Social class and race in Hard Times and Huckleberry Finn

Classism and Racism

Literature is a reflection of the world of the writer, not only as he or she sees it but often as it is. The writer experiences the world as if he or she is an observer and feels compelled by some unknown force to express the story of the world in which he or she lives. In many cases these stories are wrought with messages that are progressive even revolutionary for their time but are considered archaic in the legacy of the work. Within two works in particular this can be seen. Charles Dickens in Hard Times, racism and classism as well as does Mark Twain in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The perceptions of the work detail both a step back into a time when people were openly dehumanized by virtue of the status of their birth and also represent a marginal look toward progress away from dehumanizing and exploiting people. The works should then be thought of as a balancing act between what a people will accept as progress and what a people see as fair and real, the way it always has been and should remain.

In the hardest working part of Coketown; in the innermost fortifications of that ugly citadel, where Nature was as strongly bricked out as killing airs and gases were bricked in; at the heart of the labyrinth of narrow courts upon courts, and close streets upon streets, which had come into existence piecemeal, every piece in a violent hurry for some one man's purpose, and the whole an unnatural family, shouldering, and trampling, and pressing one another to death; in the last close nook of this great exhausted receiver, where the chimneys, for want of air to make a draught, were built in an immense variety of stunted and crooked shapes, as though every house put out a sign of the kind of people who might be expected to be born in it; among the multitude of Coketown, generically called "the Hands," -- a race who would have found more favour with some people, if Providence had seen fit to make them only hands, or, like the lower creatures of the seashore, only hands and stomachs

Dickens 83)

Dickens' early life reflects a view of the rapidly industrializing England in which he lived, where nature is pushed back, reserved only for those who could afford to live in it or at least visit it, while the urban centers became choked with pollution and poverty as a reflection of the birth of the man woman or child, relegated to it. Though Dickens was a member of the middle class, afforded the luxury of propriety, he was also a writer of words for many and Hard Times itself was written as a serial for his magazine, meant to be received by the masses, with a new sense of empathy and a new sense of hatred toward those who profited from the poor, utilizing self serving ethics like those taught in the early part of the novel by Gradgrind, that were later capitulated at least by him but not by some of his followers.

And if the masters deny the Christian message, or twist it to their own ends, the Union leaders do the same. It is perhaps a sign of the shaky balance which Dickens saw it as his mission to maintain that this should be so. Slackbridge is a slightly more secular Chadband, and what Dickens christens "the gospel according to Slackbridge" contains frequent references to Judas Iscariot, the serpent in the garden and the "God-like race" of workers.

Barnard 48)

The world around Dickens as both a child and a middle class man with his own ups and downs

Straus 16) was fraught with the seeds of change as sites of unbearable cruelty grew and fell as a result of economy and eventually social well-being if not social order.

The Victorian workhouse has come to symbolize on one hand systematic, institutional cruelty informed by abstract economic principles, and on the other hand the moral heroism of social critics who saw through and indignantly protested this inhumane dogma. This is another way of saying that the workhouse is strongly associated with Jeremy Bentham and Charles Dickens. (Stokes 711)

Dickens reflected a belief in the need of change, or at least his works, and especially Hard Times reflects his desire to feed this potential change through writing down for the masses to read, the point-of-view of a villain, conscripting those who he or she believed to be worthy of hard work alone, for the profits of others.

Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn expresses the reality of Clemen's life growing up as a poor but upperclassman in his white world of slavery. He was practically raised by slaves and witnessed social situations many of us would have nightmares about, with regard to slavery. His view of the world was tainted by the reality of the slave owning south where human beings were dehumanized by virtue of birth, expressions of class and race. In Dickens' Hard Times the issue of race is not at the forefront but classism is the thematic center of the work. At the beginning of the industrial revolution the definitions of class become blurred as individuals with relatively small amounts of money and a great deal of luck invest in industries that make them into a new class, the wealthy middle class. Yet, in the process they must establish a sense of "greater than" entitled by class and the protestant ethic to demand labor from the poor. In a single generation they must learn how to unlearn any lessons of empathy they may have learned as the poor and revert to a thought process that is demoralizing and dehumanizing to those whose backs they profit off of. "Dickens belonged to that queerly sensitive division of the middle class which looked, and still looks, upon 'gentility' as the brightest virtue of all."

