Nature, Civilization and Existential Transformation in Mark Twain
I Nature in Huckleberry Finn
Mark Twain never represents civilization and nature as a simple dichotomy. The irreducible contradictions within nature are present from the very beginning of Huckleberry Finn. Huck finds the Widow Douglass attempts to sivilize him oppressive, and dangerous to his own free selfhood (Huckleberry Finn, 1). He longs to be rested and refreshed by existence in the natural world, his former way of life. At the same time, while nature is rejuvenating, it is also shown to be threatening, even literally dangerous.
I felt so lonesome I most wished I was dead. The stars were shining, and the leaves rustled in the woods ever so mournful and I heard an owl, away off, who-whooing about somebody that was dead, and a whippowill and a dog crying about somebody that was going to die and the wind was trying to whisper something to me, and I couldnt make out what it was, and so it made the cold shivers run over me.
Here, a precedent is set for the view of nature in Huckleberry Finn nature, while representative of and responsive to the human longing for a better life, is also threatening and full of death. At the same time, Hucks wish to be dead at the beginning of the passage is a response not to the threat of nature but to the isolation and alienation he experiences within civilized society. His ability to communicate with nature is repressed by his location in society he couldnt make out what the wind was trying to whisper. This failure of intuitive communication contrasts with Jims ability to communicate clearly with nature once he is away from the confines of society Chickens know when its gwyne to rain, en so do de birds, chile (Huckleberry Finn, 60). For Huck, natures attempt to speak is muffled if not completely drowned out by the confines of his room and his submission to a civilized social existence.
This confinement, which makes Huck wish for death, nevertheless provides protection against the death that nature threatens him with. Jim is later able to teach Huck the art of reading nature, in part because their lives depend on it once they have run away, there is no barrier protecting them from the real dangers in nature. And yet it is through experiencing and withstanding this danger that Huck experiences communion with nature.
The dialectic of natures danger verses its attractiveness is manifested throughout the novel. Huck finds sleeping in the woods to be restful, and finds more of a home in living outdoors than he does inside a house. We said there warnt no home like a raft, after all. Other places do seem so cramped up and smothery, but a raft dont. You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft (Huckleberry Finn, 155). With this freedom and ease, however, also comes the danger of destruction in chapter ten, Jim is nearly killed by a poisonous snakebite, while in chapter fifteen, the two friends become separated due to the thick fog, and Jim concludes that Huck has been lost. Additionally, in chapter six, the pain of physical violence from Hucks father undermines Hucks comfort and freedom in living a natural life more or less apart from civilization provided by his fathers remote cabin. Life in nature, then, is represented as both liberating and violent.
There are passages in Huckleberry Finn that powerfully capture the meditative aspect of beauty in nature. Part of this power, however, derives from the realism by which these descriptions of natural beauty are tempered.
Then the nice breeze springs up, and comes fanning you from over there, so cool and fresh and sweet to smell on account of the woods and the flowers but sometimes not that way, because theyve left dead fish laying around, gars and such, and they do get pretty rank and next youve got the full day, and everything smiling in the sun, and the song-birds just going it (Huckleberry Finn, 157)
Here, nature affects Huck on multiple sensory levels, saturating him with smells, the sounds of birds, and the feel of the wind and sun. But the pleasure of these sensory experiences is portrayed along with the presence (rather than the suppression) of natures ugliness. The sweet smell of woods and flowers competes with the rank smell of dead fish, but these two smells somehow work together to give way to everything smiling in the sun. Nature provides existential joy and a sense of peace, but it does so precisely because it is a real representation of life, comprehending both vitality and death, the beauty and the ugliness, of the human life experience.
II The Construction of Nature in Other Works
The dualistic realism in the above passage from Huckleberry Finn was a conscious choice on Twains part. An earlier copy of the manuscript, from 1879-80, reveals that he did not originally include the reference to dead fish and their smells, or the provision that nature is sometimes not perfectly lovely (Huckleberry Finn, 475). This suggests the likelihood that Twains understanding of nature became increasingly complex during the course of his career. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court, written in 1889, several years after Huckleberry Finn, portrays nature as a source of both solace and pain. The countryside was most lovely and pleasant in those sylvan solitudes in the early cool morning in the first freshness of autumn (Yankee, 98). Unspoiled nature (uniquely so in ancient England, as opposed to modern Hartford) gives the narrator a sense of comfort and existential peace, in large part because it provides a much desired escape from the confines of civilized society.
We crossed broad natural lawns sparkling with dew, and we moved like spirits, the cushioned turf giving out no sound of footfall we dreamed along through glades in a mist of green light that got its tint from the sun-drenched roof of leaves overhead, and by our feet the clearest and coldest of runlets went frisking and gossiping over its reefs and making a sort of whispery music, comfortable to hear and at times we left the world behind and entered into the solemn great deeps and rich gloom of the forest (Yankee, 98-99)
Just as in Huckleberry Finn, nature is experienced here by its saturation of the narrators senses the natural world is visually stunning, but it also makes whispery music, and the narrator imagines the touch of the clearest and coldest of runlets. The deepest part of naturethe forestis described as removed from civilization and as an escape from the world, suggesting a strong dichotomy between civilization and nature.
