Literature and Social Reality

Paper Summary:

This paper looks at how literature mirrors the social and psychological nuances of the culture of which it is a part. Fiction that bases itself in reality can often be unrealistic in its portrayals, local color can be exaggerated to prove a point or simply to entertain. After the Civil War, the assimilation period of Native Americans was one filled with turmoil and tragedy for this people. This paper discusses how writers of this period would often sympathetically take up their plight or ruthlessly portray them as dangerous and evil characters in their works. Some mixed the two and made social commentary without perhaps even realizing it. The paper also assesses the Age of Realism in American literature with its interwoven romanticism. The paper asserts that this conflict between the two styles also mirrors the conflict between the Native American's natural world and the oncoming civilization's world of reason. The three writer's analyzed within this paper are, Helen Hunt Jackson, Mark Twain, and Walt Whitman.

From the Paper:

"Another version for Twain, and one that has some interesting social relevance, is the character of Injun Joe in Tom Sawyer. Also portrayed as evil and despicable, Injun Joe, however, is a 'half-breed' and in some sense this mixing of the two races together has an even more disastrous effects in the creation of an immoral and deadly spawn. 'Say, Huck, I know another o' them voices; it's Injun Joe.' 'That's so -- that murderin' half - breed! I'd druther they was devils a dern sight. What kin they be up to?' (Twain, 1920, p. 84). Was this Twain's intention? Perhaps not but the message is clear that these two races cannot at any level mix together. Here we have the darker side of both realism and romanticism. Certainly there were many conflagrations between Whites and Native Americans both in the early pioneering history and in the Post-Civil war period. Twain seems fixed on portraying the negative in the Native American and siding on the part of the government's imposed innate right of eminent domain upon the Native American's land. He mirrors the comments from a court decision, the United States v. Luccero in1869 as is seen in this excerpt:
"The idea that a handful of wild, half-naked, thieving, plundering, murdering savages should be dignified with the sovereign attributes of nations, enter into solemn treaties and claim a country...as theirs in fee simple, because they hunted buffalo and antelope over it might do for beautiful reading in Cooper's novels or Longfellow Hiawatha, but is unsuited to the intelligence and justice of this age, or the natural rights of mankind. (McQuade, Atwan, Banta, Kaplan, Minter, Stepto, Tichi, & Vendler, 1999, p1322).'"

Sample of Sources Used:

• Jackson, H. (1912) Ramona. New York: Little, Brown & Company. Retrieved October 10, 2007, from Google Books database: http://books.google.com/books?id=6MHMID89EsYC&pg=PA97&dq=helen+hunt+jackson+ramona+&ei=W4QLR4PNHajA7ALM2qHUCQ#PPA107,M1
• McQuade, D., Atwan, R., Banta, M., Kaplan, J., Minter,D., Stepto, R., tichi, D., & Vendler, H. (eds.). (1999). The Harper single volume of american literature (3rd ed.). New York: Longman
• Stanciu, C. (2005). Voices of american indian assimilation and resistance: helen hunt jackson, sarah winnemucca, and victoria howard. American Indian Quarterly, Winter/Spring2005, Vol. 29 Issue 1/2, p310-313
• Twain, M. (1920). The Adventures of tom sawyer. New York: P.F. Collier & Sons. Retrieved October 9, 2007.
• Twain, M. (2007) Huck finn and tom sawyer among the Indians. University of Virginia Department of American Studies. Retrieved on October 9, 2007 from http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/HNS/Indians/among.html

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