Mark Twain：Morethan Just a Literary Giant--Realistic Valueof“The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg”

YE Qing

（School of Foreign Studies,Guangzhou University Guangdong Guangzhou 510006）

America in the 19th century saw itself as a state imbued with mew ideas in the history of nations,like a child innocent of the corruption that could be found in the older nations of Europe.America was a country of seemingly unlimited resources where a man,if he had a good idea,could rise from the poorest parents,and become one of the richest men in the world.This idea of innocence was strongest in the west of the United States,for as the America cities became more crowded and more corrupt,the Americans always moved west,hoping to regain their lost innocence.Compared with the corruption found in the cities,the American small town was seen as a place where this innocence was preserved.Even in the last part of the 19th century,as America became a huge industrial and agricultural Giant,the small town became a symbol for the Americans of their innocence.

Sometimes it is the job of a writer to expose the falseness of these symbols.America was no longer a nation of small towns,but of large cities.Small farms were being bought by large corporations.And huge wealth was created by having more and more workers and farmers become poorer and poorer.Mark Twain was one of the writers who wanted to expose the falseness of the cities.Born and brought up in a small town on the Mississippi,Twain became one of the most important social critics of the 19th century America,criticizing corruption,racism,and materialism.And one of Twain's favorite subjects was the so-called innocence of the small towns,western towns like the one he grew up in.

In one of his best stories, “The Man That Corrupted Hadleybury”written in 1899,Twain exposed the so-called innocence of the small town as being both a false and dangerous idea.The town of Hadleyburg considered itself to be the most honest and upright town in all the regions round about.It was a new town,only three generations old,but it had kept its reputation of honesty unsmirched.Its reputation was the proudest possession of the town.It was so proud of its reputation and so anxious to protect it that it taught the idea of honesty to the children of the town.In order to ensure that the children would not be corrupted,they kept all temptation out of the town.The motto of the town was“Lead us not into temptation”.

Though Hadleyburg considered itself an honest town,it did have its faults.One of its faults was its cruelty towards strangers.It was this fault that ultimately led to its downfall.It was an insult inflicted on a stranger who found it hard to put up with.As a result,he tempted the people of Hadleyburg to wrong by offering them money and gold and wanted to prove that their honesty was artificial.It was this test that would ruin the reputation of all the men of Hadleyburg.

The story of a test is as old as the Bible.It was a favorite theme of other American writers like Nathaniel Hawthorne.For Hawthorne,this test was often a religious test.But for Twain,the test had something to do with money.The test was given the town by a passing stranger whom the town had carelessly offended.He contrived a plan that encompassed the entire town,especially the nineteen most honest families in the town.The stranger went to Hadleyburg and gave one of the leading town-members，a bank clerk named Richards,a sack which he claimed contained gold coins.With the sack,he left a note saying that he was grateful to one of the citizens of Hadleyburg for kindness done to him.He happened to be in the town penniless and a kind-hearted man gave him twenty dollars which was the beginning of his fortune.He wanted the benefactor to be rewarded and he was quite sure that in a town as honest as Hadleyburg only the real benefactor would claim the money.The test that benefactor had to undergo was to repeat what had been said by the benefactor to the stranger.

This test made Hadleyburg even more confident that it was truly an honest town.Everybody believed Hadleyburg would be added to the dictionary as a synonym for incorruptible and was destined to live in dictionaries forever.Yet,to the surprise of everybody,it turned out that all the nineteen most honest citizens claimed to be the benefactor.They all wanted to get the money while still keeping their good names.So they bit at each other,playing all kinds of mischieves and dirty tricks.Up till now,their true nature was shown and the town's long-established reputation was totally destroyed.A new recognition about human nature and the relationship between innocence and evil was brought out.Their motto changed to"Lead us into temptation".

