Realism in Twains Short Stories - Research Paper Example

of the Realism in Twain’s Short Stories Introduction Mark Twain has written a number of novels, short stories, essays and autobiographies depicting his intellectual and noteworthy talent in writing. Twain wrote for the time in which, he existed. His works show realism and factual presentations of people and society. He has composed many short stories, all highlighting different aspects of society. However, in their different content, they are very realistic as the writer portrays characters that are real and have an existence in Twain’s society. Twain’s stories are not only realistic but also advisory because he contemplated for the betterment of society. Some of his works are indicative of his concepts of boyhood life as many of his characters are boys. This paper evaluates Twain’s five short stories entitled as ‘The Five Boons of Life’, ‘The Danger of Lying in Bed’, ‘A Telephonic Conversation’, ‘The Story of the Bad Little Boy’ and ‘The Story of the Good Little Boy’ based on their realistic narration. Discussion Twain has written many short stories that inform about his society as it really existed. Twain was a realist and his writings were also realistic. He never provided an untrue depiction of society. He always pointed towards the wrongs of society in a sarcastic language. According to Byrne (1999), his writings are also noteworthy because of taking support of dialect that people used to speak. His narrative dialect makes his written works more inspirational and persuasive. His writings are presented in simple and comprehensive style. Twain took support of previous works but his writings were sarcastic about the previous works. He always felt in the unoriginality of romantic works. According to Twain, the romantic writers wrote in a manner that was full of imagination and dreaminess (McElderry 18). Romantic writers wrote nothing belonging to the real society. Twain, in his short story, The Five Boons of Life, combines supernatural concept with that of reality. He employs a fairy to bestow the protagonist with five gifts that are offered to every human being to some extent. The gifts are ‘pleasure’, ‘love’, ‘fame’, ‘wealth’ and ‘death’. Twain points out that all these gifts are just to make human beings to lead their lives on earth. Human beings aspire to have pleasure, love, fame and wealth, while death is inevitable as everyone has to accept it as a reality. In the narrated story, the protagonist as a youngster opts for pleasure, then as a mature person, opts for love, as a middle aged man, opts for fame while in late age, and opts for wealth. In the end, he has to embrace the last and only gift of death. He enjoys all the gifts and comes to realize that nothing is of importance in life. The protagonist after tasting first four gifts acknowledges that, “They are not gifts, but merely lendings. Pleasure, Love, Fame, Riches: they are but temporary disguises for lasting realities--Pain, Grief, Shame, Poverty”. (Twain 339) Twain did not categorize the gifts offered as gifts because he thought that all the offerings are given just for the time being and after sometime, they are taken back. Human beings are unable to enjoy the blessings forever based on their inconsistent nature. Twain has a pessimistic tone in narrating certain bitter realities of life. The protagonist considers the significance of all the gifts timely and with passing time, they lose their significance. This depicts that all the blissful aspects of life are temporary and will end one day leaving human being in a deprived state. Twain’s depicts towards the realities of life in a bitter manner. Life as a whole is an amalgamation of the five boons that Twain has highlighted and also depicted that all these benefits of life are not benefits but timely pleasures that lose their value with time. Human beings realize that nothing is important in this world and as human beings, we have to accept our destined death leaving all other aspects. Twain’s The Danger of Lying in Bed portrays the protagonist’s character as a person who analyzes the death rate of different people and comes to a conclusion that travelling by train is safe as compared to lying in bed. According to his stated estimation, more people die in bed than in train accidents. Twain makes use of numeric figures in telling the death rate of people in various forms of deaths. The inclusion of numeric figures depict towards the story as a realist one as the writer makes use of information as extracting the content from some news clipping or statistical analysis. Twain writes, “There are 846 railway lines in our country, and 846 times 2,500 are 2,115,000. So the railways of America move more than two millions of people every day; six hundred and fifty millions of people a year, without counting the Sundays.” (Twain & Clemens 317) Twain’s tone is also sarcastic as the protagonist tries to escape death that is a reality and cannot be denied. Death is unavoidable and nobody can escape it. The protagonist