Mark Twain의 兩面性 = The Duality of Mark Twain

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The purpose of this article is to eliminate the prevalent notion that Mark Twain became suddenly pessimistic after experiencing personal misfortunes toward the end of his life. Many critics, it is true, have been concerned with the duality of Mark Twain in terms of biographical or structural considerations. However, we encounter, with the subject of duality, one of Mark Twain's most persistent insights into man's nature. Therefore, the subject of Mark Twain's duality has been traced from The Prince and the Pauper (1882), in which he began developing the concept of his duality as a narrative device with thematic implications. The dark side of Man's nature is concretely shown in The Mysterious Stranger, Letters from the Earth, “The Damned Human Race,” and “What is Man?” This growing pessimism led him to speculate about the dichotomy of good-and-evil in relation to man's nature, Basically he found that the duality of good-and-veil is caused by the disparity between man's “low” impulses, drives, and instincts and “high” social and moral code. This disparity was obvious to some extent even in Huck Finn, Pudd'nhead Wilson, and other works. Therefore, we can conclude that the was interested in this duality even when his humor seemed light-hearted in the minds of many readers. His preoccupation with the dark side of man's nature, with him from the very beginning, was not merely a new development toward the end of his life.