The following book review was written for the Mark Twain Forum by
Martin Zehr.

~~~~~

BOOK REVIEW

_Twain and Freud on the Human Race: Parallels on Personality, Politics
and Religion_. By Abraham Kupersmith. McFarland & Company, Inc., 2009.
Pp. 215. Softcover. $39.95. ISBN 978-0-7864-3306-3.

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Reviewed for the Mark Twain Forum by:
Martin Zehr
Kansas City, Missouri

Copyright (c) 2008 Mark Twain Forum. This review may not be published
or redistributed in any medium without permission.


Abraham Kupersmith, in _Twain and Freud on the Human Race_, attempts to
establish the parallels and differences between the psychoanalytic
theories of Sigmund Freud and the ideas regarding human behavior found
in Mark Twain's writings. The notion that Twain "anticipates the
dynamic structural theory of personality discovered by Freud" (p. 5) is
intriguing, implying as it does an ideological link between Twain and
the Freudian theories of personality which dominated American
psychiatry in the middle of the last century.

However, from the beginning, Kupersmith's book does not inspire the
confidence of the informed Mark Twain scholar. In the first paragraph
of the preface, he cites Carl Dolmetsch's well-regarded reference, _Our
Famous Guest: Mark Twain in Vienna_ (1992), as well he should in a book
on this subject. Unfortunately, Dolmetsch's name is twice misspelled in
the first paragraph. Other annoying misspellings include Charles
"Dudly" Warner and "Shellbourne," for Colonel Sherburn.  Kupersmith's
errors could be excused if this book otherwise provided evidence of
serious scholarship. In the very first sentence of the first chapter,
however, the reader's skeptical attitude is reinforced when Kupersmith
makes the following unqualified assertion: "In 1898, and for the only
time in their lives, Mark Twain and Sigmund Freud met in Vienna. No one
knows what they said to each other, but certainly these two
cigar-smoking geniuses had much to discuss" (p. 9). A reading of
Dolmetsch's book makes it clear that, while the two men were
undoubtedly in the same room at the same time, there is no documented
evidence of a verbal exchange between the two. Dolmetsch, who believes
the two "probably met more than once in 1898" is careful to add that
"one cannot be certain beyond any shadow of doubt" (Dolmetsch, p. 265).


The theoretical linking of the systematic views of human nature shared
by Freud and Twain is Kupersmith's primary focus. He looks for his
evidence in _What Is Man?_, _The (sic) Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_,
"The Man Who (sic) Corrupted Hadleyburg," _Pudd'nhead Wilson_, "The
Chronicle of Young Satan," _Christian Science_, _A Connecticut Yankee
at (sic) King Arthur's Court_, _Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc_,
and some of Twain's shorter pieces. Kupersmith's first chapter begins
with a discussion of _What Is Man?_ which is reprinted in an edited and
annotated version as an appendix. Kupersmith asserts that Freud's
tripartite structural model of personality (id, ego, superego) is
anticipated by Twain in his "model," comprised of the moral, mental and
temperamental components. However, a closer reading of _What Is Man?_
can also support the argument that Twain considers the moral and mental
aspects as the products of "training" or "circumstance," juxtaposed
against a temperamental, or inherited predisposition, to act in
particular ways. An argument might be made that Twain, who readily
accepted (and met) Darwin, would likely disagree with Freud's emphasis
on the importance of the inborn contributors to behavior, based on
statements such as the following, from _A Connecticut Yankee_:
"Training-training is everything; training is all there is to a person
. . . All that is original in us, and therefore fairly creditable or
discreditable to us, can be covered up and hidden by the point of a
cambric needle." There is no doubt, from a reading of _What Is Man?_,
that Twain believed in the relative importance of both training and
environment.

Kupersmith states that Twain's arguments in _What Is Man?_ "are at
times exaggerated," (p. 145) and Kupersmith notes that "One may wonder
if Twain's deterministic theory of human nature, so steeped in
mechanistic imagery, has any relevance for the modern age" (p. 143).
However, Twain's emphasis on the importance of training and
circumstance, is not only relevant, but can be seen as a core idea
behind modern psychology, with its emphasis on behavioral principles,
whether in the form of the early behaviorism of B. F. Skinner, the
social learning framework of Albert Bandura, or the
cognitive-behavioral emphasis of Marsha Linehan. Indeed, Twain's
emphasis on training and circumstance is mirrored and strongly
reinforced in Malcolm Gladwell's current bestseller, _Outliers_ (2008).

