Mark Twain's Innocents Abroad vs. A Tramp Abroad

Introduction: Twain's Travel Writing Legacy

Mark Twain is undisputedly one of the most prolific writers of all time. With an uncanny ability to see things as they were, combined with an exceptional sense of humor, Twain's popularity transcended time and place. While all his writings left some impression on readers, his travel books were so outstanding that they created a genre of their own. The Innocents Abroad and A Tramp Abroad were two important books belonging to this genre, with A Tramp Abroad being the less popular of the two. If Tramp was less successful than Innocents, it was primarily because Twain had already set a high standard with his other travelogues.

Any attempt to compare and contrast the two books should begin with The Innocents Abroad. The reason is straightforward: Innocents came before Tramp and was definitely the more celebrated of the two.

The Innocents Abroad: Structure and Theme

The Innocents Abroad was derived from the Alta letters, though significant changes were made to reduce any obvious resemblance to the source. New sections were added, including those on Paris and Egypt and the Sphinx. In addition, because Twain's intended audience was the more sophisticated readership of the Eastern United States, he removed coarse phrases such as "slimy cesspool" and "bawdy house" that appeared frequently in the Alta letters. In Innocents — which is essentially about Twain's deeply disappointing trip to Europe — the author also tried to use expressions and commentary that would appear less harsh, even when the underlying intent was equally cutting. When writing about pilgrimages and the Holy Land, for instance, Twain was more restrained, hoping to reach an audience that preferred sophisticated commentary and did not appreciate religion being the target of humor or satire. The book's theme was made clear from its subtitle: "The New Pilgrims' Progress."

Innocents' popularity is grounded in the structure of the book. The entire work has a sense of shape and design that makes it far stronger than the succeeding Tramp, which lacked structure and was too loose to hold the reader's interest. Innocents, by contrast, boasted a design that gave the book its strength, and its theme was established from the very beginning when Twain wrote that the book was intended "to suggest to the reader how he would be likely to see Europe and the East if he looked at them with his own eyes instead of the eyes of those who had traveled in those countries before him." The fact that Twain presented a comic portrait of Europe is readily apparent; what is even more interesting is the reality hidden within his often bluntly satirical observations. Twain's main purpose was to highlight the fact that reality is often very different from our expectations.

Satirical Observations and the Myth of Europe

The disappointment, the sudden bursting of the excitement bubble, and the disbelief that reality could be so ordinary were among the central preoccupations of the book. Twain explains that nothing he saw in Europe lived up to its reputation. The Parisian gardens, the Arabian stables, and the Holy Land itself were nothing but misinterpreted products fashioned from false stories, longing, and anticipation. Twain felt that even Jesus Christ would not want to revisit the Holy Land, so disappointingly ordinary had it become. The author takes a kind of revenge by exposing and denouncing the myths surrounding Europe, as in this celebrated passage about the Sphinx:

"After years of waiting, it was before me at last. The great face was so sad, so earnest, so longing, so patient. There was a dignity not of earth in its mien, and in its countenance a benignity such as never anything human wore. It was stone, but it seemed sentient. If ever image of stone thought, it was thinking. It was looking toward the verge of the landscape, yet looking at nothing — nothing but distance and vacancy. It was looking over and beyond everything of the present, and far into the past. It was gazing out over the ocean of Time — over lines of century-waves which, further and further receding, closed nearer and nearer together, and blended at last into one unbroken tide, away toward the horizon of remote antiquity. It was thinking of the wars of departed ages; of the empires it had seen created and destroyed…" [Chapter 58]

In Innocents, the narrator is presented as a naive explorer who gradually becomes a skeptic by the book's end. Twain could not believe that anyone would construct such exquisitely romantic pictures of Europe and its many sights when in reality they were thoroughly ordinary. Twain's visit to the Sea of Galilee, for example, prompted him to lash out at earlier visitors who had generated all those myths. He found it to be "a lake six miles wide and neutral in color; with steep green banks, unrelieved by shrubbery; at one end bare, unsightly rocks, with (almost) invisible holes in them of no consequence to the picture; eastward, 'wild and desolate mountains' (low, desolate hills, he [William C. Grimes] should have said); in the north a mountain called Hermon, with snow on it; peculiarity of the picture, 'calmness'; its prominent feature, one tree." He then adds, "No ingenuity could make such a picture beautiful — to one's actual vision" (Chapter 48).

Innocents still presents a balanced view of Europe. While the author attacks many places for their disappointing reality, he also provides a more pleasing account here and there. These perspectives do not conflict, because the more favorable picture is drawn in a way that makes the disappointing reality easier to bear and puts it in proper context.

Conclusion: Comparing the Two Travelogues

All in all, the two books have few similarities and many differences. Innocents is far ahead of Tramp on all counts, including structure, humor, quality, and sincerity of expression. Tramp does have traces of brilliance, but they are few and far between. Its loose hold on its own themes is what makes it a lesser-known work compared to Innocents, which remains one of the most widely read travelogues in American literary history.

References

[1] SLC to JHT, June 2, 1879; Beinecke Lib.

[2] MTB, II, 6–68.