I Am Mark Twain, Research Paper Example

I have lived the life of two men; Mark Twain, the public figure, and Samuel Clemens, the private man. I was born to John Marshall Clemens and Jane Lampton Clemens; my father said I “born from a comet,” having arrived on this earth as Halley’s Comet made one of its rare passes (Paine 219). I arrived too early, at only seven months, further burdening an already-bursting family of five children. Another child would follow me; he (along with three other siblings) would die as children; only three of us survived to adulthood (Emerson 1).

My home town of Florida, Missouri, was a tiny village at the time of my birth, and is hardly much larger today. Despite the large size of our family, my early years were spent in a small two-bedroom house. In those days, life offered great promise; much of the west was still wild and untamed, and there were many opportunities for a young man with dreams of adventure (Paine 219).

The largest city in the region where I grew up was St. Louis; it dwarfed the tiny town of my birth, though it was still a relatively small and growing area when I was a child. Despite the relative greatness of St. Louis in relation to my home town, it was still a small and uncharted as compared to the more established cities of the north, such as New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago. At the time, we had no telegraphs, no railroads, no stage lines; we did not even have a well-drawn map of the city (Emerson 6). In those days, when I was still a child, I was still just one person; Mark Twain was yet to be born.

“Little Sam” was my first nickname, unlike my later name of Mark Twain, “Little Sam” was not a name I chose, but one I was given by friends and family (Paine 219). Being “prematurely” (or simply “too early” as they called it in those days), I was often a sickly child. Winters were especially hard on my delicate constitution, and I suffered from many maladies while growing up. These illnesses often kept me confined to my home, and even to bed; thus, I developed my imagination as a means of entertaining myself. Though my father often traveled for work, and spent much time away from the family, he was a god provider for my mother and my siblings. Among his greatest gifts were the books and magazines he would bring home; they fueled my imagination, offering me the chance to “visit” faraway lands and experience wild adventures, all while confined to my sickbed in the long, cold winters (Emerson 1).

My father was an inventor; he rarely had time to laugh and enjoy life, as he was constantly struggling to keep food on the table. Still, I loved him, and I know he loved us. Mother, too, was always busy, tasked with the hardships of keeping up with a house full of children, one or another of whom always seemed to be suffering from one illness or another. And in my father’s absences, it often fell to her to be the disciplinarian. Again, though, despite the fact that I sometimes lacked for her attention, or that she sometimes spoke harshly to us, I knew she loved us. And again, these times I spent alone, entertaining myself, gave me more opportunities to develop my imagination, and cultivate my own interest and ability in storytelling (Brashear 3).

In those days, slavery was still common, and we had two who helped care for the house and raise the children. The first was young Jennie; the other, Uncle Ned. In some ways, it was they who were in charge of the house and home; it was rare for my parents to actually issue orders, and both Jennie and Ned knew what was expected of them. They set the tone for much of our childhood, and as children we were steeped in Negro culture, absorbing many of the folk tales, traditions, and mannerisms of the black people who were, in many ways, part of the family (Emerson 19). The provided us with endless entertainment, as we learned about their beliefs, their superstitions, their family histories, and the traditions they had carried through generations (Emerson 19).

We were often insatiable, begging them to tell us our favorite stories over and over again. We would gather by the fireplace, rapt with attention as they regaled us with tales of fun and mystery and adventure. My earliest memories, as a matter of fact, are the fascinating stories they would share with us; all would begin “once ‘pon a time,” before carrying us off into this or that tale of adventure (Brashear 9). My favorite stories were the scary ones, the blood-curdling tales that Uncle Ned would recount to us, using his “eerie” and “husky” voice, and acting out all the characters in a spine-tingling and terrifying manner (Brashear 9).His story-telling ability would make our hair stand on end, and we would find ourselves looking about to make sure the ghosts of Uncle Ned’s stories weren’t joining us right there in the room.

It was these times, more than any thing else, that shaped the story-teller I would become. It became a game, one in which the only rules were to come up with the most interesting and different ideas as possible, each and every time. The strange and exotic characteristics of the Negro culture suffused Ned’s stories, and were passed along to me, mixing in with the convention of western storytelling. From this heady mix came the first stirrings of the “other” man I would eventually become; it was Uncle Ned who, in many ways, fathered the writer Mark Twain.

The death of my sister Margaret, like the deaths of my other siblings, was a terrible tragedy. Poor health in those days was often associated with luck and superstition and omens; the misfortune of Margaret’s death drove us to leave Florida, Missouri behind and head out for the slightly larger town of Hannibal, Missouri (Paine 219). It was Hannibal that inspired many of my stories; it was here that Mark Twain was born. Though I was only four years old when Margaret passed away, I remembered it for the rest of my days. I recalled her taking to her sickbed one last time; I remember the family standing around her and speaking in hushed tones; I recall her looking at me in a slightly dazed and unfocused manner; I remember when she no longer looked at me at all, and was finally gone (Paine 219).

