Mark Twain….a la Shmoop If you really want to know about Mark Twain, [Huckleberry Finn wearing a straw hat]
I figure I’m the best one to tell you.
I warrant me and Tom Sawyer, we’re probably the finest things he ever done thunk up, anyways.
And Tom said he had better things to do than sit around all day, talkin’ about Mr. Twain. [Tom watching someone paint a fence]
So I reckoned if it was between this and the Aunt Sally tryin’ to learn me about Moses,
Noah, and all those other dead people, I may as well do this. [A mom talking to her kid in bed]
I don’t take no stock in dead people.
...‘Ceptin Mr. Twain, there anyways.
The first thing you need to know about Mr. Twain is he’s a darned liar.
His name ain’t Mark Twain at all. [Birth certificate for Samuel Langhorn Clemens]
He was actually called Samuel Langhorne Clemens.
He only started callin’ himself Mark Twain because that’s what steamboat pilots would
holler out when the river was safe to navigate. [Clemens looking at a steam boat]
Seems silly to me, but I ‘spose I’m called Huckleberry, so I ain’t got no room to talk... [Huckleberry wearing a straw hat]
Anyway.
Mr. Twain was born on November 30th, 1835 in Florida, Missouri, but him and his family
moved to Hannibal, Missouri right about three years after. [Hannibal circled on a map]
Hannibal’s right there on the Mississippi River, so Mr. Twain would see all sorts of
steamboats comin’ and a-goin’.
Reckon you could say it’s there that Mr. Twain first fell in love with the mighty Mississippi. [Mark Twain looking out onto the Mississippi]
When he was twenty-two, he decided to make a livin’ on the river, and I reckon he heard
so many good yarns from travellin’ folk that he stayed put ‘til the Civil War put
him out of the job.
Mr. Twain up and lit out for the West, settlin’ first in Nevada, then in San Francisco. [Mark Twain's head moving across the map to San Fransisco]
All that movin’ around gave him an idea for a story, “Jim Smiley and his Jumping
Frog”, and it proved to be a mighty success. [The Celebrated Jumping Frog book]
Matter of fact, some folks started believin’ that Mr. Twain was a first-rate storyteller
and that he was definin’ the “American sense of humor”, whatever that means. [Three smartly dressed men talking]
I ain’t a-gonna disagree with the storyteller part, though.
He did a right good job tellin’ ‘bout me and Tom.
Sure, there were things that he stretched, but mainly he told the truth.
Anyway.
Writing success ain’t the only thing that came out of Mr. Twain’s travels. [Mark Twain telling someone a story]
On one of this wanderings, he saw a photograph of a Miss Olivia “Livy” Langdon and got [Mark Twain looking at the picture]
a powerful need to meet her.
Well, he did, they took a mighty liking to each other.
By 1870 they had run off and got married, which I reckon is sweet, if you care for that [Mark Twain getting married to the picture of Miss Langdon]
sort of thing, anyway.
Now that I done and got all that romantical stuff out of the way…
I reckon Mr. Twain was just as popular in his day as he is now, on account of his books [Mark Twain taking a class]
and lectures.
And after he went and wrote his first book in 1869, The Innocents Abroad, people started
talkin’.
See, folks thought Mr. Twain was right funny, and that made him something of a celebrity. [Mark Twain on stage in front of a microphone]
And in 1876, he wrote a book about my friend Tom called The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
‘Spose it was warm-up for the real interestin’ story to come.
Anyway, Tom was meant to be like Mr. Twain, and all the adventures we got up to was meant [Mark Twain looking at a drawing of Tom Sawyer]
to be like his childhood.
And turns out, people liked reading about our adventures.
Readin’ about an idyllic American town tickled folks fancies and made Mr. Twain even more [Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer stood in front of river]
famous.
Widow Douglas learned me the word idyllic, by the way, and I warn’t be sorry for it,
since I gone and used it now.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which Mr. Twain wrote in 1885, was a mighty-big [The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn book]
success.
Folks were real impressed with the way Mr. Twain done and tackled big issues, like racism
and bigotry, which pretty near means “not getting along with folks who are different [Man in a segregated bathroom]
than us”, or so the Widow Douglas said.
I reckon I don’t see what the fuss was––Jim and me were just two fellows drifting down [Huckleberry Finn and Jim on a raft]
the river.
Ain’t nothing much more than that.
And best part is, Mr. Twain warn’t the type to sermonize, so The Adventures of...well….Me,
argued for equality without any preachin’, no sir. [Picture of older Mark Twain]
Folks started callin’ it the “Great American Novel”, and I won’t lie, that made me
feel happy and light as a feather, right off.
And while folks still have some trouble with Mr. Twain usin’ the n-word, I reckon he [Jim in front of the Mississipp looking confused]
done it so often to show folks how powerful bad a word it was.
Kinda like holdin’ a look’n’glass up to someone who’s always frowning something
horrible and showing them how right miserable ugly they look. [Woman looking miserably at a mirror]
Aunt Sally says that ain’t a nice comparison, but I warn’t be sorry for it.
I reckon you’re thinkin’ Mr. Twain had a right easy life, but that ain’t the case.
Mr. Twain had some hardships with money.
I hain’t got a lot of it, but Mr. Twain, I reckon he had less. [Mark Twain begging in an alley]
He made some business investments that I warrant were as bad as a body could make, and because
of it, ended up owing folks.
But Mr. Twain was a right-good type, and he started lecturin’ again to pay off some debts.
Things got considerable sad for Mr. Twain in 1896, when his 24 year old daughter, Susy, [Mark Twain next to his daughter's grave]
died of meningitis.
Mr. Twain was real close with her, so I ain’t a-going to try and imagine how hard that was, [Family picture of Susy's eyes crossed out]
‘specially seeing as he had already lost his two year old boy, Langon back in 1872.
In 1904, Mr. Twain’s lovely wife, Livy, died, and I still ain’t a-going to imagine [Livy's picture with her eyes crossed out]
it, ‘cause I don’t think I can stand it.
And if things warn’t hard enough, Mr. Twain’s 19 year old daughter Jean died in 1909 after [Mark Twain next to all his family's graves]
a havin’ a seizure.
On account of the fact I’m writin’ this, I ain’t a-going to allow no such miserable [Family picture with only one person still alive]
doings to go no further.
Even though all that loss made Mr. Twain a powerful lonely man, he did his best to keep
cheerful, and still made public appearances now and again.
But on April 9th, 1910, Mr. Twain died of heart failure.
I reckon I can’t say nothin’ for sure, but I’ve come to think that maybe it was [Mark Twain collapses]
a broken heart.
I reckon Mr. Twain wouldn’t like it much if I ended on such sad stuff, so before I
go and end this, I got something to say.
A body don’t meet many men who knowed America as well as Mr. Twain did. [Mark Twain stood in front of a map of the US]
He knowed what made folks laugh and he knowed how to tackle problems without sermonizing, [Preacher at the front of a church]
which I’m right grateful for––I ain’t one for sermonizing.
But what Mr. Twain did best was tell stories.
And I reckon that’s how folks will remember him, and that does a body good. [Mark Twain telling a story to a man]
‘Suppose there ain’t nothing more to write, and I’m rotten glad of it.
If I’d a knowed what a trouble this would be, I wouldn’t a tackled it.
Tom always did get out of things mighty easy. [Tom smiling]