Mark Twain on Imperialism and America

       

     Mark Twain’s travels allowed him to have a unique perspective on America’s influence and presence in the world.  It also gave him insight into imperialism and international relations.  His thoughts on the matter are very explicitly stated in his essay “To Person Sitting in Darkness.”   He introduces the “people sitting in darkness,” as he sardonically calls anyone America has deemed uncivilized, by saying that they have been “furnished with more light than was good for them or profitable for us. We have been injudicious” (Twain, 269).  Twain uses this metaphor to introduce the supposed gifts that capitalism and imperialism offers to uncivilized and colonized nations.  Among those gifts are: love, justice, law and order, equality, mercy, and liberty – “gifts” that civilization exports but does not necessarily practice.  He says that these gifts are “merely an outside cover … while inside the bale is the Actual Thing that Costumer Sitting in Darkness buys with his blood and tears and land and liberty” (270).  A heavy price to pay for any supposed gifts. 

     Twain uses this metaphor of a person sitting in darkness to satirize America’s interactions abroad but also to call into question America.  While he wrote this he drew, not only on his experience abroad but his experience at home. His works, including this essay are woven with keen observations about American life and values in the 19^th century.  Through his work, like “To the Person Sitting in Darkness,” Twain examines Jim Crowe Laws, class relations, the KKK, and various other things sitting in darkness in American society.  By pointing out the prettily packaged “Americanism” that is being sold abroad and creating a metaphor of bringing light to other, Twain is bringing light to topics that America has ignored and ideals that America has betrayed.  His outrage at the betrayal of principles happening in America is played out in his outrage about the “friendly” and “affectionate” betrayal that happens abroad, like in the Philippines.  His comments on the matter reflect what he saw closer to home:  “for we were only play the American Game in public” (276).  America, as well as the Filipino’s, are being “petted” and lied to.  The freedoms’ that American’s “enjoyed” at home were not real freedoms and that many Americans experienced no freedoms at all. 

      Like much of his work, Twain uses “To the Person Sitting in Darkness” to comment on more than what is on the surface.  He passes harsh judgment on the America of his time, both the prettily wrapped exported America, and the dark, harsh America in the beautiful package.  His work asks his readers to open their eyes and minds to the harsh realities around them and to respond.  Twain’s keen observations show a dark side to America in contrast to the happy childhood that his readers saw in work such as Tom Sawyer.