With Margaret’s death, our home became an interminably sad place, and our father decided in some haste that we would leave our home behind and settled won in a new home, one that was untouched by our family’s tragedies. As soon as our father made his decision, we packed our belongings and made our way to Hannibal. This was to be a new beginning for our family, and in the rush and hurried excitement of the packing and moving, the family legend is that I was, at first, left behind. Though this incident probably lasted no more than a moment, the fear it instilled in me would stay with me forever, often finding its way into this or that story I would later write.

It was in the city of Hannibal that I spent my childhood, and it was there that I cultivated my larger sense of the world, the world beyond the limits of my sickbed, or the fence around my yard. It was there that I grew to understand slavery, and to realize that not everything in the world was exactly s it should be. My father changed professions when we moved to Hannibal, becoming a local judge (this change was driven in part by the same superstitions that led us to leave for Hannibal in the first place). It was also in Hannibal that our family had to give up Jennie, the slave girl; I remember this as a time of much grief and sadness; in some ways, it gave me a better understanding of what it must have been like for Jennie to have been torn away from her family in the first place. My mother once recounted how Jennie had been purchased from a local minister, and how she shrieked as she was taken from her family. Though I did not experience this, it influenced me greatly. Though slavery was common, it still struck me as “wrong;” taking Jennie from her family did not seem like a very compassionate or humane thing to do (Powers 1).

Of slavery, and my mother, I once wrote this:

“Kind-hearted and compassionate as she was, I think she was not conscious that slavery was a bald, grotesque, and unwarranted ursurpation. She had never heard it assailed in any pulpit, but had heard it defended and sanctified in a thousand. As far as her experience went, the wise, the good, and the holy were unanimous in the belief that slavery was right, righteous, sacred, the peculiar pet of the Deity, and a condition which the slave himself ought to be daily and nightly thankful for” (Paine 65).

That was not Samuel Clemens speaking, but was, rather, the words of Mark Twain.

Hannibal, Missouri felt more like a real city, more “civilized,” than Florida had. Here, at least, we had a railroad, and stage lines. It was also here that I lost my father; when I was eleven years old, he succumbed to pneumonia. Such deaths were relatively common in those days; though it was a tragedy, it was not one unique to our family. I remember as he lay in his deathbed, nearly gone from us, he leaned over to my oldest sister Pamela, and in whisper, asked her “let me die” (Paine 73). These words confused me at the time; later I would understand death a little better, and understand how difficult it was for the living to let the dying go in peace. I let my father go, but I did not forget him; I remembered him as a good man, a man of morals, and a man who was respected and honored by those who knew him.

It was about a year after my father’s passing that I got a job as a typesetter. Though I did not know it yet, Mark Twain was already growing and stirring inside me, slowly preparing to emerge and begin to tell his stories. My brother owned a local newspaper, the Hannibal Journal; to this publication I began to contribute stories and sketches that I –and I hoped, others- found interesting and amusing (Bellamy 3).

As I was cultivating my writing skills, my brother was having difficulties with the business side of things. He was forced to lower both is subscription and his advertising rates in an effort to remain solvent. I recall him telling me that he felt as if he was “walking backwards” in those days. Soon after, he left for Tennessee, in hopes of arranging some business deals that he hoped would save his newspaper. In his absence, he left me in charge of the Journal, and I did my best to keep everything running properly while he was gone, contributing both to the business side of things and continuing to submit my writings for publication.

My brother returned without any resolution to his business problems, but it was in his absence that Mark Twain was truly born (Michelson 3). In my brother’s absence, I attempted to edit the Journal in a way that would attract interest, and increase readership. Though my writing at the time was still underdeveloped, some in the public considered it “spicy,” and it began to attract some interest; I took some satisfaction in the notion that the public was responding positively to what I was writing (Wyatt-Brown).

One article in particular began to garner me a small measure of fame; I wrote about the editor of a rival paper who had apparently cast himself into the river in a fit of lost love (Long 3). Demand for this particular issue was fairly high, and Mark Twain began to receive some notoriety; “Little Sam” was fading away, as Mark Twain was beginning to come fully to life. Despite this increasing interest in Mark Twain, when my brother returned from Tennessee, I was inevitably reduced in rank, as my brother resumed the duties of running the paper. “I could have distanced all competitors,” my brother later wrote,” if I had recognized Sam’s ability and let him go ahead” (Paine 90).

