Twain criticizes the Romantics. The Romantics based their literature on the conviction that imagination and emotion were superior to reason. You will recall that in Chapters 12 & 13, Twain names the wrecked steamboat The Walter Scott after a Romantic author, metaphorically relating it to the demise of Romanticism. Obviously, Twain was not a fan of Romantic fiction.
Mark Twain is obviously not too thrilled with the way some authors write their books about adventure stories and unrealistic, fantastic occurrences. The literary movement of romanticism has been a big target of disdain for Mr. Twain, most notably through chapters 35-39 in his book The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
Earlier in the book, Twain named a sinking boat "The Walter Scott" after a writer of very romantic literature. He used this event as a device to show the reader that realism is obviously superior and the old ways of romantic writing and storytelling were becoming obsolete. Further evidence found further along, starting around Chapter 18, puts the main character, Huck, in the middle of a feud between two southern families. Another jab at this form of writing, this time mocking the Romeo & Juliet-type feud and the notion of family honour. These are Twain's little bits of fun he throws into the story to give the reader a sense of what is a much better style of writing. However, in chapters 35-39, Twain truly develops the idea with the character of Tom Sawyer and the plan he formulates to break Jim out of his family's house! Tom comes up with a unnecessarily elaborate plan to steal Jim, which at one point he admits might take 37 to 38 years of digging with knives! His plans become more and more strange, more twisted, with almost no thought of how Jim feels about the whole situation. Tom wants to have fun at the expense of Jim, and not accomplish a goal or do anything worthwhile. It's apparent that if he contributes to making a name of a soon-to-be famous prisoner that escaped while battling snakes and spiders for years and years and recorded every single event that happened on a t-shirt written in his own blood, he'll feel much better than having done the right thing by helping an innocent man gain his freedom.
A typical response to this type of behaviour might be that Tom is acting pretty childish. Gaining amusement out of someone else's struggles and prolonging an unpleasant thing to satisfy himself is pretty foolish and wrong, which is what Twain's big picture is all about. Overall, romanticism is childish. It achieves nothing, doesn't present realistic events, and doesn't capture a true life; expressing foolish escapades of fun that really don't amount to anything. Huck feels he needs to do whatever it takes to get his friend to a better place, which is the right thing to do, yet Tom encapsulates the model of a corrupt society. A person fitting into this society is someone who will attempt to please his or her self by attempting to quench an insatiable greed for adventure and adrenaline. Nothing ever gets accomplished, shown by how long Huck and Tom have been staying at the house with no legitimate progress shown. And that's the way it is, and that's the way Twain sees it, horrified at the lack of realism in literature.
Nice job here Airk. Great that you also brought in the feud.
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