Kupersmith's discussion of _Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_ includes an
analysis of group psychology, with specific reference to the
"Shellbourne-Boggs (sic) episode," and a discussion of "the corrupted
republic," (p. 45) contrasted with the experience of Huck and Jim on
Jackson (sic) Island. Kupersmith's argument in this analysis, that both
Twain and Freud believe that feelings of self-worth are derived from
conformity with other group members, is supportable. However, when he
indicates that Twain believes in "each person's genetically-inherited
herd instinct," (p. 37) he goes one too far. Kupersmith should
recognize that, for Twain, the phrase would be an oxymoron, since
Twain, as quoted by Kupersmith in the same chapter, says "now my idea
of instinct is, that it is merely petrified thought; solidified and
made inanimate by habit; thought which was once alive and awake but is
become unconscious" (p. 33). Kupersmith asserts that "Twain identifies
the voice of the ego ideal as social _conscience_ which, if followed,
would lead to loss of individual experience and judgment" (p. 36). The
problem with Kupersmith's argument is that, even if Twain were to
understand and agree with this statement, these are not Twain's terms,
and should not be retrospectively grafted into his thinking, even if
there is an apparent consistency between the two men on this particular
point.

In Chapter 5, Kupersmith examines "The Man Who (sic) Corrupted
Hadleyburg." He attempts to resolve the problem he sets out by his
determination that "Twain is not clear on whether training or
temperament is primary in character development" (p. 58). In
Kupersmith's analysis, Hadleyburg's citizenry can be grouped into
segments that "exhibit the outsider's temperament," those who are
"driven by a temperamental need for social, political, and economic
power," and "the majority . . . fearful people whose training leads
them to internalize and conform to the town's ideology" (p. 59).
Kupersmith concludes, "Those of strong destructive temperaments are
able to use the culture and its belief systems to establish personal
power, and the weak are controlled by the cultural norms" (p. 72). This
conclusion hardly establishes the primacy of temperament or training
for the human race in Twain's belief system. Despite Kupersmith's
attempt, ultimate resolution of the question may not be possible. This
chapter contains hardly any reference to Freud's ideas regarding the
question of temperament vs. training which is its predicate. This is an
understandable absence, since, unlike Twain, Freud exhibits little
ambiguity in his ideas regarding the primacy of inherited drives, e.g.,
for sex or relief of hunger. An argument can be made that a reading of
"Hadleyburg," with its endlessly convoluted plot twists, supports the
conclusion that environmental influences are the critical elements in
this story. As Tom Quirk observes in _Mark Twain and Human Nature_
(2007), "the several plans of individuals go horribly awry due to a
dizzying array of circumstances, but those circumstances are, in fact,
what make the events" (Quirk, p. 235). In Chapter 6 titled "Race and
Temperament" which is centered around _Puddn'head Wilson_, Kupersmith
acknowledges the importance of circumstance to Twain when he observes
that "Twain identifies random circumstance as providing opportunities
for the expression of latent temperamental traits; circumstance
interacts with temperament and training to shape the destinies of the
major characters in the novel" (p. 73).

Kupersmith emphasizes the differences between Freud's and Twain's views
in his discussion of their ideas of religion, in Chapter 7 on
_Christian Science_. Here, however, he demonstrates an apparent
misunderstanding of Freud when he states that, "For Freud, religion is
stored in the superego component of the mind, while for Twain, it lies
in training" (p. 89). Freud's concept of the superego is an
internalized adoption, through training, of the punishment-reward
system enforced by parents which, in turn, is reinforced in the greater
society. As Calvin Hall states in his half-century old _A Primer of
Freudian Psychology_, "Fear of punishment and desire for approval cause
the child to identify himself with the moral precepts of the parents.
This identification with the parents results in the formation of the
superego" (Hall, p. 46).

Kupersmith devotes his Conclusion to a discussion based on his theory
that many of Twain's novels reveal that "his characters' relationships
to society can be defined according to certain patterns" (p. 138).
