Adam, Eve, and Mark Twain
Excerpts from Eve's Diary and Excerpts from Adam's Diary
Realism, like what its name expresses, focuses on the reality. Realists present plausible events, and in their stories they concentrate on the characters. The Excerpts from Eve’s Diary, and Excerpts from Adam’s Diary, written by a typical realist writer Mark Twain, are also written in realistic views. According to the link given, realistic writings “avoid the sensational, dramatic elements of naturalistic novels and romances (Campbell, Donna M. “Realism in American Literature, 1860-1890.”).” Just like what she said, throughout the whole story, Adam and Eve consider their reality; about something that happens around them. Nothing dramatic happens in the writing. Also the story concentrates on describing Adam and Eve more than the plot(most of the stories are composed of descriptions of Adam and Eve)-which is also a common characteristic of realistic novels- “character is more important than action and plot (Campbell, Donna M.)”.
Moving on, this is the interesting part: Mark Twain expresses very contrasting thoughts to the common, prevailing idea of society back then. He portrays Eve-a woman-in such a positive way compared to what the society had done in Twain's time. Also, setting Eve as the first woman of the world in his story allows Twain to show as if women are naturally like Eve in his story-intelligent, organized, and active. These are very different thoughts considering the society's atmosphere at Twain's time. Twain also did it in his another novel, The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn; he tried to show how blacks-typically Jim in the novel-are not different from whites, which was something very far away from the society's prevailing idea back then.
Not only was he trying to show women’s strengths, but the way Twain describes Adam and Eve and their differences seemed to me to interpret the piece as Twain trying to support women suffrage. Mark Twain was a big supporter of women suffrage, and Eve in his story is a perfect possible voter-organized, intelligent and passionate. Adam, in contrast, considered almost nothing else but only his comfort. Then doesn't it seem to be like Twain wanted to say, that women are even more appropriate to do the politics, since they are the ones who try to change this world to a better place?
In addition, through these two “diaries” I thought Twain wanted to express gender equality. In Excerpts from Adam’s Diary, on Monday of third week since Adam started writing-notice that Adam started to write in his diary around the day he met Eve while Eve started writing right after her creation-, Adam said “She told me she was made out of a rib taken from my body. This is at least doubtful, if not more than that. I have not missed any rib.” If this is true, it refutes one of the basic arguments of male chauvinists, which is that women are born from theft. Also, according to many interpretations of the Bible, the original sin was committed because Eve had lured Adam to eat the apple. But from Excerpts from Adam’s Diary, Adam eats the apple because “I was so hungry. It was against my principles, but I find that principles have no real force except when one is well fed. (from Excerpts from Adam's Diary)”
Not only was he trying to show women’s strengths, but the way Twain describes Adam and Eve and their differences seemed to me to interpret the piece as Twain trying to support women suffrage. Mark Twain was a big supporter of women suffrage, and Eve in his story is a perfect possible voter-organized, intelligent and passionate. Adam, in contrast, considered almost nothing else but only his comfort. Then doesn't it seem to be like Twain wanted to say, that women are even more appropriate to do the politics, since they are the ones who try to change this world to a better place?
In addition, through these two “diaries” I thought Twain wanted to express gender equality. In Excerpts from Adam’s Diary, on Monday of third week since Adam started writing-notice that Adam started to write in his diary around the day he met Eve while Eve started writing right after her creation-, Adam said “She told me she was made out of a rib taken from my body. This is at least doubtful, if not more than that. I have not missed any rib.” If this is true, it refutes one of the basic arguments of male chauvinists, which is that women are born from theft. Also, according to many interpretations of the Bible, the original sin was committed because Eve had lured Adam to eat the apple. But from Excerpts from Adam’s Diary, Adam eats the apple because “I was so hungry. It was against my principles, but I find that principles have no real force except when one is well fed. (from Excerpts from Adam's Diary)”
Other than that, Twain tried to express the difference between men and women throughout the whole two diaries. The two diaries have a lot of contrasting points, and even their styles of writing are different. There are things that Adam is better, such as thinking of adequate words for situations, and others that Eve is better, such as accommodating with the nature and participating to change the world. Plus, one of the notable differences between them is their perspectives on the world (or the nature): for Eve it is something filled with curiosity, waiting for her to “experiment” on it, while for Adam it is something just there and he only needs to use it for his comfort. Mark Twain, overall, tried to describe what he felt as real man and woman as realistic as possible.
References:
Campbell, Donna M. "Realism in American Literature, 1860-1890." Literary Movements. Dept. of English, Washington State University. 09/08/2011. Web. 03/27/2012
Mark Twain. “Excerpts from Eve’s Diary”
Mark Twain. “Excerpts from Adam’s Diary”
Comments:
Inhee Ho: I liked your writing! But I quite don’t get how Huckleberry Finn and Adam’s Diary/Eve’s Diary are alike. True that in Adam/Eve’s Diary Mark Twain seems to draw woman as somewhat idealistic creature, but does it link to Huck being unworried about Jim being a black? Plus, as reading the first sentence of your last paragraph, I expected some more about ‘diaries’. How a typical writing form of ‘diary’ may have contributed/distracted the writing could have been a great crucial topic, I think. And one thing more! This may be just my ‘personal’ opinion, but I think Adam in the story isn’t as negative. After all, Adam becomes much more ‘civilized’ and ‘intellectual’ in the end. Maybe this is showing higher capability of learning hidden in man? I don’t know. Anyway, I liked your points!
댓글 없음:
댓글 쓰기