Larry, good questions all. Sometimes a big fish is simply a big fish; a
cigar is just a cigar. Examining "cultural context" beyond a writer's stated
intentions is a slippery slope I'm not given to play on. It's a matter of
choice
and perspective. Critical study of literature is yet in its infancy as
opposed
 to critical study of history. And...say, aren't you the guy who let the
witch  hunt over that "white" statement? I seem to recognize you as the one
with
the  white-hot torch...

never mind...

In my current work I must review many biographies and a few literary
articles and often find "great leaps" into the abyss of speculation,
assumption,  and
questionable conclusions based on such things as "cultural context." Please
understand my present work is one of the historical record, but I am not
blind
 to the lenses any historian must peer through. I simply try to be
objective--it's an ideal, never fully to be realized. For example, I'm now
working in
1886, the year Sam took his family and steamed across the Great  Lakes, then
rail and steamboat down the Mississippi to Keokuk. Various  biographers
comment
on this trip with sloppy scholarship, faulty or specious  reasoning, and
with
assumptions not documented.

One biographer remarks,

"Their destination was Keokuk, Iowa, and the Orion and Mollie Clemens
household, where Jane now lived. They did not venture farther south for a
look  at
Hannibal, Missouri." [So far, the author sticks to the historical record,
supported by many sources] The town had lately depressed Sam, and was still
years
away from the recognition as literary holy ground. Given his wife's and
daughters' lingering discomfort with Papa's scruffy origins, the question of
'worth of detour' probably never came up."

I have a "lingering discomfort" with such "scholarship," having studied the
primary materials for this period. Sam depressed by Hannibal? Livy had
discomfort with his origins? His daughters too? I can understand why a
writer  might
question a 1,500 mile trip by rail, steamship and steamboat without going
45
miles more to look over Dad's old stomping ground--but where is citation
such
 judgments? Sam often told stories of his youth to his children--many
letters
by  others testify to this. If his family had "lingering discomfort" with
his
 origins, such stories would have been out of character for him.

And another biographer simply dismisses the entire trip with, "After a
difficult two-week swing west to see Sam's mother and siblings in Keokuk,
the  clan
settled into Elmira for the summer..."

Sam did not characterize the trip as "difficult," nor did Susy in her
biography which strangely stopped in mid-sentence during the trip. On the
contrary,
Sam characterized the travel as restful in letters afterward,  including the
two-day train trip back to Elmira. Nit picky? maybe.

More to your question--Sam's responses to questions about his characters
were usually straightforward. The "mental masturbation" referred to was
written
to Will Bowen years before about romanticizing or inventing the past, and
not
specifically about "guessing" about a fictional character's motivation.

What many non-writers don't seem to understand is that characterization is
a
quilt of experience, a real person or persons, and *imagination* which is
always a step or two or a thousand, from reality. Quite often, good
fictional
characters are grand exaggerations based on real persons. Guessing about
such
things may be fun and in rare cases instructive, but one should remember
that
fiction sets out to convey emotion, whereas non-fiction sets out to convey
information, which is why good fiction requires Coleridge's suspension of
disbelief. Therefore, to speculate about motivation behind the character
without
regard to the author (the school of lit study that says, "since we cannot
know
 the writer's intent, we can dismiss it") may be a convenient way to study
texts, and may be popular with some English professors, it allows all sorts
of
erroneous, albeit creative, treatments. And with Samuel L.Clemens
especially,
we  have a rich and vast historical record with which we CAN know, in most
instances, intent. Make sense? Does to me.

Now, What was your question? What was your intention? Mine? ha.

DHF