continues journeying considering that death will not reach him if he is on train because the death rate in train accidents is lower than those of lying in bed as he says, “The danger isnt in traveling by rail, but in trusting to those deadly beds.” (Twain & Clemens 316) Twain makes use of realistic aspect of social threats felt towards the train journey and accidents. According to Mark Twain, the trains killed less people than natural deaths due to which, they should not be threatened as a new marvel endangering people lives. Twain uses dialogues and thinking patterns of the protagonist who regards the situations related to death, journey, insurance and other social aspects. Twain’s style is simple and eloquent. His protagonist is not a psycho who never sleeps in his bed. He has a genuine belief as he has collected evidence from statistical analysis about death rates and reasons of death in many cities of America. The Story of the Bad Little Boy is written in a sarcastic tone as Twain while narrating the story repeatedly mentions the Sunday School Books, which portrayed the characters of good and bad boys. Like the bad boys of the story books, Twain’s bad boy is unable to receive the punishments that they deserve; they are not embarrassed about their doings and they do not have a tragic end. Twain narrates realistically that every bad boy cannot have a bad end based on the religious teachings as the world has good as well as bad people. If all the bad boys have a bad end such as drowning in the water and being arrested in a deadly storm, there would be no more adult criminals in the society. In addition, when a bad boy commits a crime or bad deed, he is not embarrassed before God because if he had an active conscience, he would not commit a bad deed in the first place. In the Sunday School Books, the name James was given to bad boys mostly but Twain’s bad boy was named Jim unlike others. Twain also ridiculed the fixation of bad qualities with the name James. Realistically, all bad boys cannot be James. In addition, Twain also regarded the bad deeds, informed in old children books, done by the bad boys as ridiculous as they are common childish acts that all boys do in innocence and naughtiness. Twain’s bad boy did not have a call from conscience and he was joyful about his deeds. He always enjoyed his acts of nuisance. He hated good boys and tried to trouble them. Neither he got drowned nor was he pushed out of his home. The luck was always on his side as he never had a bad time as a punishment for his ill deeds as Twain says, “Jim bore a charmed life - that must have been the way of it. Nothing could hurt him." (Twain 10) He led his life doing ill deeds, raised a family, got wealthy and became a scoundrel and nobody dared to point a finger towards him. Twain explained that old story books with romantic ideals gave wrong concepts of bad boys and their ill deeds. Their bad boys were ashamed of their ill deeds and were ready to accommodate other people who got into some adversity because of them. They were very religious and felt that God will punish them based on their ill deeds. They also got punishments while doing bad deeds such as physical injuries. However, Twain ridiculed the portrayal of bad boys given by such books. Twain portrayal of the bad boy was realistic and according to the society. Society had such bad boys who marveled on their ill deeds and were never ready to accept their faults. However, in the books mentioned by Twain, bad boys were aware of their bad deeds and were reluctant to revise them. Twain wrote the story of a good boy too like the bad boy and this too was ridiculing the Sunday Books written as children literature. The story entitled as The Story of the Good Little Boy portrays a good boy who is so good that it appears that he is ill minded. The boy tries to do all the tasks given in Sunday School Books but he always gets different results. He is rebuked for his goodness and is considered abnormal because of his manners. Whenever, he tries to help someone, he is abused for it. Twain’s good boy is not good but foolish who tries to follow the false stories of good boys given in advisory books. Whatever should be happening to bad boys happens to him. Twain informs, “This boy always had a hard time of it. Nothing over came out according to the authorities with him.” (Twain 53) The boy tries to be a part of the books as the hero but never wishes to die as every good character in the Sunday school books, dies at the end. His honesty appeared to be preposterous. Twain writes about the content in the books as authorities sarcastically. He mocks the authorities considering that the situations will be the same with everyone. He also mocks the categorization of good and bad boys by the children literature writers. For him, the books’ stories were rubbish and did not portray the real existing characters of society. Twain’s good boy is not really good but foolish. He commits such acts that put him in trouble instead of benefiting him. He tries to copy the characters