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Life on the Mississippi? Mississippi Quarterly 34.2 (1981): 91-112

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Life on the Mississippi? Mississippi Quarterly 34.2 (1981): 91-112 &RPSHWHQFH3RZHUDQGWKH1RVWDOJLF5RPDQFHRI3LORWLQJLQ0DUN7ZDLQ V/LIHRQWKH 0LVVLVVLSSL $XWKRU V %ULDQ0F&DPPDFN 6RXUFH7KH6RXWKHUQ/LWHUDU\-RXUQDO9RO1R 6SULQJ SS 3XEOLVKHGE\University of North Carolina Press 6WDEOH85/http://www.jstor.org/stable/20078440 . $FFHVVHG Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. University of North Carolina Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Southern Literary Journal. http://www.jstor.org Competence, Power, and the Nostalgic Romance of Piloting inMark Twain's Life on theMississippi by Brian McCammack Mark Twain's fascination with competence and power is evi dent in many of his characters, particularly in his largely autobiographi western cal works that explore his formative experiences in the frontier? on Roughing It and Life theMississippi. While Twain admires aspects of both powerful characters and competent characters, in the final analy more sis competence commands of his respect than does sheer power. He ambivalence toward characters in often expresses powerful his texts, while characters are almost in competent always revered. Embedded dis cussions of and are romantic visions of a power competence conflicting radically individualistic western American character. One vision derives a from the myth of Wild West violent individuality, the other from a more scientific and professional rugged individualism. Yet the relation cannot be so reduced to a sort of there are easily binary; many complexi in on ties and ambivalences prevalent Twain's writing this subject. Sev as eral critics have explored aspects of these issues they appear in Rough on ing It and Life theMississippi, but the interrelations between Twain's attitude toward issues of competence and power and his romantic nos not talgia for piloting the Mississippi have been adequately explored. as This essay will first explore the issues of competence and power they to It more to on apply Roughing and extensively Life theMississippi. It Southern Literary Journal, volume xxxvin, number 2, spring 2006 ? 2005 by the Southern Literary Journaland the University of North Carolina at Hill All Chapel Department of English. rights reserved. I 2 Southern LiteraryJournal connect to roman will then the issues of power and competence Twain's on tic nostalgia depicted in Life theMississippi. reasons Before the for Twain's differing attitudes toward competence can a and power be examined, however, working definition of what it means to be a character or character must be of competent powerful fered. One way to articulate respective definitions and differentiate be tween to competence and power is examine characters that transpar ently exemplify each quality. Both types of characters appear in Twain's Roughing It. The quintessential powerful character of Roughing It is the was outlaw Slade, who "was supreme judge in his district, and he jury to and executioner likewise" {Roughing It 63). Enlisted clean up the des a peradoes and outlaws along portion of the overland stage route, Slade, ironically, becomes perhaps the most storied and feared outlaw of the West. All of Slade's power is derived from pure force. He rules with his and morals or reason do not enter into the This gun, usually equation. is what a character is for Twain: someone autono essentially powerful mous and violent in the solving of problems and construction of right not and wrong. Although every powerful character in Twain's fiction a man an meets all of these criteria, like Slade represents unquestionably man. The man takes control of his environ powerful powerful complete it to his needs or desires means ment, shaping by any necessary. In contrast to the char stark the outlaw Slade, exemplary competent acter of Roughing It is Captain John Nye, who accompanies Twain and on a western Twain writes his fellow travelers portion of their travels.1 an inn where "there was no welcome for us on that upon entering any com face," Nye's memory of past acquaintances, along with his helpful petence in instances diverse in nature as stopping a runaway horse and a so to at mending child's toy, ingratiates Twain's group the people the are inn that when they leave, they "lamented by all" {Roughing It 228 a not 229). Twain implies that competent character does necessarily try to overcome or control his environment like the powerful character. In is not stead, he negotiates it by working with what he given. Nye does attempt to use force to control the situations and people he encounters. to to meet