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This study examines Mark Twain's use of the spoken word in the last decade of his life. It includes Twain's informal readings, his image manipulation and control, his rhetorical speaking, his methods of speech preparation, and his dictation of the autobiography. Twain's use of oral interpretation is examined demonstrating the influence of the Reading Tour of 1884-1885. He read informally for personal delight and to edit his works. A large part of the dissertation is devoted to the long history of the Twain persona. Particularly does this study focus on Twain's rhetorical persona and the means by which he attempted to maintain the historical Mark Twain while expanding his role to that of political activist. Using a Burkean perspective, Twain's anti-imperialist rhetoric is analyzed. His private philosophy dictated the use of two ratios. Though he did not successfully defeat the imperialists, he was effective in rallying and unifying the anti-imperialist forces. The final portion of this work investigates Twain's participation in the effective campaign to dethrone Richard Croker and Tammany Hall. Attention is also given to Twain's seventieth birthday speech, and his lecture-like dictation of his autobiography. This dissertation concludes that in his final years Twain found happiness in the spoken word, that mode of communication on which he built his career.

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This dissertation looks at all works of Mark Twain's. concerning the boys Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, particularly those written after the completion of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884). These include the two published narratives, Tom Sawyer Abroad (1893) and "Tom Sawyer, Detective" (1896), and five fragments unpublished in Twain's lifetime, but recently issued by the University of California Press in the volumes of the Mark Twain Papers Mark Twain's Hannibal, Huck & Tom (ed. Walter Blair) and Mark Twain's Mysterious Stranger Manuscripts (ed. William M. Gibson). These five fragments are "Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer Among the Indians" (1884), "Tom Sawyer's Conspiracy" (1897-1899), "Doughface" (c. 1897), "Schoolhouse Hill" (1898), and "Tom Sawyer's Gang Plans a Naval Battle" (c. 1900). After completing Huckleberry Finn, Twain wrote or tried to write many more stories about Tom and Huck, continuing their adventures. Most of these were never finished, and the two that were completed and published are generally considered to be greatly inferior to the earlier novels about the boys. Despite their flaws, though, these later narratives do possess hitherto undetected significance and value. A major aspect of the later stories about the boys is Twain's deliberate and persistent attempt over a period of thirty years to have Tom Sawyer grow up from a thoughtless boy to a responsible adult. Twain's efforts to do this are visible in most of the later works, and the prominence of this attempted development demonstrates that Twain was vitally interested in the problems of maturity and becoming an adult. For him, childhood was not merely a nostalgic refuge from the problems and complexities of life, as scholars have tended to assume; rather, it was a time of often painful testing in preparation for the difficulties of adult life. In addition, the later Tom and Huck stories contain elements that both parallel and supplement Twain's better known works from this time. The differences and similarities between the narratives about the boys and his other works help to enhance our understanding of Twain's thinking on a number of subjects. Among these subjects are the Transcendent Figure, the "Matter of Hannibal," and the folly of romanticism. This dissertation, then, casts new light on hitherto obscure writings by Twain; it attempts to assess their value and illuminate aspects of Twain's thought that have not yet been the subject of close scrutiny. In particular, the willingness of Twain to grapple with issues of profound complexity is revealed in these works more clearly perhaps than anywhere else in his canon. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

