Characteristic features of Mark Twain’s mastership

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Azerbaijan national academy of sciences

Institute of literature named after N. Ganjavi

Department of “World Literature and Comporativistics”

Valiyeva Sh.Ch. gizi, Ph.D. in Philology

Azerbaijan, Baku

Abstract

The aim of this article is the study of the creativity of Mark Twain, the founder of American critical realist literature, who expresses human ideals in his work, reflects various social-cultural-social problems in the light of people's lives. The study of Mark Twain's work is an important task for our literary studies in the era of national independence.

Methods: The article is written using scientific and systematic and comparative analysis methods. In accordance with the characteristics of the article, the requirements of its content and the nature of the research object, the existing scientific experience of Mark Twain in world literature studies, especially in the United States, has been taken into account.

Scientific innovation: is related to setting the problem and its solution. The fact that the philosophical-intellectual, ideological, socio-psychological impact mechanisms of Mark Twain's creativity are defined as synchronous parallels with the “self-made-man” ideal, which means that a person who wants to be happy strives towards the ideal constitutes the scientific novelty of the article.

Practical significance: The researchers can use the scientific results and research principles based on the influence of the article in the research work to be conducted in the field of comparative studies and during the teaching process at the bachelor and master levels of higher schools.

Conclusions: As a result, let's note that both in Azerbaijan and in foreign countries, scholars have involved Mark Twain's role in the history of US literature, his works written against the background of human-society-life dialectics, into research on scientific grounds. In order to understand this clearly, if we look at the historical conditions in which he lived and the way of life of the Americans who lived at that time, that is, in the second half of the 19th century, it seems to us that Mark Twain did not see humor as an auxiliary tool, on the contrary, he idealized it and followed the literary norms with extreme sensitivity.

Mark Twain's artistic humor, satire, and critical goals were analyzed based on the postulates of realism, and it was concluded that Mark Twain is one of the rare writers in US literature who has a scientific and philosophical logic that makes you think while making you laugh. There is definitely a way out of every difficulty in his novels. It follows from this that Mark Twain's pragmatism is identical with the human concept of “self-made man”. Every person tries to realize the plans in his mind by concentrating the power in his soul. Projecting this fact into the distant future, trying to achieve happiness in the future is completely alien to him. He will never sacrifice the values he has now for the distant future generations whose names and fates he does not know.

Keywords: Twain, critical realism, satire, publicity, prose.

Анотація

Характерні риси майстерності Марка Твена

Валієва Ш.Ч. гізі, д. філос. філол., п.н.с., відділу “Світової літератури та компоративістики”, Інститут літератури ім. Н. Гянджеві, Національна академія наук Азербайджану, Азербайджан, Баку

Метою цієї статті: Вивчення творчості Марка Твена, основоположника американської критичної реалістичної літератури, який виражає людські ідеали у світлі народного життя, відображає різноманітні соціокультурно-соціальні проблеми, є важливим завданням нашого літературознавства епохи національна незалежність.

Метод: Стаття написана з використанням методів науково- системного та порівняльного аналізу відповідно до особливостей статті, вимог до її змісту та характеру об'єкта дослідження, наявного наукового досвіду Марка Твена у світовому літературознавстві.

Наукові інновації: Наукова новизна статті полягає у виявленні синхронних паралелей філософсько-інтелектуальних, світоглядних, соціально-психологічних механізмів впливу творчості Марка Твена з ідеалом «саморобної людини», який означає, що людина, яка хоче бути щасливою прагне до ідеалу.

Практична значущість: Дослідники можуть використовувати наукові результати та принципи дослідження, засновані на впливі статті, у дослідницькій роботі, яка проводитиметься в галузі компаративістики та під час навчального процесу на рівнях бакалавра та магістра у вищих школах. Окрім зазначених, стаття може бути використана при підготовці науково-біографічної та науково-критичної інформації про Марка Твена, а також у вивченні відповідної тематики.

Висновки: На завершення зазначимо, що дитинство М. Твена - родинне оточення, суспільно-географічний ландшафт проживання, початкова освіта, близьке оточення залишили незгладимий відбиток на його творчій особистості. Упродовж усього творчого шляху чутливість письменника до суспільно-громадських проблем в окремих творах і відображення цього у своїй творчості зумовлені насамперед впливом його життєвих пріоритетів. Журналістська професія відіграла значну роль у становленні ідей М. Твена як особистісних еталонів і, у свою чергу, у становленні його головного творчого лейтмотиву як письменника. Прагнення до ідеалу людини, яка бажає бути щасливою, що вважається характерним для американської літератури ХІХ ст., є практично основою літературної системи Марка Твена. Поєднуючи в органічній єдності начала реальності й фантазії, які є продуктом його художньої уяви, Марк Твен усвідомлює антиномію відображення життєвих істин на реалістичному рівні за допомогою методу типовості. Завдяки реалістичному підходу автор втілив світ «таким, як він є», не переходячи «межі» між реальністю та алегорією.