Paine 14)

Twain's brothers and sisters where his teachers and protectors as were the family slaves who often were the only adults the children interacted with on a daily moment by moment basis. Clearly these childhood pursuits colored the youthful expressions of his writing and also gave him a distinctly personal impression of slavery, both its fears and excitements and most importantly African-American people, which can be seen in his works as well. His brothers and sisters, all older than him included Orion, ten years older, Pamela and Margaret, eight and seven years older and Benjamin who was three years older than Tom but who was his protector

But in addition to these associations, there were the still more potent influences of that day and section, the intimate, enveloping institution of slavery, the daily companionship of the slaves. All the children of that time were fond of the negroes and confided in them. They would, in fact, have been lost without such protection and company...It was Jennie, the house-girl, and Uncle Ned, a man of all work -- apparently acquired with the improved prospects -- who were in real charge of the children and supplied them with entertainment. Wonderful entertainment it was. That was a time of visions and dreams, small gossip and superstitions. Old tales were repeated over and over, with adornments and improvements suggested by immediate events. At evening the Clemens children, big and little, gathered about the great open fireplace while Jennie and Uncle Ned told tales and hair-lifting legends.

Paine 15)

Clemens was also marked by the unexpected death of his sister Margaret and the superstitions associated with death at the time.

There was a superstition in those days that to refer to health as good luck, rather than to ascribe it to the kindness of Providence, was to bring about a judgment. Jane Clemens one day spoke to a neighbor of their good luck in thus far having lost no member of their family. That same day, when the sisters, Pamela and Margaret, returned from school, Margaret laid her books on the table, looked in the glass at her flushed cheeks, pulled out the trundle-bed, and lay down. She was never in her right mind again.

Paine 22)

The Clemens family moved from Florida, Missouri to Hannibal, when Sam was 4. Hannibal already had a navigable river, the Mississippi, unlike Florida on the banks of the Salt River, which had never been improved for river travel, despite government plans and promises. The family, though with a gentleman's legacy had none of the comforts associated with their class and the father as a shop owner had a difficult time providing, land he held in Tennessee was the future promise, never realized as it was never sold to meet the needs of the family and Sam was said to be the least promising of the children, having been usurped in his throne of the youngest by Henry who was a favorite. While Sam remained frail and bothersome, "He remained delicate, and developed little beyond a tendency to pranks. He was a queer, fanciful, uncommunicative child that detested indoors and would run away if not watched -- always in the direction of the river."

Paine 28) Sam also remained fragile and even sought out illness to receive attention, once running away to get in bed with a playmate who had black measles and contracted the disease, but recovered. His mother was fond of saying that he was her most worrisome child, as he walked in his sleep, wandering even while resting and often worried her past the point that her other children did.

He drives me crazy with his didoes, when he is in the house," she used to say; "and when he is out of it I am expecting every minute that some one will bring him home half dead. "He did, in fact, achieve the first of his "nine narrow escapes from drowning" about this time, and was pulled out of the river one afternoon and brought home in a limp and unpromising condition. When with mullein tea and castor-oil she had restored him to activity, she said: "I guess there wasn't much danger. People born to be hanged are safe in water."

Paine 35)