These include the democratic outsider, the conformist, the amoral
social climber (Miss Watson is an exemplar), the democratic demagogue,
the democratic leader, and the con man. While these typologies are
applied to particular fictional characters, e.g., Huck Finn, Roxy and
Hank Morgan, there is no discussion of any purported parallel to
Freudian theories of personality.

There is a pronounced tendency throughout this book to exaggerate
similarities of the "models" of human nature shared by Freud and Twain.
No one can doubt Twain's fascination with human nature but, aside from
_What Is Man?_, the collection of ideas loosely based on his embrace of
a Darwinian-inspired determinism in the last three decades of his life,
there is no analog to the all-encompassing, authoritative structural
model of personality development promulgated by Freud and his
followers.

Since Kupersmith's book is oriented toward the Twain scholar and
researcher, a balanced approach dictates that the subject of Freud
criticism, not broached in his book, be addressed. The average Mark
Twain Forum subscriber may not be aware of the tenor and depth of Freud
criticism. Mainstream psychology in the United States has never fully
embraced Freud's theories except as part of the historic lexicon of the
study of human behavior, and psychiatry has largely abandoned any
serious interest in psychoanalytic approaches, substituting for them
its reliance on psychopharmacology as the antidote to human misery. An
example of the contemporary rejection of Freud's theories worth noting
occurred when the Library of Congress, in 1995, attempted to sponsor an
exhibition titled "Sigmund Freud: Conflict and Culture."  The original
proposal for the conference aroused a firestorm of criticism from
scholars and writers for its hagiographic slant and, after a petition
from 42 national figures was submitted to the Library, the exhibition
was scaled down and changed considerably, making its truncated
appearance three years later. Kupersmith refers to the product of
Freud's labors as "the science of psychoanalysis," (p. 9) a
contradiction in terms generally rejected by mainstream psychology for
more than a half century. Mention of the rejection of the validity of
Freud's theories is required in this review, simply because Kupersmith
makes absolutely no reference to Freud's current status among scholars,
possibly leaving the impression that Freud's former iconic status is
unchallenged, with the implication that the attempted comparison to
Twain's ideas enhances Twain's own reputation. The omission of a
reference to the longstanding rejection of Freud in the scientific
community is glaring.

Another omission, in a book which purports to introduce the reader to
"parallels on personality" between Twain and Freud, is any reference to
a theory of psychosexual development. Since any primer of Freudian
theory should include such terms as Oedipus complex, oral, anal,
phallic, latent and genital stages of development, it is not
unreasonable to expect a comparison to Twain's "parallel" ideas. This
is not a minor point, insofar as Freud's ideas regarding psychosexual
stages are often regarded as his most important contribution by his
followers, so much so that his emphasis was the impetus for the schisms
between him and two of his star pupils, Carl Jung and Alfred Adler.
That sex as a topic in a work discussing Freud's theories is omitted
entirely is evidence of the necessity for focusing on the margins that
Kupersmith employed in an attempt to find common ground for comparison.
Perhaps a mention of _1601_ or "Some Thoughts on the Science of
Onanism" could have provided a basis for discussion missing in these
pages.

Kupersmith concludes by informing the reader that "I have found no
evidence to suggest that Twain's work influenced Freud or the reverse"
(p. 137). Given Twain's failure to create a comprehensive theory of
personality or to expend ink on the subject of psychosexual
development, this is not a surprising conclusion. In Quirk's book,
_Mark Twain and Human Nature_, there is no reference to Freud or his
theories. Quirk provides the reader with a comprehensive look at Mark
Twain's ideas about human nature grounded in evidenced-based links to
Twain's writings, his reading, his public statements, and the
historical context in which his life was lived. As such, _Mark Twain
and Human Nature_ stands as the most comprehensive work on this
subject. Kupersmith's book, on the other hand, based on an intriguing
premise, the notion of a strong commonality in the thinking of these
two men regarding human motivations and behavior, ultimately fails to
achieve its stated goal, connecting "the dots in Twain's psychological
thought with the insights and vocabulary developed by Sigmund Freud"
(p. 3).  Ultimately, too many stretchers are required to achieve this
stated goal, and little of substance is added to our thinking about
Twain as a result.
_____

ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Martin Zehr of Kansas City, Missouri is a clinical
psychologist in private practice.