Ключові слова: Твен, критичний реалізм, сатира, публіцистика, проза.

Introduction

It is possible to interpret the essence of the human concept in Mark Twain's prose based on different principles. According to the opinion of the scholars investigating this issue, such universal and cognitive issues should be investigated in the unity of individual and general features in artistic thinking, in the junction of such specific philosophical and artistic issues, and in such a case, the specific period in which the author lived and created, or the factors that occupy an important place in the writer's literary system characterized by humorous (satirical) pathos, forcing him to work on this or that topic in depth, force him to come to the fore.

The pursuit of the ideal of a person who wants to be happy, which is considered a characteristic of nineteenth-century American literature, is practically the basis of Mark Twain's literary system. This ideal, which is expressed in English as “self-made-man”, contains a certain model for imitation, that is, people can look at this model and determine what steps to take in life. In the “Golden Age”, against the background of the mystique of striving for material success, the person who created himself did not just dream of becoming rich or famous, but also claimed to develop his personality in accordance with the mysterious will of the universe. Theorists such as Benjamin Franklin and Horatio Alger express their belief that thanks to this model of myth, also known as the “American dream”, human can visualize his power to the maximum extent.

Method: The article is written using scientific and systematic and comparative analysis methods. In accordance with the characteristics of the article, the requirements of its content and the nature of the research object, the existing scientific experience of Mark Twain in world literature studies, especially in the United States, has been taken into account. During the research, the direction and requirements of modern literary studies, especially in terms of national value and interest, was the main approach method and task.

Scientific innovation: The fact that the philosophical-intellectual, ideological, socio-psychological impact mechanisms of Mark Twain's creativity are defined as synchronous parallels with the “self-made-man” ideal, which means that a person who wants to be happy strives towards the ideal constitutes the scientific novelty of the article.

Practical importance: The researchers can use the scientific results and research principles based on the influence of the article in the research work to be conducted in the field of comparative studies and during the teaching process at the bachelor and master levels of higher schools. In addition to these, the article can be used in the preparation of scientific- biographical and scientific critical information about Mark Twain, as well as in the study of relevant topics.

Main part

In the second half of the 19th century, there was a “revival” in American society, which was, first of all, the result of years of economic, ideological, political and other processes that have been going on in the society for years, it was notable for the emergence of non-traditional stylistic trends in literature and artistic thinking in general, dictating its will to other events. As the literary scholar Gorkhmaz Guliyev rightly noted, it was during this period that reality in its forms, the truths of life were embodied in literary and artistic thought with an unprecedented fullness (Guliyev, 2019: 113).

In the English-language literature before Mark Twain, many writers created and developed rich traditions of satire with their mythical and semi- mythical heroes, the “black humor” without artistic pathos was aimed only at local Hindu tribes who were “excluded” from society, slaves belonging to the negro race brought from Africa. M. Twain created real heroes for the first time in English-language literature, trying to prove that he could write elegantly like the Englishmen, who are considered his ancestors, in contrast to the US writers of the 19th century, who were prone to sentimentality. Like Faulkner's Dilsey, Twain saw the beginning in the end, so that time entrusted the writer with the mission of summoner of humanity (Tuckey, Sanderson, Stein, Anderson, 2000: p 27).

It is known that Mark Twain, whose real name was Samuel Langhome Clemens (1835-1910), was born in the Florida territory of the Missouri province of USA. When he was four years old, his family moved to the port city of Hannibal on the Mississippi River. Later, from some of the travel writings and articles written by the writer while visiting various states far from the Mississippi, it is clear that the great artist never left the great Mississippi River in spirit: “On the west bank of the Mississippi River (Hannibal, Missouri), when I was a small boy, among my friends in our village, only we had one goal. It was to be a boatman. We had other wishes, but they were cursory. When the circus came and went, we were all burning with the love of being clones... sometimes we had a hope that if we lived and were good men, God would allow us to be pirates. However, this dream gradually faded away, but our dream of becoming a sailor always remained” (Kuhn, 1999: 26). realistic socio-cultural creativity journalist mark twain

The writer created the city of St. Petersburg in the novels “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” and “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” inspired by Hannibal.

Four years later, when he returned to Missouri, Samuel Clemens (writer Mark Twain), who wanted to become a captain on boats on the Mississippi River, studied the hydrological regime and complex relief of the Mississippi River in detail while preparing for the captain's exams. These places he studied very well organized the structure of his novels such as “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” (1876), “Life on the Mississippi” (1883), “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” (1885), “Tom Sawyer Abroad” (1894), “Tom Sawyer is a Secret” (1896).