Rather, he adjusts them with good judgment and precision at his needs. Knowing that itwould win him good favor the inn, Nye seen a week and sat him produces "a later paper than anybody had for a self down to read the news to deeply interested audience" {Roughing to It 229). It is this judgment, knowing exactly what he needs do and when he needs to do it, that makes Nye a competent character. So Slade Twain and Piloting 3 and ends of a Nye essentially represent opposite power-competence spec with Twain's characters on that trum, residing anywhere spectrum. as Having encountered figures such Nye and Slade in the experiences a of his youth, Twain is exposed at formative age to images of compe tence and power that end up recurring throughout his writing, particu on larly in Life theMississippi. Twain explicitly outlines key characteristics of a character when he writes that "A must a mem competent pilot have are two ory; but there higher qualities which he must also have. He must a have good and quick judgment and decision, and cool, calm cour no can age that peril shake" {Life 118).2 This definition also fits Nye in Roughing It, whom Twain says had "a good memory," "a singular 'handi accommo ness' about doing anything and everything," and "a spirit of to dation that prompted him take the needs, difficulties and perplexities of anybody and everybody upon his own shoulders at any and all times" {Roughing It 228). Analogous to Nye, Horace Bixby, under whom Twain as a apprentices for the bulk of his time cub, is the consummate pilot and competent character, possessing and exhibiting constantly each of the important pilot qualities Twain outlines. Bixby's memory is essen tial to his successful navigation of the river because, as he says to Twain, one to a to "There's only way be pilot, and that is get this entire river by to ame heart. You have know it just like A B C" {Life j6). Without such memorization constant thodical of landmarks and their changes, Bixby or would not be able to steer his boat safely effectively. In a broader sense, an excellent allows characters to their sur memory competent negotiate a at roundings effectively because they have wealth of useful knowledge on their disposal. For instance, rather early in Twain's apprenticeship, to a a Bixby attempts find plantation landing in the middle of pitch black when to Twain's as untrained "all were night, yet eye, plantations exactly same alike and all the color" {Life 75). Bixby is able to not only find the plantation by way of landmarks, but also to remember that at the upper end of the plantation, "the stumps there are out of water at this stage [of the river]" {Life 75), and therefore land the steamboat at the lower end of the a plantation. Without this knowledge, pilot could have risked run on ning the steamboat aground the stumps. Twain takes pains, however, to make it not rest so clear that all pilots high in his esteem and possess same as the qualities the competent Bixby. The pilot who receives the brunt of Twain's ire and serves as a sort of to is antithesis Bixby Brown, whom Twain calls, among other pejoratives, an "ignorant, stingy, malicious, snarling, fault-hunting, mote-magnifying 4 Southern LiteraryJournal tyrant" {Life 152). In contrast to Bixby's memory, which brims with per tinent Brown's "was not a information, memory simply pilot's memory; was on a mem its grasp universal" {Life 118).Twain goes to write: "Such as is a occurrences are same ory that great misfortune. To it, all of the a to a size" {Life 118).Not only must pilot be able remember great deal of information, he must be able to differentiate between useful and use less information much in the same way he differentiates between skill and mere For the of power. Brown, memory dangerous stumps protrud water at a as ing from the certain place and stage in the river would carry as much weight the memory of what he had for breakfast that morning. to The inability perceive the significance of important memories could a easily be destructive for pilot. Twain claims that, in addition to a finely tuned memory, an effective must to use and competent pilot be able good judgment to make quick a cannot as decisions. After all, if pilot employ his memory the basis for on intelligent decisions the river, then that memory iswithout purpose. In a more the character must act general sense, competent competently as as well think competently. For instance, it is essential that "a tongue as hung in the middle" {Roughing It 228) of Nye 's good memory, just it is essential for Bixby to demonstrate the link between memory and ef on fective decision making through speech when he lectures Twain the of the river.
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