide
books tell them they should be.
The Innocents Abroad created the pattern for Twain’s next important book, Roughing It,
about his travels in the Far West. This book begins as a series of newspaper articles, giving
us clear pictures of the people he met. The book is very funny. It features many “hoaxes”
and also another form of Western humour, the “tall tale”. The technique of Twain’s and
other western humorists of the time was to tell the tallest of stories, that is, fantastic,

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unbelievable tales with a “dead pan” (a serious face). But, Mark Twain was also concerned
with how society was changing in post Civil War America.
The period of the Civil War was a time when a small number of millionaire businessmen
held great power in American society. The city home of the very rich looked like palaces
and many people thought of this period as a new “Golden Age”. But the gold was only on
the surface. Underneath, American society was filled with crime and social injustice. It was,
in fact, only a “Gilded Age”: the gold was just a thin layer. Mark Twain created this phrase
for his next novel, The Gilded Age, co-written with Charles Warner. It was one of the first
novels which tried to describe the new morality (or immorality) of post-Civil War America.
One of the new elements of this novel is that it creates a picture of the entire nation, rather
than of just one region. Although it has a number of Twain’s typically humorous characters,
the real theme is America’s loss of its old idealism. The book describes how a group of
young people are morally destroyed by the dream of becoming rich.
Mark Twain is best known as the creator of the immortal characters Tom Sawyer and
Huckleberry Finn. Both works, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn, recreated the life of Mississippi valley and display his genius for
characterisation. Both novels delight children and adults alike and numerous adaptations
for film and TV had been made. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer was a story about “bad
boys”, a popular theme in American literature. The two young heroes, Tom and Huck Finn,
are “bad” only because they fight against stupidity of the adult world. In the end, they win.
Twain created a highly realistic background for this story. We get to know the village very
well, with its main colourful characters, its graveyards and the house in which there was
supposed to be a ghost. Although there are many similarities between Tom and Huck, there
are also important differences. Twain studies the psychology of his characters carefully.
Tom is very romantic: his view of life comes from books about knights in the Middle Ages
and after his adventures, Tom can always return to his Aunt Polly’s house. But Huck has no
real home. He is a real outsider. He has had a harder life and never sees the world in the
romantic way that Tom does.
Some critics complain that Twain wrote well only when he was writing about young people.
They say that his psychology was really only child psychology. This may be true. But in his
greatest novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twain gives his young hero very adult
problems. The question of slavery is always present, since he was brought up within the
perspective of slave-owning tradition, but his conscience was that of a Northerner. Huck

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and an escaped slave, Jim, are floating down the Mississippi River on a raft. During their
trip, Huck learns about the evil of the world. Meanwhile, he is facing a big moral problem.
The laws of society say he must return Jim to his owner. But Huck decides Jim is a man,
not a “thing”. He thinks deeply about morality and then decides to break the law. After that,
he is not a child any more. Many see this novel as the great novel of the American
democracy. It shows the basic goodness and wisdom of ordinary people.
The novel has also been called the “school of many late Western writers”. Ernest
Hemingway, whose own style is based on Twain’s, once said, “All modern American
literature comes from Huckleberry Finn”.
In his later novels, Twain seems less hopeful about democracy. Death, tragedy and
bankruptcy characterized his later years, events that are said to have led to a more
pessimistic tone in his writings. His pessimism grew deeper and deeper. These feelings can
be seen in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, in which Twain praises technology
and the leadership of the American bosses during the “Gilded Age”, and in The Mysterious
Stranger, where Twain sees human nature as a kind of machine.
Throughout all of Twain’s writing we see the conflict between the ideals of Americans and
their desire for money. Twain never tried to solve the conflict. He was not an intellectual. He
was like a newspaperman who reports what he sees.
Twain’s importance has survived throughout the years. Two American steam-powered
paddle boats travelling the Rivers of America attractions at Disneyland and Disneyland
Paris are named after Mark Twain and Samuel Clemens, Twain’s real name, is a character
in the film.
Now I will move on to the last section of this topic, dealing with Henry James and
cosmopolitanism. Like Mark Twain, Henry James was also a realist. However, he was not
interested in the conditions of society but he was an observer of the mind, rather than a
recorder of the times. His realism was a special kind of psychological realism. Few of his
stories include big events or exciting action. The changing consciousness of the character
is the real story. Henry’s older brother, the philosopher William James, gave this kind of
literature a name. He called it “stream of consciousness” literature. In the late 19 thc most
readers were not ready for such a new approach and so Henry James’s greatest novels
were not very popular. Critics deplored his tendency to write of the life of the mind, rather
than of action. In fact, the characters in his last and finest novels rarely do anything at all.
Things happen to them, but not as a result of their own actions. They watch life more than

