Chapter 9 Local Colorism * Mark Twain I. Local Colorism (p. 130-132) 1. Local Colorism is defined by Hamlin Garland in his Crumbling Idols as having “such quality of texture and background that it could not have been written in any other place or by anyone else than a native.” Garland’s “texture” refers to the elements which characterize a local culture, elements such as speech, customs, and mores peculiar to one particular place. And his “background” covers physical setting and those distinctive qualities of landscape which condition human thought and behavior. 2. The ultimate aim of the local colorists is to create the illusion of an indigenous little world with qualities that tell it apart from the world outside.

Chapter 9 Local Colorism * Mark Twain 3. Local colorism or Regionalism as a trend first made its presence felt in the late 1860s and early 1870s. It did not cease to be a dominant fashion until the turn of the 20th century. It formed an important part of the realistic movement. 4. The appearance of Bret Harte’s “The Luck of Roaring Camp” in 1868 marked a significant development in the brief history of local color fiction. 5. Local colorists concerned themselves with presenting and interpreting the local character of their regions. They tended to idealize and glorify, but they never forgot to keep an eye on the truthful color of local life. 6. The representative figures are such as Sarah Orne Jewett (Deephaven about coastal Maine), Kate Chopin (Bayou Folk, The Awakening about Lousiana), Thomas Nelson Page (about the South), Harmlin Garland, Bret Harte, and, of course, Mark Twain. 7. It greatly affected the later giant such as Willa Cather, Steinbeck and Faulkner.

Other Definitions Local Colorism or Regionalism as a trend first made its presence felt in the late 1860s and early 1870s in America. It may be defined as the careful attention in speech, dress or behavior peculiar to a geographical locality. The ultimate aim of the local colorists is to create the illusion of an indigenous little world with qualities that tell it apart from the world outside. The social and intellectual climate of the country provided a stimulating milieu for the growth of local color fiction in America. Local colorists concerned themselves with presenting and interpreting the local character of their regions. They tended to idealize and glorify, but they never forgot to keep an eye on the truthful color of local life. They formed an important part of the realistic movement. Although it lost its momentum toward the end of the 19th century, the local spirit continued to inspire and fertilize the imagination of author. Local Colorism was a literary trend belonging to Realism. It refers to the detailed representation in prose fiction of the setting, dialect, customs, dress and ways of thinking and feeling which are distinctive of a particular region. After the Civil War a number of American writers exploited the literary possibilities of local color in various parts of America. The most famous representative of local colorism should be Mark Twain who took his hometown near the Mississippi as the typical setting of nearly all his novels.

Major Local Colorists Garland, Harte – the west Harte: The Luck of Roaring Camp 《咆哮营的幸运儿》 Garland: Main-travelled Roads 《大路条条》 Eggleston – Indiana The Hoosier Schoolmaster 《山区校长》 Mrs. Stowe Old Town Folks 《老城的人们》 Jewett – Maine Deephaven 《深深拥有》 Chopin – Louisiana Bayou Folk《路易斯安娜移民》, A Night in Acadie　《爱克迪之夜》, The Awakening　《觉醒》 Woolson: Castle Nowhere: Lake-Country Sketches　《处处城堡：乡村湖景札记

Sarah Orne Jewett Hariot Beecher Stowe

Thomas Nelson Page Kate Chopin

Hamlin Garland Thomas Egglestone

George Washington Cable Bret Harte George Washington Cable

Charles W. Chesnutt Alice Dunbar Nelson

Chapter 9 Local Colorism * Mark Twain II. Mark Twain (1835-1910) Pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens 1. Literary Status leading figure of local colorism/language reformer of English novel Novelist, humorist, lecturer, journalist, literary and cultural critic monumental figure in the development of western novel 2. Life and Career: Born in Florida and brought up in the small town of Hannibal, Missouri, on the Mississippi River (a slave state then) born two weeks after the closest approach to Earth of Halley's Comet in 1835. He was twelve when his father died and he had to leave school. He was successively a printer’s apprentice, a tramp printer, a silver miner, a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi, and a frontier journalist in Nevada and California. With the publication of his frontier tale, “The celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County”, Twain became nationally famous. His first novel The Gilded Age (with Charles Dudley )was an artistic failure, but it gave its name to the America of the post-bellum period for. Printer’s apprentice -- self-taught -- Steam-boat pilot – married Olivia Lanton -- Susy, Clara, Jean, his three daughters – received honorary doctorate degree from Oxford University in 1907 -- Twain outlived Jean and Susy. Olivia's death in 1904 and Jean's death on December 24, 1909 deepened his gloom – died in 1910, one day after Halley’s Comet’s closest approach to Earth

Chapter 9 Local Colorism * Mark Twain Twain outlived Jean and Susy. Olivia's death in 1904 and Jean's death on December 24, 1909 deepened his gloom.In 1909, Twain is quoted as saying: “I came in with Halley's Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don't go out with Halley's Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: 'Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.'” His prediction was accurate —Twain died of a heart attack on April 21, 1910 in Redding, Connecticut, one day after the comet's closest approach to Earth. Upon Twain's death, President William Howard Taft said: “Mark Twain gave pleasure—real intellectual enjoyment—to millions, and his works will continue to give such pleasure to millions yet to come... His humor was American, but he was nearly as much appreciated by Englishmen and people of other countries as by his own countrymen. He has made an enduring part of American literature.” Twain is buried in his wife's family plot at Woodlawn Cemetery in Elmira, New York, marked by a 12-foot monument, placed there by his surviving daughter, Clara.