“Life on the Mississippi” (1883) is a travel book written by Mark Twain inspired by his days as a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River. Mark Twain draws parallels between the eternal features of a river and the immutability of human nature. According to his opinion, prosperity can be transitory for people, places and cultures. According to the writer's opinion, despite the unpredictable and tumultuous paths of progress, human nature has stable properties as the Mississippi. The industrial importance of the river is also widely discussed in the work. “Before I got there in the morning, we passed through Kentucky, Columbia, and approached Hickman, which located on a beautiful hill. Hickman is in a rich tobacco region, and this state formerly enjoyed a large and profitable tobacco trade” (Kuhn, 1999: 26).

As we mentioned, from 1859 until the start of the American Civil War and the banning of riverboats (1861), for the young Samuel, who worked as a ship captain on the Mississippi River, covering 3,731 km from Lake Itasca to the Gulf of Mexico, it also required great courage and skill to navigate the ship in deep water and sandbars because the current of the river is sharp in the crossed tributaries near the mouth. It is no coincidence that the young man who skillfully coped with the work he loved, years later, chose his pseudonym in the journalistic profession from the term directly related to seafaring.

The first article by Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain-S.W.) on January 31, 1863, signed as Mark Twain, was published in the newspaper Territorial Enterprise (Virginia City Territorial Enterprise) on Saturday, January 31. His article entitled “Letter from Carson City” is an feature story about a party he attended in Carson City at the home of Neely Johnson, who was governor of California, member of the Nevada Constitutional Convention, and clerk of the Nevada Supreme Court. As a result of his realist approach, the author embodied the world “in its form” without crossing the “border” between reality and allegory. Let's not forget that the emergence and formation of American realism, on the one hand, is related to the historical development of the people, and on the other hand, it is determined by the self-awareness of the artist. In 1868, Mark Twain remembering his journalistic career at the Territorial Enterprise newspaper in Nevada noted: “There was a need for issues to excite and interest the public to read at breakfast. It seems that our quiet establishment was a factory of terrible disaster and general destruction in those days” (Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, 1868: 3).

M. Twain's first literary debut was the story “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” published in the New York Saturday Press on November 18, 1865. Here the writer talks a story he heard from California barkeeper Simon Wheeler about the gambler Jim Smiley. As a continuation of the theme, in the following years, M. Twain changed his character Smiley to Greeley. He also included this story in his first book, “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and Other Sketches”, a 27-story book published in 1867. In this book, Mark Twain, even if he put his own life in danger, boldly criticized the public officials who encouraged injustice, regardless of race or social affiliation. It can be said that with this book, Mark Twain became a well-known comedy writer in his country. Combining the principles of reality and fantasy, which are the product of his artistic imagination, in an organic unity, Mark Twain realizes the antinomy of reflecting the truths of life on a realistic level by using the method of typicality: “By the way, let me tell you that Dan'l Webster is the name of a frog. When someone said, “Fly, Dan'l fly”, he would leap into the air in the blink of an eye and catch a housefly flying around the table. Then he would fall back like a bull and start scratching the side of his head with his back leg, as if he didn't know that another frog had already done it. You have never seen a frog as humble and simple as this talented one. When it came to jumping, he could cover a greater distance in one hop than any other frog” (Twain, 1867: 11).

In 1866, just one year after Mark Twain was sent to Hawaii as a journalist, he collected his European travel impressions in his humorous book “The innocents abroad” published in 1867, which he called “The Great Pleasure Excursion”. Mark Twain, a real American travel writer with keen observation ability, aimed the fire of his satire at the non-humanistic processes of his time was of course due to his great courage. In this book, which sold the most copies in his lifetime, the author noted the social and moral flaws he encountered during his travels, his observations and criticisms of various aspects of European and Middle Eastern society, and destroyed the false illusions created about Europe and the Middle East with bitter sarcasm. “Yesterday we met a woman walking on a donkey and she had a baby child in her arms, to be honest, from a distance I thought the child was wearing thick glasses and I wondered how his mother could cope with so much care. But when we got closer, we saw that the glasses were nothing more than a “camp meeting” of flies gathered around each of the child's eyes, and at the same time there was a group “discovering” his nose. The flies are happy, the child is not hurt, so the mother did not interfere in the situation”.