At the same time, however, Hank contains the claims of both nature and civilization within himself, though his relationship with nature is ultimately overshadowed by his commitment to the advancement of civilization. This negotiation between nature and civilization is symbolized in chapter twelve by the painful effect of the sun upon the narrators armor. The sun, which is initially described as complementing the roof of leaves overhead, soon makes Hanks journey hot and unpleasant (Yankee 99). It heats his armor to an unbearable degree, turning his sojourn in nature into a process of slow torture. In this chapter, Hank is imprisoned by the elements of nature (the sun) as well as the requirements of society (his armor), and the nature-society dichotomy that is present in the first part of the chapter is collapsed in Hanks painful condition. As he does in Huckleberry Finn, Twain discourages the sentimentalizing of nature by revealing, on the other side of his exalted account of natures beauty, its oppressive side. This shows how the complex and paradoxical view of nature seen in the final incarnation of Huckleberry Finn continued to influence Twains work. Furthermore, in Yankee, as the account of Hanks discomfort becomes increasingly comedic, the beauty of nature becomes less romantic and less serious.
Humor is one way in which Twain draws attention to the paradoxical character of nature. In one of his early stories, Julus Caesar, he satirizes Romantic poetry about natures spiritual splendor, placing absurd and comical verses in the mouth of a well-intentioned but ridiculous buffoon. Just as in Yankee, but in a much more pronounced manner, Twain uses humor in Julus Caesar to undermine the sentimentality that often accompanies the experience and description of natures beauty. And now the hail begins to pelt On hill and vale and level, And now the rain comes pouring down Just like the very devil (Julus Caesar, 113-14). Here, Twain makes fun of the sentimental, Romantic view of nature, and also lampoons the act of trying to capture nature through language. It is clear in many of his works that Twain prized nature, attributing real solace and existential transformation to the experience of it. But Julus Caesar and Yankee show that, in Twains view, genuine love of nature must be shielded from sentimentality and informed by a hunger for realismotherwise it becomes false and ridiculous rather than healing and enlightening. His simple point throughout is that it is only through a realistic view of nature that its true beauty and value for human growth can be experienced.
In Tom Sawyer, which was written in 1875, there are already echoes of the complex understanding of nature that is present in Huckleberry Finn. Nature is portrayed as positive and peaceful yet also dark and mysterious, and the competing claims of civilization are tied to its mysterious aspect. It provides a delicious sense of repose and peace in the deep pervading calm and silence of the woodsNot a leaf stirred not a sound obtruded upon great Natures meditation (Tom Sawyer, 106). Later on, however, nature becomes dark and foreboding. Tom Sawyer does not capture the contradictory elements of nature quite as clearly as the final version of Huckleberry Finn, but it does reflect three important points about the natural world that appear in the later novel. First, by unfolding itself to the protagonist, nature leads to increased tenderness and empathy Tom empathizes with animals, imagining how strange it must be for them to encounter humans (Tom Sawyer, 107). Life in nature also sparks empathy in Huck Finn, whose love for Jim is intensified when he sees Jims sorrow at missing his family, and realizes that he and Jim share a fundamental humanity. Second, in Tom Sawyer, life in nature gives way to the realization of human interdependence. Camping out in the woods of Jacksons Island teaches the boys to depend on one another for sustenance and survival. Like Huck and Jim, the boys in Tom Sawyer form a kind of family unit, catching fish and cooperating at cooking it, as well as conversing and swimming together. Though Tom does commune with nature in a solitary fashion, this communion gives way to a need for human solidarity.
Third, as in Huckleberry Finn, nature provides a site for spiritual growth and meditation while, at the same time, producing fear and unease.
But the talk soon began to drag, and then died. The stillness, the solemnity that brooded in the woods, and the sense of loneliness, began to tell upon the spirits of the boys. They fell to thinking. A sort of undefined longing crept upon them. This took dim shape, presentlyit was budding homesickness. (Tom Sawyer, 109)
This undefined longing is the boys longing for civilization, a dawning sense that they are not fully at home in nature. Although they initially wish to burn the bridge between them and civilization (Tom Sawyer, 107), they eventually realize that the claims of their family and friends, the essence of civilization have followed them into nature. The nature-civilization dichotomy that they attempt to construct is broken down by homesickness, which is followed by a vision of and intense interest in civilization. This interest is accompanied by a collective fantasy in which the boys gain a heroic place in society. They see, first in their imaginations, then in real life, that to their friends and family they have drowned, losing their very lives in the dark depths of nature and gaining notoriety in their community. They felt like heroes in an instant. Here was a gorgeous triumph they were missed they were mournedand best of all, the departed were the talk of the whole town, and the envy of all the boys (Tom Sawyer 111). It takes dying in nature, imagining the ultimate confrontation with natures danger and mystery, to make the boys once again understand themselves to be a part of the human world. Thus, Twains rich and paradoxical view of nature, along with his refusal to reduce the relationship between civilization and nature to a simple dichotomy, is present in the authors earlier works, just as it informs later works like Yankee. Yet it is in Huckleberry Finn that he most powerfully captures the negotiation between nature and civilization, and the existential transformation that takes place in response to natures simultaneous danger and beauty.