of the Sunday school books due to which, he pays every time. Twain portrays the good boy as quite distracted from a good character. In reality, good boys are not such. They must not indulge in any unrelated activity. Twain’s good boy follows wrong ideals, which is against realism. Boys develop their personalities according to their existence in society and homes. They are strongly influenced by the society around them. Twain’s good boy appears to have morals that were not part of his current society as all his dreamt personalities had died and he could not relate his qualities to anyone around him. He considered them as his ideal personalities and wanted to be part of those books that were not relevant in his scenario, so, he followed what was not according to his time. A Telephonic Conversation is a short story depicting a telephonic communication that is one sided. The listener of the conversation enjoys the conversation and imagines the answers given by the other side of the telephone. Twain emphasizes the communication of female sex as abrupt and broken because the conversant did not converse important or significant issues but just the things that appeared useful to her. Twain points towards modern age’s curiosities in which, people amuse to overhear any conversation of other people as he says, “Consider that a conversation by telephone--when you are simply sitting by and not taking any part in that conversation--is one of the solemnest curiosities of modern life.” (Twain & Clemens 204) Twain draws the real picture of society. His depiction of the conversation in the given style is persuasive and realistic because he engages the readers in going through the experience themselves. He even informs about the voices that are heard while communicating through telephone that make the conversation more real. The lady also felt tired in lifting the phone and informed it to the person with whom she was communicating and also to the telephone operator. Twain realistically criticizes the female sex by saying, “Not so with the gentle sex--I say it in their praise; they cannot abide abruptness.” (Twain & Clemens 208) Twain makes the readers to connect the conversation on one end and enjoy double meaning in it. He also informs about the usage of technological development for different uses. According to Twain, certain aspects cannot be controlled such as the communication of female sex. Overall, the story is a persuasive one and is written in realistic sense depicting as if the characters are real persons and the listeners are the telephone operators who are listening to the conversation sitting with the operator. All the stories that Mark Twain has written are realistic and depict the true picture of society. Whether the issue is of journeying, personalities or conversations, realism can be easily noticed in Twain’s written stories. McElderry (1965) depicts that Mark Twain’s works show realism as he along with other writers of his time was a realist and noticed the society as it was (p. 13). He did not try to romanticize the real picture of society and ridiculed the romantic morals and values. Bryne (1999) also highlights Twain’s usage of realism in his writings to show how the society functions and what kind of personalities can be found in a society. He was also sarcastic in his writings as he always showed disregard for incorrect portrayal of society and its people. Conclusion The short stories written by Twain show a realistic picture of society. His writings, whether they are autobiographical works, short stories, essays or novels, depict a society that prevailed at Twain’s time. He was a realist and wrote for the society’s betterment. His works are not only realistic but also advisory. The readers can learn from different portrayed personalities of Mark Twain. His tone is sarcastic but his messages are realistic. He amuses in highlighting the flaws of his society and that of Romantic writers. However, he continuously tries to highlight those faults in order to correct them. Works Cited Byrne, F. W. Realism, Romanticism, and Politics in Mark Twain. Humanitas, XII (1), (1999). Web. 15 March 2013. . McElderry, Bruce R. ed. The Realistic Movement in American Writing.  New York:  The Odyssey Press, 1965. pp. 13-19.  Twain, Mark. “The First Boons of Life”. The complete short stories of Mark Twain. Digireads.com Publishing, 2010. pp. 338-339. Twain, Mark. “The Story of the Bad Little Boy”. The complete short stories of Mark Twain. Digireads.com Publishing, 2010. pp. 8-10. Twain, Mark. “The Story of the Good Little Boy”. The complete short stories of Mark Twain. Digireads.com Publishing, 2010. pp. 51-53. Twain, Mark & Clemens, L. Samuel. “The Danger of Lying in Bed”. The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories: The Authorized Uniform. Wildside Press LLC, 2003. pp. 315-319. Twain, Mark & Clemens, L. Samuel. “A Telephonic Conversation”. The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories: The Authorized Uniform. Wildside Press LLC, 2003. pp. 204-208. Read More