After reading The Diaries of Adam and Eve, I wish Mark Twain would have been around in this generation, because he probably would have had a twitter account and his tweets would be hilarious. Throughout the entire reading of the diaries I was smiling and sometimes laughing out loud at the ridiculousness of this story. It almost did not feel like the same author of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn or The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
After thinking about it for awhile I do not think this piece of writing would have been received well by the audience of his time. Although they were probably not as Puritan crazy anymore, many, especially in the South, still held onto the Bible near and dear to their hearts. They would have seen such writing as this to be blasphemous and cruel to taint a story from the Word of God. But if they would have been able to see past the mocking and the all the irony, they would have seen that nice ending he gave to Adam and Eve's story. It may have started off as something that looked nothing like love, except for a nagging wife and silent husband, but it ends compassionately with the two realizing how much they need each other. I think Twain purposefully chose to have Eve die first and say that she would be nothing without him. Is that not what many Christians of the time (and now) believe too? Just saying that if they would have tried, they could have laughed and taken something from it too.
I didn't even consider how people might get offended by the diaries. I guess I was seeing it though my 21st-century perspective! I just found it amusing as you did. But I guess Mark Twain would be no stranger to controversy--Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer were both extremely controversial in their day as well. I think one has to be controversial to be relevant. If one says what everyone else is saying, how will one ever get noticed? But there's a very fine balance between being controversial just for the sake of being so and being controversial to make a valid point.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I would just like to point out that Twain's wife died several years before he did, so perhaps in addition to making a statement about the position of the Christian woman, he was letting some of his own sorrow come through in his work.
I certainly agree with you that Twain's works in his time we most likely not critically acclaimed. Now-a-days with such copious amounts of satire and sarcasm, it's easy to see how a story such as Journalism in Tennessee could be so well liked. But back in his day, who would want to read of gun shot wounds and other dangerous afflictions intended to be portrayed simply as humor?
ReplyDeleteThe same certainly goes for Diary of Adam and Eve, maybe more so, because as you alluded to, the in Twain's lifetime was a great deal religious.
I too almost did not believe that the Twain who wrote the Diary of Adam & Eve is the same guy who wrote Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. I never really thought about how people during the time would have reacted to this piece of writing, but now thinking about it, I agree that it would not be received well by the public. Twain's style of writing was often mocking and ironic though, so I wonder if the public would expect nothing less from him. Emily brought up a good point that Twain's wife died several years before he did, so maybe he wrote that Eve died first as a representation and a personal touch in his writing based on his own experience.
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