M. Twain thought deeply about the problem of violence. Of course, the ability to create laughable sarcasm by turning a lie into a target of laughter in a writer who was given the talent to create humor by the Creator could not be accidental. It is undeniable that the writer's bitter pathos, wrapped in humor, is closely related to negative ideological dogmas. So that, M. Twain brought the issue of man to the forefront of the discussion in his stories such as “Strange Experiment”, “What is a Man?”, “The Love Story of an Eskimo Girl”, and “A Receipt for 1,000,000 pounds sterling”. Mark Twain, who faithfully adhered to the aim of writing, despite his unconditional acceptance of the heated anti-slavery war that took place within the borders of his homeland, criticized not only government officials, but also the violence committed by local tribes, which did not fit into any reason or logic. In the story “The Esquimaux Maiden's Romance”, the Eskimo girl Laska's thoughts about her tribe are imbued with inner pathos of protest: “Once they were a sincere and brave race, now they are mean and hypocritical. They fell to their necks in pride. Inside me, I hate everything about millionaires. I do! Our tribe was once honest and pure people. It was made up of people, and everyone was looking for a bone legacy from their ancestors. He contented himself with sticks; now he is burning with lust for wealth. They fight and strangers are iron fish that humiliate people. What is it worth to own their wands for the sake of honor and integrity? They are ready to sacrifice. Anyway, this is sad stuff. I shouldn't dwell on it. As I said before, it was my dream to be loved just for being myself”.

As can be seen from this brief description, the story covers a lot of interesting events, the development dynamics of the plot is interesting because of its expectations, what moments are coming up. With these ideas, Mark Twain destroys the heroism of the local tribes in one attack and engraves such a saying that greed and passion “kills” more people than the cholera disease.

As noted by literary scientist Tayyar Salamoglu, critical realism as a method was born from life itself, therefore, it allowed a vivid and natural description of life (Salamoglu, 2021:45).

In all of M. Twain's novels, the hero faces his fate at any moment, struggles begin, at which time the hero either abandons the principles he deeply believes in or leaves the work he joined. Undoubtedly, there are reasons why the hero's fate is resolved in this way. This is primarily due to the fact that the author reflects his soul and heart in the work. The reader, in turn, perceives the work with his soul and heart. That is why the literary work strives to contain the reality of the artistic world (Guliyev, 2020: 56).

Conclusions

As a result, let's note that Mark Twain's artistic humor, satire, and critical goals were analyzed based on the postulates of realism, and it was concluded that Mark Twain is one of the rare writers in US literature who has a scientific and philosophical logic that makes you think while laughing. There is definitely a way out of every difficulty in his novels. It follows from this that Mark Twain's pragmatism is identical with the human concept of “self-made man”. Every person tries to realize the plans in his mind by concentrating the power in his soul. Projecting this fact into the distant future, trying to achieve happiness in the future is completely alien to him. He will never sacrifice the values he has now for the distant future generations whose names and fates he does not know. The conceptual difference that distinguishes Mark Twain's mastership is that the writer not only criticized many aspects of the reality of his time with satire, but also ingeniously expressed his “I”. It is characteristic peculiarity of Twain's creativity that he criticizes the hero at the beginning of his stories and novels, and reveals his positive ideal through open irony near the end of the work. These aspects observed in the creativity of the great writer determine the modernity of his works and ensure their longevity.

References

1. Guliyev Q. (2019), Odabi carayanlar va istiqamatlar [Literary trends and directions], “OL” NPKT, Baki, s. 113. [in Azerbaijanian]

2. Guliyev G. (2020), 0dabi proses [Literary process], Baki, Mutarcim, s. 56. [in Azerbaijanian]

3. Kuhn J., (1999), Life on the Mississipi, Academic Affairs Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, p. 34. [in English]

4. Kuhn J., (1999), Life on the Mississipi, Academic Affairs Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, p. 35. [in English]

5. Tuckey, M. Sanderson, Bernard L. Stein, Frederick Anderson, (2000), Mark Twain's fables of man, Mark Twain Foundation University of California Press, p. 27. [in English]

6. Salamoglu T. (2021), XIX asrin sonu - XX asrin avvallari Azarbaycan adabiyyatinin aktual problemlari [Actual problems of Azerbaijani literature at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century], Elm va tahsil, Baki, s. 45. [in Azerbaijanian]

7. Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, (1868), Virciniya, p. 3. [in English]

8. Twain M. (1867), “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County and Other Sketches”, Angel Price, p.11. [in English]

Література

1. Quliyev Q. (2019), Odabi carayanlar va istiqamatlar, “OL” NPKT, Baki, s. 113.

2. Quliyev Q. (2020), Odabi proses, Baki, Mutarcim, s. 56.

3. Salamoglu T. (2021), “XIX asrin sonu - XX asrin avvallari Azarbaycan adabiyyatinin aktual problemlari”, Elm va tahsil, Baki, s.45.

4. Kuhn J., (1999), Life on the Mississipi, Academic Affairs Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, p. 34.

5. Kuhn J., (1999), Life on the Mississipi, Academic Affairs Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, p. 35.

6. Tuckey, M. Sanderson, Bernard L. Stein, Frederick Anderson, (2000), Mark Twain's fables of man, Mark Twain Foundation University of California Press, p. 27.

7. Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, (1868), Virciniya, p. 3.

8. Twain M. (1867), “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County and Other Sketches”, Angel Price, p.11.

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