Eventually I was bitten by the travel bug, and took my skills as a printer and a typesetter to various newspapers in different cities and towns (Bellamy 3). Things were again not going well for the Journal, and I did not wish to remain any longer, to witness its inevitable decline. In some ways, I felt that my talents and contributions had gone unrecognized and unrewarded, and I simply became restless to move on and try something new. I knew that my future was not with the Journal, and I knew that Mark Twain would need to look elsewhere for a new home (Wyatt-Brown).

Despite my newfound opportunity to travel, I never forgot the lessons of my youth, and I still loved to explore the world of books as much as I did the “real” world. As I traveled, I visited ever library I could find, teaching myself about life and the world (Long 23). I fell hopelessly in love with nearly every subject I read about; my interests were so varied and diverse that I could hardly focus on any one topic (Long 23). Reading and studying was the way I nurtured and cultivated the burgeoning Mark Twain; I felt as if I was literally bringing this new character to life (Long 23). My greatest regret has always been that I lacked in formal education, and in many ways, my invention of Mark Twain was my way of making up for these shortcomings (Long 42).

In 1868, I came across a picture of the most beautiful woman I had ever seen; realizing that love was the one thing I was missing in my life, I set out to make her acquaintance (Long 42). After courting for over a year, we were married in the city of Elmira, NY, in 1870. My new bride, Olivia, knew me as “Little Sam,” but to the public I was increasingly known as Mark Twain. After our marriage, we moved to the city of Buffalo, NY, where I took a stake in the Buffalo Express newspaper, and contributed to cultivate my writing ability.

Sadly, my family’s tragedies were passed down for another generation; my first-born son, Langdon, passed away at a very young age. After this tragedy –perhaps following in my father’s superstitious traditions- I moved my family to the city of Hartford, CT. It was in Hartford that Mark Twain really flourished; for the next seventeen years some of his best-known works would be done in this city.

The nearly two decades I spent in Hartford were times of both great triumph and terrible tragedy. I had some financial troubles, but inevitably Mark Twain would come through and earn enough to provide for my family. After years of hard work and personal sacrifice, the hard work I had put in was paying off, and Mark Twain began to garner the fame and praise from the public that I felt he had earned.

Despite some of the public triumphs, there were many times of personal sadness and depression. My daughter died of meningitis, and shortly afterwards, my mother passed away. Perhaps in an effort to exorcise my personal demons, I began to write my autobiography, serialized in The American Review. I attempted to relate my personal story, and of how I created the public character of Mark Twain as a separate part of my personal life as Sam Clemens.

I could spend hours relating endless stories from my life, but it would all still come back to the primary tale of my parallel lives as “Little Sam” and “Mark Twain.” I spent many of my later years working for charitable causes involving children; the simple joy on the faces of happy children was one of the few things that could help relieve some of the pain I felt from the loss of my own son. Though I faced as many tragedies as triumphs, I reach the end of my life generally happy, feeling that, on balance, I have lived a very good life. I was blessed with the chance to share my talents, and to make others happy; this is perhaps the greatest gift anyone could ever hope for.

As I neared the end of my life, I said the following:

“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. The Almighty has said, no doubt: ‘Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.’” (Paine 295).

I have lived not just one, but two great lives. As Little Sam, I had a wonderful childhood, filled with happy memories and marked by the love of my parents. I grew to become a man, and was blessed with great love. Despite the tragedies I endured, on balance, I experienced mostly happiness. And as Mark Twain, I had the opportunity to explore the worlds of my imagination, and to share these worlds with a public that treated me with great affection and enduring respect. I was Little Sam, and I was Mark Twain, and on behalf of both men, I thank my readers for having afforded me such a blessed and wonderful life.

Works Cited

Albert Bigelow Paine, Mark Twain: A Biography: The Personal and Literary Life of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, vol. 1 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1912). (http://www.questia.com/read/61517706)

Bertram Wyatt-Brown, “Mark Twain: A Life,” Journal of Southern History 73.3 (2007). (http://www.britannica.com/bps/additionalcontent/18/26156096/Mark-Twain-A-Life)

Bruce Michelson, A Comic Writer and the American Self A Comic Writer and the American Self (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1995). (http://www.questia.com/read/23399424)

Everett Emerson, The Authentic Mark Twain: A Literary Biography of Samuel L. Clemens (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1984). (http://www.questia.com/read/23599271)

Hudson Long, Mark Twain Handbook (New York: Hendricks House, 1957). (http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&docId=29097938)

Gladys Carmen Bellamy, Mark Twain as a Literary Artist, 1st ed. (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1950). (http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst?docId=5963226)

Minnie M. Brashear, Mark Twain: Son of Missouri (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1934). (http://www.questia.com/read/8888088)

Ron Powers, Dangerous Water: A Biography of the Boy Who Became Mark Twain (New York: Basic Books, 1999). (http://www.questia.com/read/85912089)