3. The differences between Howells, James, and Mark Twain Although Howells, James and Twain all worked for realism, there were obvious differences between them. A. In thematic terms, James wrote mostly of the upper reaches of American society; Howells concerned himself chiefly with middle class life; Mark Twain dealt largely with the lower strata of society. B. Technically, Howells wrote in the vein of genteel realism, James pursued an “imaginative” treatment of reality or psychological realism, but Mark Twain’s contribution to the development of realism and to American literature as a whole was partly through his theories of localism in American fiction, and partly through his colloquial style.

4. Mark Twain’s Writings 1 (1867) The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County (fiction) (1869) The Innocents Abroad (non-fiction travel) (1871) Mark Twain's (Burlesque) Autobiography and First Romance (fiction) (1872) Roughing It (non-fiction) (1873) The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (fiction, made into a play) (1875) Sketches New and Old (fictional stories) (1876) Old Times on the Mississippi (non-fiction) (1876) The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (fiction) (1876) A Murder, a Mystery, and a Marriage (fiction); (1880) A Tramp Abroad (travel) (1882) The Prince and the Pauper (fiction) (1883) Life on the Mississippi (non-fiction (mainly)) (1884) Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (fiction) (1889) A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (fiction)

4. Mark Twain’s Writings 2 (1893) The £1,000,000 Bank Note and Other New Stories (1894) Tom Sawyer Abroad (fiction) (1894) The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson (fiction) (1896) Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc (fiction) (1897) How to Tell a Story and other Essays (non-fictional essays) (1897) Following the Equator (non-fiction travel) (1898) Is He Dead? (play) (1900) The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg (fiction) (1901) The Battle Hymn of the Republic, Updated (satire) (1901) Edmund Burke on Croker and Tammany (political satire) (1901) To the Person Sitting in Darkness (essay) (1904) A Dog's Tale (fiction) (1905) King Leopold's Soliloquy (political satire) (1905) The War Prayer (fiction) (1906) What Is Man? (essay)

4. Mark Twain’s Writings 3 (1906) Eve's Diary (fiction) (1907) Christian Science (non-fiction) (1907) Is Shakespeare Dead? (non-fiction) (1909) Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven (fiction) (1909) Letters from the Earth (fiction, published posthumously) (1916) The Mysterious Stranger (fiction, possibly not by Twain) (1924) Mark Twain's Autobiography (non-fiction) (1962) Letters from the Earth (edited by Bernard DeVoto) (1969) No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger (fiction) (1985) Concerning the Jews (published posthumously) (1995) The Bible According to Mark Twain: Writings on Heaven, Eden, and the Flood (published posthumously)

5. Mark Twain and his masterpieces The Adventure of Tom Sawyer was an immediate success as “a boy’s book”; its sequel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn became his masterpiece, the one book from which, as Ernest Hemingway noted, “all modern American literature comes.” Life on the Mississippi is another masterpiece of his. In his later works the change from an optimist and humorist to an almost despairing determinist is unmistakable. Some critics link this change with the tragic events of his later life, the failure of his investments, his fatiguing travels and lectures in order to pay off his debts, and added to this, the death of his wife and two daughters which left him absolutely inconsolable.

5. Mark Twain and his masterpieces The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Plot Theme: humanism will finally win The novel used vivid details from actual life successfully. Special point of view: serious social problems discussed through the narration of a little illiterate boy Colloquial style: a very important contribution of this novel to American literature Features of the language used in the novel: mostly Anglo-Saxon in origin, short, concrete and direct in effect; sentence structure is mostly simple or compound; repetition of words; ungrammatical elements Mark Twain made the colloquial speech an accepted, respectable literary medium in the literary history of America.

5. Mark Twain and his masterpieces Another feature of the book which helps to make it famous is its language. The book is written in the colloquial style, in the general standard speech of uneducated Americans. One of Mark Twain’s significant contributions to American literature lies in the fact that he made colloquial speech an accepted, respectable literary medium in the literary history of the country. Its influence is clearly visible in twentieth-century American literature. Sherwood Anderson was the first writer after Twain to take the vernacular as a serious way of presenting reality. Ernest Hemingway was the direct descendant of Mark Twain. William Faulkner declared, “In my opinion, Mark Twain was the first truly American writer, and all of us since are his heirs, who descended from him.” J. D. Salinger, E. A. Robinson, Robert Frost, Carl Sandburg, William Carlos Williams, E. E. Cummings, and even T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound were all influenced by him. Mark Twain was a social critic as well.

5. Mark Twain and his masterpieces Metaphor Analysis Land: The land, in Huck Finn, largely represents the bondage and cruelty of American civil society.  To Jim, the land means captivity in slavery.  To Huck, the land comes to symbolize bondage of thought and behavior exuded by the religious-minded Miss Watson and the Widow Douglas.  Mississippi River/Raft: Conversely, the Mississippi River, more than any other physical entity in the novel, symbolizes freedom, both for Jim and Huck.  The pair can only find safety and peace of mind on the river; whenever they step onto land, they find themselves getting into trouble. Twain's characters: Twain also uses many of his main characters to represent certain characteristic qualities of Americans.  Huck, for example, is the typical American frontiersman: he's shrewd, even manipulative at times, and above all, he's a realist.  Tom, though he possesses many of the same qualities, is less of a realist, but instead tries to romanticize his world.  Huck's pap has what Tocqueville describes as a depraved love of equality.  He symbolizes the corruption of humanity and the depravity of those who live outside of civilization.  Huck's pap is a perfect contrast to the Widow Douglas and Miss Watson, who epitomize the civility of religious women in America.

The Cabin where Twain wrote his The Jumping Frog Jackass Hill, Tuolumne County

Twain House First Floor Library

In 1908 friendship with Henry Huttleson Rogers in the lab in Nicola Tesla, Spring of 1894