A True Story by Mark Twain

 A True Story by Mark Twain

 Mark Twain

Mark Twain (a.k.a., Samuel Longhorne Clemens) was born in the little town of Florida, Missouri, on November 30, 1835, shortly after his family had moved there from Tennessee. When Twain was about four, his family moved again, this time to Hannibal, Missouri, a small town of about five hundred people.

Twain's father was a lawyer by profession but was only mildly successful. He was, however, highly intelligent and a stern disciplinarian. Twain's mother, a southern belle in her youth, had a natural sense of humor, was emotional, and was known to be particularly fond of animals and unfortunate human beings. Although the family was not wealthy, Twain apparently had a happy and secure childhood.

Writing Career

Even though some of his letters and accounts of traveling had been published, Twain actually launched his literary career with the short story "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," published in 1865. This story brought him national attention, and Twain devoted the major portion of the rest of his life to literary endeavors. In addition to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, some of Twain's most popular and widely read works include novels such as The Prince and the Pauper (1881), Life on the Mississippi (1883), A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889), and Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894), as well as collections of short stories and essays, such as The 1,000,000 Bank-Note and Other Stories (1893), The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg and Other Essays (1900), and What Is Man? (1906).

Mark Twain, one of America's first and foremost realists and humanists, was born in 1835 during the appearance of Haley's Comet, and he died during the next appearance of Haley's Comet, 75 years later.

Summary

At the close of a summer day the narrator sits on a farmhouse porch atop a hill. A sixty-year-old black servant, Aunt Rachel, sits respectfully on a lower step cheerfully enduring merciless chafing. As the powerful woman roars with laughter, the narrator asks her how it is that she has never had any trouble. Taken aback, she replies, “Misto C——, is you in ’arnest?” Sobered by her manner, he explains that he has never seen her other than cheerful. Aunt Rachel becomes grave and begins her story.

Rachel tells the narrator that even though she was once a slave, she had a husband as loving to her as he is to his own wife, and that they had seven children whom they dearly loved. She was raised in Virginia (“ole Fo-ginny”), but her quick-tempered mother was raised in Maryland and was fiercely proud of her heritage. One day when Rachel’s little son Henry cut his wrist and forehead badly, everyone flew around, anxious to help him. In their excitement, they spoke back to Rachel’s mother, who snapped, “I wan’t bawn in de mash to be fool’ by trash! I’s one o’ de ole Blue Hen’s Chickens, I is!” She then cleared everyone out and bandaged the boy herself. Rachel adds that she uses her mother’s expression herself when she gets riled.

As Rachel recalls the time when her mistress went broke and auctioned off all her slaves in Richmond, she warms to her subject and gradually rises, until she towers over the narrator. Her recollection of the slave auction is vivid. One by one, her husband and children were sold and she was beaten as she cried in protest. When only her youngest child, Henry, remained, she held him tightly, threatening to kill anyone who touched him. Henry whispered to her that he would run away and work so that he could buy her freedom. Despite Rachel’s fierce resistance, Henry was eventually taken away. Since that day, twenty-two years ago, Rachel has not set eyes on her husband or six of her children.

The man who bought Rachel took her to “Newbern” (New Bern, North Carolina?), where she became the family cook. During the war her master became a Confederate colonel, but when the Union took the town, he fled, leaving his slaves behind. Union Army officers then occupied the house and Rachel cooked for them. These officers treated her respectfully and gave her unquestioned command over her kitchen.

Remembering Henry’s vow to escape to the North, Rachel one day asked the officers if they might have seen him. She described Henry as very little, with scars on his wrist and forehead, but a general reminded her that after thirteen years Henry would now be a man—something that she had forgotten. She did not then know that Henry had indeed run off to the North, worked as a barber for years, and hired himself out to Union officers so that he could ransack the South looking for his mother.

