"Ghost Story"
In the beginning of this tale, I felt genuinely afraid! When the narrator was merely being robbed of his covers by an unknown, unseen something, I felt real suspense. However, Mark Twain betrayed his true satirical agenda when he carried on to add in every single sort of nightly terror imaginable.
First it was the heavy footprints, but then there were scrapings and crashes, moaning and screaming, more footsteps and more feelings of being watched by unseen eyes. There were too many phantom breathers in the room and when Mark Twain introduced the small orbs, I was positive that it was all a joke!
By the time the giant footsteps had returned, I was ready for some dialogue. However, I was expecting something more like the halting sputters of the fear-crazed idiots that we find in horror films. Mark Twain's narrator promptly beings bullying the offending spirit. Furthermore, I think for modern readers, this story needs some explanation.
The Cardiff giant was a preserved body that was found in Wales, and then taken for scientific research. Indeed, it was reburied. I had to look up this information because I felt like Mark Twain intended for his readers to know who the Cardiff giant was. Initially, I did not understand how the ghost being recognizable as the Cardiff giant made him any less terrifying. After reading about it, I can see that the fame of this discovery made the Cardiff giant public knowledge. A reader in Twain's day would not have missed knowing about this discovery and the history surrounding it.
I liked Twain's imagery and his description of the giant. I think this is my favorite piece of Mark Twain's work that we have read so far in this class!
"The Esquimau Maiden's Romance"
After reading this story, and thinking about Mark Twain's, what I assume to be, fictional conversation with Lasca, I still do not know what message I am supposed to take from this story. I think Twain is definitely romanticizing the Inuit way of life, but is he doing it just to provide for a fun story or is he intending to make some sort of social critique?
Perhaps Twain is using this "exotic" Inuit setting to pose questions about the way society defines wealth. For the Inuits, wealth is a set of practical tools and resources. Twain introduces a society that differs from that of his readers in that Inuits do not value their luscious furs for materiality or luxury; they value them because they are warm and water resistant. Twain does not reveal whether or not the Inuit posses a monetary system other than the swapping of goods and services. The pinnacle of this value system is the fish hook.
The fishing is a integral part of the practical, everyday process of getting food in Inuit life, but I think Twain takes a departure from his painting of the Inuit as an "exotic" utopia with his idea of the fish hook. Firstly, Lasca gives the impression that foreign, metal fishing hooks are more valuable than the Inuit ones. Thus, T
wain introduces a physical representation of American materialism within the Inuit society. Then Lasca tells how her father showed off his fish hooks in a moment of pride and vanity, and that he keeps them in a hoard. If he is hoarding, then he is not using; the impracticality of hoarding wealth simply for the sake of putting a value on oneself is as deplorable and problematic in American culture as Twain represents it to be withing his fictional society in this little story. I cannot help but try to search for a lesson, message, or deeper meaning when I read Mark Twain's stories. I feel that he had to have some agenda in his writing aside from simply turning a profit. So much of his personality is embedded in these tales. From what we have learned about him, he seems like he was a very conflicted man for most of his life. I think his inner confusion manifests itself in his work; there always seems to be a lack of resolution. Mark Twain prided himself on being both an identifiable icon and a social changeling, but I wonder if he had trouble defining himself within a society that he so often troubled.