In fact he and his brothers and sister often went with their mother to visit the family's former business partner the much beloved, Uncle Quarles and stay near Florida, in the summer to keep the boy safe. The farm visits where locked in the boy's memory as a man and the freedom that the area offered colored the imaginations and wanderings of the man and his fictions. Sam began attending school in Hannibal at about the age five, and learned to dislike it because he was frequently punished for bad behavior. His household continued to fall on hard times, despite the father's election to the Justice of the Peace position and but especially in 1840 when they had to sell Jennie, which made them all sad and in 1841-2 when Clemens lost his business to debt. And then in May Benjamin now ten died also leaving the family in sorrow. The family recovered financially with John Clemens putting more stock in his legal practice and building a home for the family. As Sam aged he was witness to many rugged situations of slavery, remembering the very human view of such events from the point-of-view of a boy of 9 or 10 really marked his writing and view of slavery in later years. (Paine 41-42) He also stowed away on a steam boat on one occasion when he was nine, though discovered quickly and returned home the adventure never left him. In 1847 Clemens' father died, leaving the family without a secure provider and with the need for the children to begin working. During this time Clemens was apprenticed to a printer and began writing for the Missouri Courier. According to his biographer his consummate interest in history and therefore writing began with the chance finding of a discarded leaf of a book about Joan of Arc, it was from this moment that Clemens became a writer and a thinker and began his prolific career as a writer and lover of words. He also continued into adulthood to have adventures that led him to travel a great deal and built his repertoire, he was once a river-boat pilot on the Mississippi but when the traffic of the river died down her moved to Virginia City and edited the Territorial Enterprise. On February 3, 1863, 'Mark Twain' was born when Clemens signed a humorous travel account with that pseudonym after discussing the pseudonym with his boss

No, I want to sign them " Mark Twain." It is an old river term, a leads-man's call, signifying two fathoms -- twelve feet. It has a richness about it; it was always a pleasant sound for a pilot to hear on a dark night; it meant safe water." (Paine 221-222) He also moved to California for a short time to work as a reporter and visited Hawaii as a correspondent for The Sacramento Union all the while writing and doing lectures to pay for his travels. He married Olivia Langdon in 1870 and continued to write and travel, and lecture. The young death at 24 of one of his daughters, Susy (1896) while he was abroad also marked his later life as did the loss of his fortune before this and the death of his wife and other daughter after. Twain died in April of 1810 and his autobiography was published after his death in 1824.

Powers 13)

While in Huckleberry Finn Twain precariously dissects his impression of slavery as a boy and retells many of the difficult situations he has witnessed. Though there is a great deal of criticism about his retelling, especially from African-Americans the challenges of the work are none the less valid as Twain weaves through one difficult situation after another telling the rest of the story, of Tom Sawyer, after the treasure has been found by the misfits one of whom was Tom's companion Huckleberry Finn. The book winds through a set of characters that are unlike any others with a humor unlike any but Twain.

The thing that strikes most people about the quality of Twain's work is the effective and comical way in which he portrayed characters, many of whom where real, in his memory, or who where conglomerations of the people in his past. The thing that tends to strike still others is the extreme nature in which he represents slavery, much like a mother with a sickly child, never knowing when the cruel world will take the infant from her, bonding with the slave was equally precarious, as one never knows the point at which the world will take one's friend away. Twain's life was surrounded by people he saw as adventurers who were settling a relatively new place and where betting their fortunes on anything that sounded convincing, he even bet on his own career and lost when his publishing agency went bankrupt, but his father was notorious for investing in interesting and often failed ways such as an expensive home for tenants who didn't always pay their rent and silk worm farm in 1842

Paine 44).

In Huckleberry Finn Twain deals rather precariously with slavery and the individuals who where victims of it. There has been a longstanding controversy with regard to the intended audience of the work and its use of derogatory terminology toward African-Americans as Twain uses the language of his day to refer to blacks as "Niggers" and often describes events which do not put light on anyone including himself, as the professed personage of the work.

Leonard, Tenney, and Davis 17) Over the years that have been critiques who prized Twain for his characterization as well as his consummate imagination and those who have challenged him for his rugged interpretation of what he saw as strikingly real situations of his life history, though admittedly played out in fictions additions. (Schmidt 448)

The world of the writer is one that simulates fiction. Dickens and Twain express the need for social change, yet only in the guise of what will be accepted by the masses and the villains. They represent the lives they have led, filled with classism and racism as a way to teach of wrong doings but also as a way to allow a softer transition from one time to a hopefully better one. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Twain demonstrates the cruelty, self witnessed of slavery through humor and sarcasm and in Dickens' Hard Times the mystery of the newly wealthy is revealed as the people collectively known as "Hands" are seen as people rather than disembodied laborers. There is a softness in both that demonstrates the need for change without categorically insulting those on top. The demands of the writer often leaves him or her with an uncomfortable feeling of not being able to go far enough in mind and with the pen but each work reflects the acknowledged need for change.