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they live it. We are interested in how their minds respond to the events of the story. What
do they see? How do they try to understand it? The changing consciousness of the
character is the real story.
But why is he considered as a cosmopolitan writer? We can say that he was a
cosmopolitan in two ways:
- although living in Europe, James published his work in American journals and newspapers
such as The New York Tribune as well as in British journals.
- his cosmopolitan themes. He was familiar with and at ease with many different countries
and cultures. Because of this, he has been called the first true “Anglo-American writer.
After the Civil War, the Old World was seen by many American writers as a place to visit.
There were obvious practical reasons why Americans should live in Europe: European art
style was considered superior to its American counterpart. Although the majority of people
who went to Europe were temporary visitors, there were many who settled there
permanently. They were called the expatriates and were considered as “miserable little
snobs”. Those who stayed in Europe were usually cosmopolitan in their origin. Staying in
Europe was sometimes associated with class distinction. This was the case of Henry
James (1843-1916), who loved London so much that he became a British citizen in 1905.
Although he was born in Washington Place, New York, he lived a great part of his childhood
and adolescent years in Europe, schooled by tutors and governesses. The awareness he
acquired of Europe at this time would later be used in his writing as he described the effect
of Europe on Americans and Americans on Europe.
He began his literary career in America as he contributed reviews and short stories to
American journals. When William Dean Howells became editor of The Atlantic Monthly,
James found a friend and a mentor as he could publish his work regularly and became one
of the most skilful short story writers in America. However, he felt attracted by Europe and
after two visits to Paris, he decided to settle there where he met Flaubert and other literary
figures. One year later, he moved to London, a city which he found “interesting, inspiring
and even exhilarating”. At that time, he published his first novel, Roderick Hudson, followed
by a travel book, Transatlantic Sketches. This marked the beginning of his literary career as
a novelist, and at the same time, as an expatriate living in Europe.
.We usually divide James’s career as a writer into three stages: early, middle and mature.
The novels of his early period deal with his thoughts and feelings as an American living in
Europe. He spent most of his life in England and finally became a British citizen. Roderick

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Hudson tells of the failure of a young American artist in Italy. Although he was a genius, the
young man failed because he lacked moral strength. In his novel The American contrasts
American “innocence” with European “experience”. James uses this contrast throughout his
work. Like many of James’s later American heroes, Christopher Newman, the hero in The
American, is a rich young man who goes to Europe in search of culture and a better life. He
wants to marry a woman whose family does not allow it, as they value their family name
more than the happiness of their daughter. Characteristic for James novels are
understanding and sensitively drawn lady portraits. His main themes were the innocence of
the New World in conflict with corruption and wisdom of the Old.
Daisy Miller is another novel about American innocence defeated by the traditional values
of Europe. Daisy brings her free American spirit to Europe. She looks at people as
individuals rather than as members of a social class. But she is misunderstood by
European characters. The coldness of these people leads her to death.
The Portrait of a Lady is the best novel of James’s middle period. Again, a young bright
American girl goes to Europe to explore life. After many good offers of marriage, she
chooses the wrong man. James shows her inner conscience in her quiet moments. There
is great drama in her description of her “motionless seeing” the mistake she has made. The
drama is not created by her actions but by the thoughts in her mind. These descriptions
mark the beginning of James’s mature period.
After this, little by little, dramatic action almost disappears from James’s novels. The Wings
of the Dove, The Ambassadors and The Golden Bowl are the most important novels of this
period. In them, James shows a completely developed art of fiction. Characters usually
spend their time talking about the different aspects and possibilities of the situations they
are in. Sometimes the drama comes when a character changes from one way of looking
the world to another way. In The Ambassadors, a middle-aged American goes to Paris to
rescue the son of a friend from the “evils” of European society. In the end, the boy is happy
to be “rescued” and to go back to America. However, the man wants to stay in Europe.
James never tries to give a large, detailed picture of society. Rather, in his stories, he
selects a single situation or problem. Then, using his imagination, he studies the problem
from various points of view. Sometimes the problem is about the nature of art or the
problem of being too popular. Another kind of problem is the “unlived life”, the hero may be
so afraid of life that he cannot really live. This is seen in The Beast in the Jungle. A further
problem James sometimes studies is the introduction of children to the evil and immorality

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of the world around them. This is the theme of The Turn of the Screw, a famous ghost story
about two children and their nurse. The nurse is sure that the children are being haunted by
ghosts, but it is not clear to the reader whether these ghosts are real or are only in the
nurse’s mind.

For James, in his private life and in his literature, being an American was a great
problem. Although he lived most of his life abroad, this was always a central theme. In his
writings, Americans are always being tested by European civilization. And, similarly, the
achievements of European civilization are always being tested by the new possibilities of
the American civilization.
To conclude, in this topic I have dealt with a brief historical introduction of the period in
which both Mark Twain and Henry James wrote their works. In my second section, I’ve
looked at the literary background at this time in U. S. A. in order to see the most important
literary techniques and trends in this period. Then, in my third section I have focused my
attention on Mark Twain and the most representative feature of his writing: humour. Finally,
I’ve centred on Henry James and his cosmopolitanism.