This study shows in Twain's Joan a mosaic work of French history and American folk humor. It points to Twain as an unacknowledged historian and scholar who, despite his biases and misgivings from his previous books and from his sources, fashioned Joan's story for an American audience while he stayed abroad in Florence and Paris with his family. The study focuses upon the historical and literary merits of Twain's Joan through a detailed analysis of Twain's notations in his French and English sources (Berkeley). It shows that Twain as Louis de Conte, chronicler and minstrel, faithfully retold Joan's story from his sources. Twain's Joan of Arc represents the literary, historical, and religious achievement of an unacknowledged American scholar who showed an outstanding youth of character, integrity, and purity.Throughout the narrative in his book, Twain reflected Joan's page and secretary Louis de Conte as his persona in the dual role of chronicler and minstrel. Twain extended another dual role to his second narrator, the Paladin as entertainer and troubadour. Early in the story, Twain as Conte brought out the events of the Hundred Years' War which led to the betrayal of the French nation and the exile of the French Dauphin by the Treaty of Troyes. Conte retold these events as chronicler and minstrel from Gower and Sepet, notations at Berkeley. Other sources such as Fabre, Sepet, Wallon among others were either used or consulted. The study points and according to his notations in these sources. It is in his dual role that Conte narrated Joan's mission from her household to Vaucouleurs, Chinon, Orleans, Rheims, and St. Denis--covering Books I and II, from Chabannes's book and occasionally from Sepet's with key episodes from Michelet's Joan, according to Twain's notations at Berkeley.Conte retold the events at Chinon, Orleans, Patay, and Paris among others as a chronicler of history, but as minstrel he interwove the narrative with humor or sorrow in a rhythmic pattern of repetitions that imitated the style of the Chansons de Geste. The pattern is noticeable in the narration of the battle scenes at Orleans, Jargeau, and Patay, including the repetition of Joan's wounds in each encounter. Moreover, Twain as the Paladin reflected the minstrel of the Chansons de Geste who entertained the townspeople of Orleans with yarns substituted for the boastful French "gabs" used by knights to boost up their morale on the eve of battles. Twain later raised the role of the Paladin to a troubadour of Joan's era who praised the heroine in a lyrical poem, or Rondeaux, in the style of Charles d'Orleans, a poet of that era.This study shows that Twain used several French and English sources for Book III in which he dealt chiefly with the trial and death of Joan. Twain used three significant sources for the trial at Rouen; namely, Gower, Msgr. Ricard, and Michelet--according to the out Michelet's biases and misgivings. Hence the study mentions the out, however, that when there seemed to be a debatable viewpoint between Msgr. Ricard and Michelet, Twain favored Michelet as the final arbitrator. The study refers the serious reader or scholar to the critic Gustave Rudler who in his works on Michelet's Joan has pointed two different versions of Michelet's Joan, one written when Michelet was sympathetic towards the Church and the other (1873) as he turned anticlerical. Twain used the 1873 edition with its biases!The study points out that at the outset of the trial at Rouen Twain did not condemn the whole Catholic Hierarchy. Twain as Conte, chronicler and minstrel, merely caricatured evil men in Church positions who sought power and wealth first even at the expense of an innocent young girl. Conte showed that Joan at Rouen was a victim in the hands of the unscrupulous Pierre Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais, who--according to Gower--had been bribed with the office of Archbishop of Rouen by Cardinal Winchester of England with the stipulation that Cauchon obtained from the trial Joan's excommunication as a witch and her death at the stake. Twain as Conte reflected well established traditions in French history and official documents in which Pierre Cauchon has been held as the main culprit, for he alone had the power to save or condemn Joan, according to Regine Pernoud-a reputable modern French historian. Conte as minstrel could hardly miss the opportunity of inventing puns based upon the French connotation of the man's name, because Cauchon indeed had shown himself an evil man. Moreover, ever since the Trial of Rehabilitation or retrial of Joan of Arc, Bishop Cauchon has been upheld by at least two Popes in their condemnation of that man. Instead, the Popes have honored Joan as a saint!The study shows that Twain held in contempt the French King and his courtiers, the French Clergy, and the French nation for having abandoned their national heroine to the enemy without even attempting to raise a ransom for her deliverance! Twain as Conte also questioned the "real motives" for the King's endeavors towards the Retrial of Joan since he had forgotten the maid for twenty years. Despite Twain's biases in several parts of the book, the study shows Twain's Joan as a serious work of an unacknowledged scholar for a virtuous youth--St. Joan of Arc!

Many Twain scholars believe that his skepticism was based on personal tragedies of later years. Others find skepticism in Twain's work as early as The Innocents Abroad. This study determines that Twain's atheism is evident in his earliest writings. Chapter One examines what critics have determined Twain's religious sense to be. These contentions are discussed in light of recent publications and older, often ignored, evidence of Twain' s atheism. Chapter Two is a biographical look at Twain's literary, family, and community influences, and at events in Twain's life to show that his religious antipathy began when he was quite young. Chapter Three examines Twain's early sketches and journalistic squibs to prove that his voice, storytelling techniques, subject matter, and antipathy towards the church and other institutions are clearly manifested in his early writings.

The author attempts to show in this thesis that Mark Twain was a serious observer and critic of life.

In this study, I show that three major areas of Mark Twain's personality—conscience, ego, and nonconformist instincts—are represented, in part, respectively by three of his literary creations: Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer, and No. 44. The origins of Twain's personality which possibly gave rise to his troubled conscience, need for attention, and rebellious spirit are examined. Also, Huck as Twain's social and personal conscience is explored, and similarities between Twain's and Tom's complex egos are demonstrated. No. 44 is featured as symbolic of Twain's iconoclastic, misanthropic, and solipsistic instincts, and the influence of Twain's later personal misfortunes on his creation of No. 44 is explored. In conclusion, I demonstrate the importance of Twain's creative escape and mediating ego in the coping of his personality with reality.