III Huck Finns Ethical Shift
In Huckleberry Finn, empathy, human interdependence and spiritual growth are supposedly advocated by the Christian ethics of American civilization. The widowsaid the thing a body could get by praying for it was spiritual giftsshe told me what she meantI must help other people, and do everything I could for other people, and look out for them all the time, and never think about myself (Huckleberry Finn, 13). Huck, however, only comes to realize a genuine sense of the social ethic of self-sacrifice and human solidarity, however, through the experience of life in nature, which undermines the hypocritical pro-slavery stance of society. In nature, he learns to empathize with Jims sorrow at missing his family, and both to depend upon and to provide for Jim. Whereas, when located in society, Huck prizes his independence above all things, the mystery and danger of nature teach him the value of moving through life with others. His realization of empathy and interdependence can be understood as a spiritual journey which is centered in the experience of nature, but which is only possible within the context of a human relationship.
Its lovely to live on a raft. We had the sky up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss about whether they was made, or only just happenedJim he allowed they was made, but I allowed they happened I judged it would have took too long to make so many. Jim said the moon could a laid them well, that looked kind of reasonable, so I didnt say nothing against it, because Ive seen a frog lay most as many, so of course it could be done.
Here, Huck and Jim join in a spiritual interpretation of nature in its most expansive form, the cosmos. This passage reveals the co-existence of beauty and mystery in nature, a mystery that is manifested in other parts of the novel as darkness and danger. It also shows how nature facilitates the spiritual bond that develops between Huck and Jim. Unlike their contentious debates about Solomon and why people speak French, here they respectfully agree to disagree about these enormously large questions. It is this bond that pushes against Hucks pre-existing ethical framework, constructed by a pro-slavery society, in which he understands himself to be wicked for helping Jim to escape.
Just as Twain refuses to sentimentalize or reduce the complexity of nature, so he also refuses to sentimentalize and simplify Hucks transition to a more humane consciousness. Hucks battle between civilized and natural or experiential morality continues throughout the book, and does not come to a neat conclusion. The complexity of his struggle can be seen in his reaction to Jims capture, a reaction that demonstrates both the competing ethical claims of society and nature, and the way in which Huck comes to enact the civilized ethic of human solidarity by giving up on civilized morality. The initial stage of Hucks reaction is characterized by concern for Jim. I said to myself it would be a thousand times better for Jim to be a slave at home where his family was, as long as hed got to be a slaveAnd then think of me (Huckleberry Finn, 268). Here, Huck performs his caretakers injunction to look out for other people before himself it seems that, through his relationship with Jim, he has developed those spiritual gifts which were previously beyond his comprehension. While Twain and the reader might see it this way, however, Huck does not. He believes himself to be wicked for even thinking that way about Jims well-being. His tentative decision to turn Jim in makes him feel all washed clean of sin, while his subsequent decision not to, which occurs in reaction to thoughts about Jims kindness and their spiritual bond in nature, means that he will go to hell (Huckleberry Finn, 271). Hucks ethical shift is not self-conscious, then, in the sense that he comes to consider his experiential conscience right and his civilized conscience wrongin fact, it is quite the opposite. But his willingness to go to hell and even to die in order to secure Jims escape speaks to the strength of the humane consciousness that has come to reign in him during his natural life and friendship with Jim. He would rather defy God and society than betray the person who has helped him, and whom he has come to love. At the same time, Twain does not sentimentalize this love Huck does not completely reject slavery, and it is clear that the reality of slavery cannot be changed by Hucks friendship with Jim or his dawning ethical shift.
IV Conclusion
Twains worksspecifically Tom Sawyer, Yankee, Julus Caesar and the two incarnations of Huckleberry Finnreveal the ever-growing complexity with which Twain constructed his view of nature. As the revision of chapter nineteen in Huckleberry Finn shows, the simultaneity of natures danger and beauty is of key importance, since it reflects the complexity of the human ethical transformation that is stimulated by life in nature. Neither this ethical transformation nor the reality of nature are sentimentalized or reduced by Twain. Civilization and nature, along with their accompanying ethics, contrast and compete with one another even as they form and inform one another. Through his spiritual bond with Jim, which is facilitated by life in nature, Huck manifests the true meaning of the human solidarity that is advocated, yet only partially practiced, in the social world. Yet, Hucks shift in consciousness is not clear-cut it remains, like nature, irreducibly contradictory. It is precisely this quality of contradiction that makes Twains accounts of nature and of existential transition so realistic and therefore so powerful.
Categories:
0 comments:
Post a Comment