Twain was a great social critic.His criticism of the bourgeois society was reaching its height when he wrote “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg”.Many critics consider it one representative of his satirical novels.Here the bourgeois hypocrisy of the capitalist society is clearly exposed.Twain made Hadleyburg a symbol of innocence and honesty which were eventually corrupted.The town people first claimed to be incorruptibly pure.Yet,it proved that none of them deserved their good names.They were all of mean quality,hypocritical,selfish and greedy.Though they had been trained in honesty all their lives long,since they were babies in cradle,and though any possible temptation was kept out of their way,their honesty was artificial honesty and so weak as water.Before a sack of gold,they all showed their true colours.Their mouth watering for it,they totally forgot their good virtues and reputation and appeared to be frauds and thieves.Mark twain revealed the bourgeois hypocrisy through Mrs.Richards,one of the most “honest” citizens of Hadleyburg who made a confession:“I am a humbug.I have been one all my life without knowing it.Let no man call me honest again.I will not have it”.The town was in no way an upright town as they had thought it to be before the test of the sack of money.Mrs.Richards would call it a mean town,a hard stingy town and hasn't a virtue in the world but this honesty.It is so celebrated for and so conceited about.It was a rotten town.Mrs.Richards believed that “its honesty would fall under great temptation.Its grand reputation would go to ruin like a house of cards”.She was quite true.The town failed the very first,big and real temptation.From an incorruptible town where honesty had been hardened and solidified till it became a part of the people's very bone,it flickered and fell to extinction.Here,Twain achieved his greatest success.The socalled innocence of the American small town was sarcastically mocked at.

Money worship is the main feature of a capitalist society.Twain gave his readers a powerful representation of the corrupting monetary influence on the American society.In order to get money,people do whatever they can with no consideration of their reputation or morality.To them,money is the controlling God.How to get money is their religion.Their motto is “Two dollars is better than one”.Twain's attack upon the society became more savage when he described how the most“honest” citizens of Hadleyburg,the Richards couple,knelt down before the tempting money-sack.They were so deeply affected by the moneysack that they fell victim to the god of money worship and died in disgrace.From the first moment they got in touch with the sack they were tempted.Though driven by vanity they published the news of the sack,but they soon began a gold dream.They hoped they could take possession of the money,which would enable them to live a “rich and comfortable life”.They “relapsed into a terrible vexation,worrying over what the remark could possibly have been that the benefactor had given the stranger,the beggar”.That golden remark was worth forty thousand dollars cash.When they received a letter telling them the money could possibly be theirs,if they had really once done a good service to Goodson,the supposed benefactor,their mood immediately changed.Imagining themselves to be rich,they were wild with joy.And knowing he had done nothing of the kind actually.Richards fell deep into thinking,cudgeling his brains to evolve a false one which could convince himself that he was entitled to claim the money-sack.It was this moneysack that lured the"honest"couple to sins and to their doom,feeling guilty in conscience.Twain ended the story with their death caused by their fear to be caught and by the heavy burden upon their poor heart.Money had deprived them of their reason,their conscience,their reputation and above all,their lives.By describing the miserable fate of the Richards couple,Twain showed us the Americans’greedy nature and gave us a vivid description of the bourgeois moral principle under the control of gold.He incisively satirized the so-called American innocence and mercilessly exposed the bourgeois morality of greed for money.Such was Twain's thorough criticism of the capitalist system.

The pernicious influence of money is often mocked at in Twain's other stories such as “The$1,000,00 Banknote”. “The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg”,however,goes a step-forward.It gives the readers a deep insight into the degenerating character of the bourgeoisie.Twain revealed America as the world of a group of wolves.The only thing people were hungry for was money,for which they hated each other,cheated each other.It was with a biting satire that Twain attacked the immorality of the American bourgeoisie,using Hadleyburg as a symbol of the entire American bourgeoisie.Before a gold sack,all the people of Hadleyburg fell down.Twain successfully described all the nineteen principal citizens'wicked quality and characters on the Great Friday when the sack was to be opened and the money delivered.All of them had handed in their envelopes claiming for the sack.And they were so immaculately dressed as if it was a festival and waited for their happiest moment to come.Two of them,“honest man” Billson and lawyer Wilson,even had a terrible quarrel which led them to moral corruption.Both frauds accused each other of theft.Wilson,using his eloquence,made a persuasive speech and told a lie,an infamous lie which put Billson in an awkward situation.The town people not having been practiced in the tricks and delusions of oratory were fuddled.They were nearly persuaded to believe that he alone of living men was entitled to the money-sack.Billson,not used to emergencies,could only sit in a helpless co11 apse.Wilson was a typical character by whom Twain showed us a perfect symbol of corruption and degeneration.The bourgeois hypocrisy and immorality was mockingly described and the evil society was further criticized.

