At 01:19 PM 1/14/97 -0500, Ms. Sylvia Weiser Wendel wrote:
>Tom Sawyer didn't know or trust a genuine
>emotion, and most Americans still can't either.  It pains me to see this
>budding studio executive palmed off on our children as a hero, while Huck
>continues to be marginalized as the "bad" boy.   Yes, Huck's dialect has
>everything to do with this:  Tom Sawyer "talks respectable" and is treated
>accordingly, while Huck talks like his Pap -- 'nuff said!  The subtle message
>kids receive is:  Huck is good, but don't be like him -- be like Tom.  He'll
>make more money.
>
>I think Twain probably knew all this, and that this ambivalence existed to a
>large extent in his own character.   No one in the world of 19th century
>AmLit sought wealth and respectability with more enthusiasm; no one was as
>aware of false notes, hypocrisy and mediocrity in writing.


I really don't know from where the feeling has come that Americans as a
nation are incapable of either knowing or trusting genuine emotion. Perhaps
I missed something in my own upbringing, but this argument seems to me to be
the stuff made up by "budding studio executives" calculating the laugh track
potential in their next socko sit-com. Americans incapable of experiencing
emotion? No. Do we have our share of dysfunctional experiences? Let's look
at Faulkner or, closer to home here, Pap Finn.

One thing more I missed was the message that I should be like Tom due to the
economic potential. The fact that I ran away from home and spent 20 years on
the road, which was my river populated with rafts of semi-trucks, campers,
and the occasional freight train, may have something to do with proving my
point that in our house Huck was the better role model.

Marc

Marcus W. Koechig
26 Oriole Lane
Trumbull, Ct. 06611-4918

"...and so there ain't nothing more to write about and I am rotten glad of
it..." H.F.