The Purpose of this Powerpoint
The purpose of this Powerpoint is to offer a solution
to how Mark Twain’s works are presently being used
in our school systems. Since Alan Gribben’s edited
version of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
became a topic of interest and debate many of us
have been asked to explain/defend why the “N”
word exists in Huckleberry Finn. Unfortunately, no
matter how well we articulate our answers, to some
our reasoning is wrong... They say: “But what if it
opens up the book to more young people?”
The Purpose of this Powerpoint
But the truth is, even if by changing a couple words
you opened up the book to millions of new
readers… the whole point of the book involves the
“N” word (as a hate word), the racism fueling this
hatred and how it eventually dawns on Huck that
this type of behavior and hatred is wrong.
So by removing the “N” word you lose the impact of
the hatred Twain is not only pointing out but
calling out in 1885.
So what’s my solution? Read on…
My solution is that we don’t force children to read Mark
Twain. What we do is teach them who Mark Twain was
and show them the unique life experiences he had that
made him who he was and fueled the novels that he
wrote.
Mark Twain’s life is not a hard sell, and once you’re
hooked, you’re hooked. Imagine if children *wanted* to
read Mark Twain and as they read Mark Twain they
understood and appreciated what he was saying in
those texts. That’s my solution to this “problem”. Enjoy
this preview and please send me your thoughts and
ideas so I can improve on it.
* Much of this text comes from Twain scholars and those scholars and sources will
be credited in the final version of this Powerpoint.
Understanding Mark Twain:
The Life of Samuel L. Clemens
Sure…
You could call me
“Rags to Riches”
Halley’s Comet
Born:
11/30/1835
Florida, Missouri
Died:
04/21/1910
Redding, Connecticut
“I came in with Halley’s Comet in
1835. It is coming again next year
(1910), 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.”
-Mark Twain, a Biography
In 1910, Halley’s Comet reached perihelion on
April 20th, Twain died on the 21st.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, was born in this cabin in the
small frontier settlement of Florida, Missouri.
Interior of Florida, Missouri home
Samuel L. Clemens was born two months
premature, on November 30th 1835.
He was the sixth child of
John and Jane Clemens.
Hearing develops more quickly in premature
babies and he did exhibit an unusual ability to
retain sounds, which may explain his unique gift
of transforming spoken language into literature.
Other Talented Premature Babies:
Pablo Picasso
Isaac Newton
Albert Einstein
Charles Darwin
Renoir
John Keats
Franklin Roosevelt
Stevie Wonder
Understanding Huckleberry Finn
In many ways Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn is autobiographical.
Twain was holding a mirror up at postCivil War America and screaming:
“What we did was wrong!”
Understanding Huckleberry Finn
Although the Missouri he grew up in
never joined the Confederacy, it was a
world in which slavery was taken for
granted by most whites, defended by
all public institutions, including the
churches; Even Sam's own parents
owned slaves.
Understanding Huckleberry Finn
One of the slaves that influenced Sam’s life was a middle
aged slave known to him as “Uncle Dan’l” He’d later recall
the “privileged nights” he, his cousins & slave children
clustered at Dan’l’s feet to hear him tell his thunderous
stories.
“He has served me well, these many, many
years…spiritually I have had his welcome company… &
have staged him in books as his own name and as
“Jim”…It was on the farm that I got my strong liking for his
race and my appreciation of… its fine qualities.”
Understanding Huckleberry Finn
In his Notebook #35 he writes:
“In those slave-holding days the whole
community was agreed as to one thing-
the awful sacredness of slave property.”
“It shows that that strange thing, the
conscience - the unerring monitor - can be
trained to approve any wild thing you want it
to approve if you begin its education early &
stick to it.”
Understanding Huckleberry Finn
In Following the Equator, he says:
“When I was ten years old I saw a man fling
a lump of iron-ore at a slave-man in anger,
for merely doing something awkwardly- as if
that were a crime. It bounded from the man’s
skull, and the man fell and never spoke again.
He was dead in an hour… Nobody in the
village approved of that murder, but of course
no one said much about it.”
(Chapter 38)
Understanding Huckleberry Finn
This history left Sam a legacy of guilt, guilt that he tried
to lessen through acts of charity. He donated money
and made special appearances at fundraising events for
numerous African American Churches, Institutes, and
Associations. He also supported individuals, most
notably Warner T. McGuinn, a struggling African
American law student at Yale Law School who Sam
anonymously paid tuition for.
He noted: “We have ground the manhood out of them,
& the shame is ours, not theirs, & we should pay for it.”
Understanding Huckleberry Finn
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn took Twain 8 years
to write and between manuscript 1 and 2, he made
more than 1,700 revisions. 88 percent of these revisions
being: word changes, spelling, punctuation and adding
emphasis. He used the words he used for a reason.
Twain scholar Dr. Cindy Lovell said it best:
“Twain pokes us with a sharp stick, makes us squirm,
makes us highly uncomfortable. And it’s effective.”
Twain with John T. Lewis
Of this photo Twain said:
“The colored man… is John
T. Lewis, a friend of mine.
These many years- 34 in
fact. I have not known an
honester man nor a more
respect-worthy-one.
27 years ago, by the prompt
and intelligent exercise of
his courage, presence of
mind and extraordinary
strength, he saved the lives
of 3 relatives of mine…
Naturally I hold him in high
and grateful regard.”
In summary…
I am not a
Racist.
Now… back to
my life story.
Sam’s family moved to nearby Hannibal, Missouri in 1839,
where he’d enjoy his boyhood in the presence of the broad
Mississippi River.