Obviously,Twain didn't really mean what the title of the story suggests.It was not the man who had brought a sack of money to Hadleyburg that had corrupted the town.It was the town people themselves that had corrupted it.It was the 19 most“honorable” citizens that had brought their reputation to the ground.The stranger had only set a trap for them.If the town people were really innocent and honest,if they were really worthy of their good name they wouldn't have bitten at the bait,they wouldn't have failed the test and Hadleyburg wouldn't have been corrupted.Here,through the corruption of Hadleyburg Twain sharply pointed out that the weakest of all weak things is a virtue which has not been tested in the fire.The vanity of life is a weakness of people and is most vulnerable.So people shouldn't be too sure of themselves,of their integrity,morality,honesty or any other good virtues.It's better for them to be subjected to tests from time to time all their lives so that they can get used to them and whenever great temptation comes,people will not be lured too much,too readily,too suddenly.Twain revealed in the story that artificially keeping away from temptation only creates artificial innocence.Once temptation comes,people will easily fall,reputation will be destroyed and virtue ruined.

Twain was seemingly a laughing humorist,but actually a social critic. “The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg” is by no means merely an amusing story.It's Twain's merciless criticism of the Philistinism of the American society.It is a presentation of the evils of capitalism.Twain told us what his purpose of writing was through the mouth of the stranger:"My idea was to make liars and thieves of nearly a hundred smirchless men and women who had never in their lives uttered a lie or stolen a penny.”So,it was people's soul that Twain wanted to dissect,the bourgeois soul.They were seemingly innocent gentlemen,but their soul was controlled only by money.Only gold they had belief in.In order to get money,any shameful thing could be done.

One artistic feature of Twain's works is exaggeration and it was also his weapon to fight against the evils of capiөtalism.Under his pen,Hadleyburg was too good to be true,and also too naked to be realistic.It was such an honest town“that a young man hailed from Hadleyburg was all the recommendation he needed when he went forth from his natal town to seek for responsible employment”.It is one good exaggeration.And in the third part of the story,the joyful scene in which people were jubilant at the destruction of their long-prized reputation also shows Twain's talent for exaggeration.And at last the whole story in which a sack of gold had caused a town's downfall and people's corruption is more realistic than reality.It is such good exaggerations that the darkness and falseness of the American society is vividly revealed behind it.

Twain's artistry attains the highest level in “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg”.It presents Twain’s varied talents in writing.He created a vivid picture of Hadleyburg's hypocritical honesty and integrity while exposing how the nineteen principal families were all lured by the God of money and showed their true colours.Right here,the author’s light humor changed and turned to poignant satire.Mark Twain's strong resentment and indignation against capitalism can be strongly felt.

It may be of realistically significance to probe into the root cause of the breeding and spreading of the corruption and degeneration phenomenons in China,where only a short while ago in the past,with closed-door policy,people had no temptation,no desire,and hence poor and backward;Today,the country is going through reforms and opening up.Hence we progress.Yet when advanced material civilization is being created,a retrogression of spiritual civilization seems to have begun.Corruption scandals have already led to the fall of so many Chinese highest-ranking government officials.Love of money is the root of all these evils.People are ready to sacrifice honesty and self-respect only for more wealth or for anything else that we greatly desire.The corruption of Hadleyburg actually gives a hint about this greedy human nature.Mark Twain has all the reason to call out: “Lead us into temptation”.Going out of one’s way to avoid temptation dose not help much in keeping a country uncorrupted.It’s only a passive resistance.Only when we are actively willing to withstand monetary temptations can we really stop corruption and build up a lasting ethos of clean and honest Chinese government.S

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