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University Micrdrilms International 300 N. Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, Ml 48106 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 8413745 Thompson, Richard Gerald THE LOVABLE HEATHEN OF HAPPY VALLEY: MARK TWAIN’S ASSAULT ON THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION IN "HUCKLEBERRY FINN" Middle Tennessee State University D.A. 1984 University Microfilms International300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The Lovable Heathen of Happy Valley: Mark Twain's Assault on the Christian Religion in Huckleberry Finn Richard G. Thompson A dissertation presented to the Graduate Faculty of Middle Tennessee State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Arts May, 1984 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The Lovable Heathen of Happy Valley: Mark Twain's Assault on the Christian Religion in Huckleberry Finn APPROVED: Graduate Committee: Major Professor / Reai Reader trjjK f) Head of English Department Dean ooff thetafe GG raduate Sc'ho ol~ Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Abstract The Lovable Heathen of Happy Valley: Mark Twain's Assault on the Christian Religion in Huckleberry Finn by Richard G. Thompson The purpose of this study is to show that the "dark side" of Mark Twain existed long before personal tragedies and financial calamities befell him; existed, in fact, when he was one of the most recognizable personages on the globe; when he was at the very pinnacle of family, social, literary and financial success; when he was considered Fortune's favorite; when indeed he was thought to be the very "darling of the gods,." The focus of this study is Twain's generally acknowledged masterpiece, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn published 100 years ago in 1884. This book, almost as con­ troversial today as it was when published, masks the bitter­ ness and despair Twain felt about organized religion in general, and the Christian religion in particular. Behind its gentle humor, comic scenes, burlesque, and farce, and even its more violent episodes is a vicious attack on Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Richard G. Thompson spokesmen of the church, as well as revered rituals and sacred icons. Chapter I establishes Twain as still the most popular writer in American letters by citing past and contemporary evidence of the reverence shown to him by the American public. Chapter II recreates the happy period of Twain's family, social, literary, and financial life between 1876 and 1884, the beginning and ending dates of the composition of the novel. Chapters III and IV use specific examples from the book to prove that Huckleberry Finn attacks the Christian religion, the Bible, the pulpit, the gullible faithful, and English novelist Sir Walter Scott, whom Twain considered the fore­ most romantic spokesman of "swinish religion." To emphasize the fallibility and hypocrisy of religion, Twain cites the role of the church in its support of the institution of slavery. Finally, Chapter V shows that The Adventures of Huckle­ berry Finn is a cornerstone of the creed of secular humanism, the plea of a gadfly humorist humanist still regarded the world over as the "most lovable heathen of happy valley." Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Table' of Contents Chapter Page I. High Profit to the Hoi Polloi: The Unequalled Reverence for Mark Twain by the American Pu b l i c ............... 1 II. Taking Dictation From an Outside Source: The Creating of The Adventures of Huckleberry F i n n ........................... 27 III. Holy Scripture and Sir Walter Scott: Staunch Supports for Southern S l a v e r y ..................................... 58 IV. The Effects of "Swinish Forms of Religion": Twain Attacks the Greedy Pulpit and theGullible Faithful .......... 103 V. De Lord God Almighty: One Plea of a Secular Humanist ........................... 144 Bibliography ......................................... 154 ii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Chapter I High Profit to the Hoi Polloi: The Unequalled Reverence for Mark Twain by the American Public The continuous and unflagging popularity of the writings of Mark Twain, and of the man himself as a literary figure, is truly a unique phenomenon. The case can be made that, in a country that has produced Poe, Hawthorne, Melville, Whitman, Crane, Dreiser, Fitzgerald, Hemingway and others, there have been superior artists and more skillful craftsmen of the written word. Equally, it can be argued that Twain's thought is not easily compared with that of Hamilton, Jefferson, Thoreau, Emerson, Lincoln, James, or for that matter, T. S. Eliot. It matters not: these issues are as moot as they are irrelevant. Samuel Langhorne Clemens (hereafter in this paper referred to by his Mississippi River nom de plume, Mark Twain) is unrivalled as the American writer if measured by the affectionate though sometimes inordinate esteem— and love— heaped upon him by the American people. Twain would have enjoyed the pretentious French term for "alias"; given a choice, however, he would have selected nom de guerre. 1 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 After Twain, there seems to be no second place; very few Americans could name two works of Melville or Faulkner, let alone T. S. Eliot. The writer who waged war on his fellow man, and upon his fellow man's most cherished institutions, conquered them. The vast majority of the American people who have revered him for more than a hundred years still have not realized that he ever fired so much as a single shot. Time, like distance, lends enchantment, and time has lent an Olympic measure of enchantment to Mark Twain. This is not to imply that professional scholars are in lockstep agreement behind general readers. Indeed, they are not; and some, like William Van O'Connor, have argued that, not only is Twain not a major world literary figure, he is not even a major American writer. Sculley Bradley, in the Norton Critical Edition of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, includes several critical essays on the "greatness" of the novel. He prefaces these essays by pointing out that "in 1955 a debate was staged in the pages of the journal College English between Professor Lauriat Lane, Jr., who contended that Huckleberry Finn was a great world novel, and Professor William Van O'Connor, who denied that it was even a great American novel."’*' Professor Lane's comments ■*• Sculley Bradley, ed., The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Samuel Langhorne Clemens (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1962), p. 364. (All internal footnotes from the novel are from this edition.) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 are interesting but not germane to this thesis at this time. More interesting are Professor O'Connor's. In his essay, "Why Huckleberry Finn Is Not the Great American Novel," O'Connor contends that "there are two sorts of theatricality in the novel, melodrama and