Many of Twain’s characters were a product of
his childhood experiences in Hannibal.
“When I find a well-drawn
character in fiction or
biography I generally take a
warm personal interest in
him, for the reason that I
have known him before…
met him on the river.”
-Mark Twain, Life on the
Mississippi
Location, Location, Location
Hannibal was the center of America at a time when
America was making the transition from East to West.
Sam had a very unique, front row seat to civilization…
Immigrants, Merchants, Speculators, Gamblers,
Thieves, Politicians, Preachers, Runaways & Indians…
he saw it all on the river front and he soaked it all in.
Because of this, Sam would experience a very diverse
group of individuals or as Ron Powers’ noted in Mark
Twain, a Life: “…a continuing vaudeville of floating
humanity.”
The Great Frontier
United States in 1835
Location, Location, Location
The education that Sam would receive in Hannibal from
the age of four to the age of seventeen would come
through loud and clear in his novels: Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
Of that time, he’d note: “When I was a boy everybody
was poor but didn’t know it; and everybody was
comfortable and did know it.”
Visiting his Boyhood Home
Twain’s Boyhood Home in the present day. Note the window sizes.
Sam did not care much for “traditional” schooling, but
he was educated, and enjoyed the teachings of William
McGuffey’s “Eclectic Reader”. The Reader was a
progressive learning tool that conformed to children’s
cognitive strengths and drew children into an active
learning process based on “conversational” teaching
and “wholesome” values: patriotism, charity, honesty,
hard work, and a reverence for the Christian God.
Thus as Sam learned language and writing, he also
learned scripture. “No reading of Mark Twain’s literature
can miss the inexhaustible evidence of the Bible as a
source.” –Ron Powers
In the summer months, Sam was sent to his Uncle’s
farm in Florida, Missouri. There he continued to interact
with the Slaves and their children:
“All the Negroes were friends of ours, and with those of
our own age we were in effect comrades. I say, in
effect, using the phrase as a modification. We were
comrades, and yet not comrades; color and condition
interposed a subtle line which both parties were
conscious of, and which rendered complete fusion
impossible.”
-Mark Twain’s Autobiography
In addition to his unique life experiences, Sam would also
be exposed to the power of public speaking at a young age.
In that timeframe, Hannibal hosted many great orators &
Sam would absorb & later commander their techniques.
The Role Death Played in Twain’s Life
“Pity is for the living, envy is for the dead.”
- Following the Equator
Enduring the untimely deaths of loved ones was a
theme throughout Twain’s life. It began with the death
of his brother when he was 4, followed by his father
when he was 11 and it would continue straight-on-up to
the final year of his life when he lost his youngest
daughter Jean. Jean was only 28 years old. On that day
he wrote: “Possibly I know now what the soldier feels
when a bullet crashes through his heart.”
After the death of his Father, Sam went to work as a
Printer’s Devil. A printer’s devil was an apprentice or
young assistant to a printer.
The Typesetter & Twain
The tedious work that typesetting required revealed the
importance of the right word(s). Each letter had to be
selected and slid into place to form the sentences of
each article. It is also very likely that the lessons
learned in this vocation played a role in both his
handwriting style and his manner of speech.
“His speaking style, famous for its “long talk” and its
effective pauses, was virtually an aural analog of
typography’s orderly flow.”
- Ron Power, Mark Twain, a life.
Sam at 15
When he was 16 (1851), Sam began
contributing humorous pieces, and occasionally
stood in as Editor when his brother Orion was
away.
In 1852, Sam gained interest East of the
Mississippi via articles in a Boston magazine
and The Philadelphia Saturday Evening Post.
The Dandy Frightening the Squatter
Written in 1852, Sam’s humorous piece “The Dandy
Frightening the Squatter” was submitted and published
in a Boston magazine.
“The squatter calmly surveyed him a moment, and
then, drawing back a step, he planted his huge fist
directly between the eyes of his astonished antagonist,
who, in a moment, was floundering in the turbid waters
of the Mississippi.”
Invigorated by the possibilities that existed for
him outside of Missouri. Sam left Hannibal in
June of 1853, three weeks after his seventeenth
birthday, working initially in St. Louis as a
typesetter before heading to the World's Fair in
New York City.
Young Sam Travels to New York City
The next three and half years found
him moving between New York,
Philadephia, Washington D.C.,
Muscatine (Iowa), St. Louis, Keokuk
(Iowa), and Cincinnati.
Sam at 18
Sam’s teenage travels… 2,000+ miles
Keep in mind these travels are taking place in a time
period where Airplanes and Credit Cards do not exist. To
travel to these places he needed to employ multiple
transportation options: steamships, stagecoaches, trains,
and omnibuses and he needed to find a job (without
references or help) when he got there.
In February of 1857, he took passage from
Cincinnati to New Orleans, with the intention of
embarking on the Amazon River to seek his
fortune in the then thriving coca trade.
He was just twenty-one years old.
His plans changed quickly when he met Riverboat
pilot Horace Bixby. Sam's boyhood dream to
become a steamboat pilot was revived.
In April of 1861, when the Civil War
caused the suspension of civilian river
traffic on the Mississippi, Sam's career as
a steamboat pilot came to an abrupt end.
In the summer of 1861 he found himself
on a stagecoach heading west with his
older brother Orion, who had been
appointed Secretary of the Nevada
Territory.
Sam’s travels by his mid-twenties
Sam at 23
More to Come Soon. The next revision will
explore his talents as a writer and public
speaker.
Your thoughts and ideas are appreciated.
-Brent M. Colley
bcolley@colleyweb.com
http://twainproject.blogspot.com
860-294-6071 (cell number)