Now the Union headquarters, Rachel’s house was often the site of soldier balls, during which she jealously guarded her kitchen. One night, there was a ball for black soldiers, who particularly irritated her. When a spruce young man danced into her kitchen with a woman, she said, “Gid along wid you!—rubbage!” The remark made the man’s expression momentarily change. Other men then came in, playing music and putting on airs. 

Themes

The essence of this tale is in fact a true story. During one of the many summers that Mark Twain spent near Elmira, New York, he heard the story from Mary Ann (“Auntie”) Cord, a former slave who worked at his sister-in-law’s farm. Aunt Rachel’s “Misto C——” is thus “Mr. Clemens”—Twain himself. In November, 1874, Twain published the story in the Atlantic Monthly. It was his first contribution to that prestigious magazine, as well as one of the earliest stories in which he developed a fully rounded African American character and one of the few stories that he ever wrote featuring a strong woman character.

At its simplest level, “A True Story” concerns human endurance in the face of terrible personal loss. Although raised a slave and violently separated from her loving husband and children, Aunt Rachel has remained strong and exceptionally cheerful. So cheerful is she, in fact, that the narrator, who presumably has known her for years, has no inkling of the troubles that she has endured.

At a deeper level, “A True Story” is a tale of revelation—the revelation to a white person that African Americans—even slaves—can share similar feelings of love and devotion. Early in her narrative, Aunt Rachel tells the narrator that her husbands lovin’ an’ kind to me, jist as kind as you is to yo’ own wife. An’ we had chil’en—seven chil’en—an’ we loved dem chil’en jist de same as you loves yo’ chil’en. Dey was black, but de Lord can’t make no chil’en so black but what dey mother loves ’m and wouldn’t give ’m up, no, not for anything dat’s in dis whole world.

The fact that black people have the same emotions as other people was not taken for granted by whites during Twain’s time. He develops the idea more fully in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), in which Huck gradually understands that Jim, his black companion who is fleeing from slavery, is as fully human as himself. During their raft journey, Huck happens to see Jim with his head down, moaning to himself. Sensing that Jim is thinking about his wife and children, Huck confesses, “I do believe he cared just as much for his people as white folks does for their’n. It don’t seem natural, but I reckon it’s so.” The frame-narrator of “A True Story” makes a similar discovery when he hears Aunt Rachel’s story. The common humanity of all peoples is thus a central theme in both stories.

Style and Technique

As a story within a story, “A True Story” exemplifies the frame-story technique in which the first narrator (Misto C——) provides the “frame” within which the second narrator (Aunt Rachel) tells the main story. By alternating the voices of his two narrators here, Twain tells two different stories simultaneously. While Aunt Rachel relates the dramatic story of her family, the frame-narrator’s occasional remarks quietly reveal the shifting relationship between Aunt Rachel and himself.

When the frame-narrator begins his narrative, he is sitting on a high porch, while Aunt Rachel sits “respectfully below our level, on the steps.” As Aunt Rachel unfolds her story, her position gradually becomes dominant. By the time she recalls the slave auction, “she towered above me, black against the stars.” Although no more is said on this subject, it is clear that the relative moral positions of the characters are reversed, with Aunt Rachel clearly in the superior position at the story’s end.

The most obvious stylistic technique employed in this story is the use of realistic African American dialect. Most of the story is narrated in Aunt Rachel’s own, unaffected voice. One of Twain’s great strengths as a writer was his ear for language and ability to render it accurately. Here again, “A True Story” anticipates Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which also makes heavy use of southern black dialects—especially for the character Jim.

In 1992, publicity surrounding the recent rediscovery of a comparatively obscure article (“Sociable Jimmy”) that Twain published in The New York Times in 1874 focused national attention on the extent to which the language of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is “black.” Recalling the delightfully natural and artless conversation of a young black boy whom he had met during a stop on a lecture tour, Twain’s article resembles “A True Story” in attempting to re-create a conversation word for word. Twain wrote the Times article around the same time that he wrote “A True Story” and addressed similar questions about African American dialects in both.