July 22, 2009Puddn'head Wilson, the Constitution, the Whaling Museum and theCivil War

Sarah Littlefield and Puddn’head WilsonWhen we went to our classroom in O’Hare wewere already expected by Sarah Littlefield forher last class. The topic of today was the novelPudd’nhead Wilson by Mark Twain. After ashort overview of Mark Twain’s life, includingMark Twain’s several visits of Switzerland thathe called The Cradle of Liberty. We learnedthat in Mark Twain’s view the Mississippiseparated the United States in two parts: thepure, non corrupt land on the West of the river;the eastern part is influenced by corruption andimpurity. Hannibal, Missouri, where MarkTwain lived, is comparable to Dawson’s Land-ing in Pudd’nhead Wilson. It is also the placeof the novels Tom Saywer and HuckleberryFinn. In three groups we tried to find out, what themajor points in the novel are, what MarkTwain’s concerns are.

Some excerpts of the results: It was mentionedthat Mark Twain tells a comparable story in hisnovel The Prince and the Pauper. The son ofKing Henry VIII and a pauper boy switchroles, but the outcome is different than inPudd’nhead Wilson, because both of them dowell. The main question in Tim’s group was ifMark Twain was optimistic or pessimistic con-cerning people’s potential for justice. Wethought he was quite pessimistic, but Sarahadded that in his heart he was an optimist, inhis mind a pessimist. Who is really thepuddn’head? Is escape from destiny possible?These were two other questions discussed inthe groups. Another point was the meaning ofthe name of Roxy’s son, Chambers, for thenovel.There were many questions that couldn’t befully answered. The most important of themare: Is it nurture or nature that defines one’sdestiny? What leads to identity? How do weform opinions.

This was our last class with Sarah. Weliked her lively teaching and got a lot ofadditional material to read on the planeback to Switzerland.Thank you very much, Sarah! We en-joyed the time we spent with you.

Mark Twain House

Clark Merrill and the Constitution of theUnited States of America

Clark tried to lead us from the Declaration ofIndependence to the Constitution of the UnitedStates, a demanding task in only about an hour.In the first part of his lecture, Clark asked thequestion: What does it mean to be an Ameri-can? We learnt what the word equality in theDeclaration of Independence for Thomas Jef-ferson and his friends meant: I am not born torule over you and you are not born to rule overme. I place myself by consent voluntarily un-der the government. The task of the govern-ment is to protect my liberty. The task of theConstitution is to organize the political proc-ess. During the Revolution in the year 1781, thethirteen states approved to the Articles of theConfederation of the United States, the firstConstitution of the United States. These arti-cles were agreed by the states, not by the peo-ple; there was no taxing authority by the Un-ion. The government was very weak. Majori-ties with only one strong interest, so called fac-tions, were able to make decisions against theliberty of a minority.

Most of the thirteen states recognized thisweakness and called the Constitution Con-gress in Philadelphia with the task to revisethe older constitution from 1781. A first thecongress proposed to install a really strongcentral government with no power on thelevel of the states. This proposal didn’t pass.Since it was not possible to reach the goalsby revising the old constitution, the delega-tes wrote a new one – an illegal act becauseit was against the mission they have gotfrom the Confederation Congress, but it wasnecessary to save the Union.To save the Union they were urged to reacha result. To reach a result it was necessary tocompromise concerning slavery, that meansthat practical arguments against totally abol-ishing slavery succeeded but the importa-tion of slaves was only allowed for anothertwenty years until December 31, 1807.

Preamble of the Constitution of the UnitedStates of America

At the end of his lecture Clark asked some very interesting questions: How long would slaveryhave lasted, if the Constitution Congress had failed? What would have happened in 20th cen-tury in Europe in WW I and WW II? Would the United States have entered the wars and savedEurope from tyranny, racism, fascism, …?Clark's time was over, and the questions remain unanswered.Especially for Swiss people, who’s Constitution is very similar to the one of the United States,exist some more questions: Where does the liberty of the individual person end? What doesliberty have to do with the right of wearing weapons? Is private property really as important asit was explained to us?In my opinion Clark’s lecture was very helpful for us to understand the policy and the peopleof the United States much better than we did before.

Thank you Clark, and if you are given the opportunity to speak to Swiss peopleabout these topics again, tell the responsible people that it cannot be done in alittle bit more than an hour.

Whaling Museum in New Bedford

After a quite short lunch we were picked upby the two vans from Salve for the drive toNew Bedford where we visited the WhalingMuseum. An introducing movie taught somebasics about whaling and its history. Then wewere shown the exhibits in the museum by aguided tour. It was very impressing to seethese huge skeletons of whales, first of all theone of the only about three-year-old bluewhale. In contrast to the hugeness of thesemammals were the very tiny plank beds forthe crew on the whaling ships. It’s worth tovisit this museum again with a little bit moretime to study all the different exhibits and theexplanations.A little tour through New Bedford followed,guided by John. We saw the Seamen’s Brethel,that became famous by Melville’s Moby Dick.We saw the place where soldiers for the firstblack regiment, the Massachusetts 54th, wererecruited. We had a look at the JohnsonHouse, some kind of final station of the Un-derground Railroad, and last but not least, westood in the beautiful garden of the Captain’shouse.

At this place I would like to thank our drivers who took us to many places, al-ways driving very carefully.

Glory (USA, 1989)

Thirteen people of our group met in Salve’s newmovie theatre to watch Glory. After having beenwounded at Antietam, young captain Robert G.Shaw (Matthew Broderick) is appointed Colonelof the new black regiment, the Massachusetts54th. After having had difficulties in the begin-ning he becomes a reliable leader of his troopsand leads the attack as front regiment on FortWagner, SC, where he and half of his regimentare killed. The important point is, that the blackregiment has proven his worth in the war againstthe Confederation in combat. Even if the lastbattle scene is very realistic and sometimes diffi-cult to watch, the movie has shown a very im-portant step for the black population. After FordWagner almost 200000 black soldiers fought inthe war for the Union.

Young Denzel Washington as Trip and Morgan Freeman as Sgt. Maj. John Rawlins per-formed very convincing. In the first scenes of the movie I had some concerns if MatthewBroderick wasn’t too young for the part he had to perform, but he managed to show the re-sponsibility for his men, the concerns he had as their commander. The best scene in my opini-on is the one in which the black soldiers prepare for the oncoming day, singing and praying, aday that can cost their lives.

When the light went on, most of us sat silent and thought about what we just had seen: Colo-nel Robert G. Shaw in a huge grave and the Private Trip, a former slave, just lying on him inthe same grave.

I agree with some critics who say the movie is much too pathetic, but I think it was an inten-tion of the movie to get to the heart of the spectators. Glory won three Oscars: Best sound,best camera and best supporting actor (Denzel Washington) in 1990.

A dense but very interesting day ends at 10 pm. Now we have to prepare for thetrip to Boston. Many thanks to all the people wo have contributed to the differ-ent parts of the day's program.

Bruno Dütsch