Mark Twain's Innocents Abroad and American Attitudes Abroad

Overview of Innocents Abroad

Mark Twain wrote about a trip to Europe and the Middle East in his book Innocents Abroad, and in the course of the book he also reveals much that he observes about American foreign policy in the broadest sense. This means not so much about foreign policy as it is typically understood — the policies of the American government — but more about the source of such policy: the attitudes of the American people toward foreign places. On the one hand, Twain criticizes certain behavior on the part of his fellow travelers, which shows them to be arrogant toward, as well as somewhat ignorant about, many of the regions through which they travel. On the other hand, Twain himself exhibits many of these same traits, assuming the superiority of anything American over anything foreign.

The Innocents Abroad is a book that began as a series of letters written by Mark Twain for a San Francisco newspaper concerning his 1867 trip on the Quaker City. The travelers on this ship were for the most part motivated by a desire to see the Holy Land. Twain's major purpose in making the trip was to see a part of the world he had not yet seen, and his purpose in writing the book was to reveal to others what he had witnessed firsthand — the reality of the world, separated from the interference of pretense and convention. He wanted the account to be both informative and entertaining. The book that resulted is a mixture of irreverence and the promotion of America as an ideal. One of the central themes is the degree to which reality differs from the narrator's expectations. The narrator visits not only the Holy Land but most of Europe, and he reacts to such institutions as Paris, the Old Masters in Italy, and Roman Catholicism. Twain also pokes fun at the hypocrisies of the religious pilgrims traveling with him and at such elements common to travelers as guidebooks and hotel rooms.

The trip — called the great Pleasure Excursion to Europe and the Holy Land — was much advertised before Twain joined it. Much of the journey is described as a succession of indignities, and putting up with the vagaries of travel is what Twain calls being "foreignized":

"We are getting foreignized rapidly, and with facility. We are getting reconciled to halls and bed-chambers with unhomelike stone floors, and no carpets — floors that ring to the tread of one's heels with a sharpness that is death to sentimental musing. We are getting used to tidy, noiseless waiters, who glide hither and thither, and hover about your back and your elbows like butterflies…" (Twain 71).

Twain takes note of many of the problems encountered by the traveler. In Genoa, he is exposed to the machinations of a guide, and he describes this experience in a way that evokes memories of other guides who failed to serve the needs of their charges:

"Perdition catch all the guides. This one said he was the most gifted linguist in Genoa, as far as English was concerned, and that only two persons in the city beside himself could talk the language at all" (Twain 126).

Travel, Discomfort, and Being 'Foreignized'

In these passages, Twain displays the style that carries throughout the book — a mixture of humor and serious complaint. Twain writes his conclusion one year after the trip has ended and makes an interesting observation about memory and travel:

"Nearly one year has flown since this notable pilgrimage was ended; and as I sit here at home in San Francisco thinking, I am moved to confess that day by day the mass of my memories of the excursion have grown more and more pleasant as the disagreeable incidents of travel which encumbered them flitted one by one out of my mind — and now, if the Quaker City were weighing her anchor to sail away on the very same cruise again, nothing could gratify me more than to be a passenger. With the same captain and even the same pilgrims, the same sinners" (Twain 555).

Twain's description of his journey is detailed and offers some of the history of the different places visited, observations on the people, and a comparison of tourist sites in terms of their reality versus their image. Twain is fully familiar with most of the history of Europe before he arrives, just as he is familiar with European literature, legends, and religious beliefs. He often takes a somewhat irreverent view of these elements and conveys this through overstatement, as when he seeks the resting place of Héloïse and Abélard:

"I am seeking the last resting-place of those 'ruffians.' When I find it I shall shed some tears on it, and stack up some bouquets and immortelles, and cart away from it some gravel whereby to remember that howsoever blotted by crime their lives may have been, these ruffians did one just deed, at any rate, albeit it was not warranted by the strict letter of the law" (Twain 111).

Twain can see that one reason for much of American foreign policy is simply that Americans are ignorant of the rest of the world. He notes of the first stop on the trip: "I think the Azores must be very little known in America. Out of our whole ship's company there was not a solitary individual who knew anything whatever about them" (Twain 33).

American Ignorance and Arrogance Abroad

He does say that many travelers were well-read about other lands, but it is often unclear whether they knew more than the most famous tourist sites and historical facts. At the same time, Twain himself accepts certain stereotypes as evidence of how people in different parts of the world should be viewed, as when he says of the Azores: "The community is eminently Portuguese — that is to say, it is slow, poor, shiftless, sleepy, and lazy" (Twain 33).

The other side of the American attitude toward foreign countries is arrogance, and Twain notes this early with reference to a fellow traveler described as "young and green, and not bright, not learned, and not wise" (Twain 48). He describes the behavior of this person:

"Here in Gibraltar he corners these educated British officers and badgers them with braggadocio about America and the wonders she can perform. He told one of them a couple of our gunboats could come here and knock Gibraltar into the Mediterranean sea!" (Twain 48).

Another example is offered in France:

"We were troubled a little at dinner to-day, by the conduct of an American, who talked very loudly and coarsely, and laughed boisterously where all others were so quiet and well behaved. He ordered wine with a royal flourish, and said: 'I never dine without wine, sir' (which was a pitiful falsehood), and looked around upon the company to bask in the admiration he expected to find in their faces. All these airs in a land where they would as soon expect to leave the soup out of the bill of fare as the wine! In a land where wine is nearly as common among all ranks as water!" (Twain 72).

Attitudes like this are one reason why Americans tend to keep themselves isolated, even American officials, as Twain notes when discussing his visit to Tangier:

"When we went to call on our American Consul-General, to-day, I noticed that all possible games for parlor amusement seemed to be represented on his center-tables. I thought that hinted at lonesomeness. The idea was correct. His is the only American family in Tangier. There are many foreign consuls in this place; but much visiting is not indulged in. Tangier is clear out of the world, and what is the use of visiting when people have nothing on earth to talk about?" (Twain 62).

Conclusion: Shaping American Attitudes

Twain presents this trip in a documentary fashion, relating what he sees as if he were a camera reporting to those back home, while at the same time commenting on what he sees through his humor. He also comments on the attitudes of his fellow travelers toward foreign places and peoples, and indirectly on his own. As he does so, he offers both direct and indirect evidence of his own perspective on these matters, suggesting how American attitudes are shaped and how they determine the way Americans behave abroad.