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The American Claimant

Автор Марк Твен
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Дата написания1970-01-01
Язык книгиen
Возрастное ограничение6+
Жанры
зарубежная классикаклассическая проза
Темы
американская литератураамериканская классика

Описание

Книга повествует о сложных наследственных спорах, культурном шоке эмигрантов, технологических амбициях и личных конфликтах, объединяя британскую аристократию и американскую действительность в драматическом повествовании.

Главный конфликт / проблема

Конфликт наследственных прав и личных амбиций, а также внутренние противоречия героев, которые вынуждают их пересматривать свои ценности и идентичность

Ключевые идеи

  • Наследственные права и их юридическая неопределённость
  • Переосмысление личной идентичности через переезд и новые начинания
  • Коммерческая и научная амбиция колониального продавца
  • Наследственные права и их конфликт между американскими и британскими аристократами.
  • Влияние личных качеств и поведения на восприятие и статус персонажей.
  • Проблема идентификации и памяти в контексте трагедии.
  • Американская пресса отличается от европейской своей беззлобностью и отсутствием почтения.
  • Трудности адаптации эмигранта в США, включая поиск работы и социальную интеграцию.
  • Теоретическое равенство против практического неравенства в общежитии.
  • Невозможность трудоустройства без профсоюза
  • Преодоление унижения через победу над бандитом
  • Популярность как временное явление

Вывод

Книга приводит к осознанию того, что наследие, идентичность и технологии формируют сложную сеть взаимоотношений, требующую честности, смирения и готовности к переменам

Кому полезна

  • Читатели, интересующиеся историей и наследством
  • Люди, пережившие эмиграцию и культурный шок
  • Те, кто интересуется технологическими фантазиями и политическими амбициями
  • Любители сложных драматических сюжетов

Главные темы

  • Наследственные права и статус
  • Культурный шок и адаптация эмигранта
  • Технологические и политические амбиции
  • Личные конфликты и поиск идентичности

Персонажи

  • Граф Rossmore — Старый, строгий, но справедливый, он сомневается в доказательствах претендента и стремится сохранить статус своего рода, традиционалист, заботится о репутации.
  • Viscount Berkeley — Мечтает освободиться от обязанностей, верит в правоту претендента и готов переехать в Америку, но погибает в пожаре.
  • Simon Lathers — Писатель, претендующий на наследство, пишет длинные письма, но его доказательства вызывают сомнения.
  • Mulberry Sellers — Семейный человек, стремящийся к коммерческим успехам и помощи друзьям.
  • Washington Hawkins — Ищет возможности в Америке, обсуждает с Sellers планы по материализации и поиску преступника.
  • Гвенделин Селлерс — Непредсказуемая и эмоциональная, стремится к признанию и статусу, пишет письмо о своих переживаниях и радости от возвращения домой.
  • Трейси — Тревожный и чувствительный, испытывает трудности с концентрацией из‑за мыслей о Гвенделен, пытается скрыть свою истинную личность, сталкивается с унижением, но после победы над Алленом становится популярным, переживает внутренний конфликт между аристократией и простыми делами.
  • Barrow — Опытный работник, помогает Трейси в поиске работы и адаптации, пытается поддержать его, вводя в заблуждение о графе-отце.
  • Hattie — Обсуждает вопросы статуса и равенства, помогает Трейси понять местную культуру.
  • Mrs. Sellers — Поддерживает семью, участвует в обсуждениях.
  • Мэйджор Хокинс — Опытный и спокойный, переживает задержку вознаграждения.
  • Колониал — Разрабатывает проекты по освобождению России и использует материализацию для получения прибыли.

Цитаты

  • "Soft-spirited as you are, Berkeley, I am quite aware that when you have once made up your mind to do a thing which your ideas of honor and justice require you to do, argument and reason are (for the time being,) wasted upon you—yes, and ridicule; persuasion, supplication, and command as well."
  • "I am too much prostrated by these conflicting griefs and joys to be able to concentrate my mind upon affairs; I will ask our good friend here to break the news by wire or post to the Lady Gwendolen and instruct her to—"
  • «Она все еще была непредсказуемой, и я не мог предугадать, что она сделает дальше».
  • «Пожар в New Gadsby стал последним актом, который разорвал все наши надежды».
  • «The essayist for this evening is an old member of our club whom you all know, Mr. Parker, assistant editor of the Daily Democrat. The subject of his essay is the American Press…»
  • «I was glad I came to this country. I have found a country at last where one may start fair, and breast to breast with his fellow man, rise by his own efforts, and be something in the world and be proud of that something; not be something created by an ancestor three hundred years ago.»
  • «Только работа сама по себе – блаженство, когда человек голоден к ней»
  • «Покупка Сибири – это первый шаг к созданию республики»
  • Он сказал: «Он – воблер».
  • Гвенделен шептала: «Мы флиртуем, как будто держим друг друга за шею».

Сводка по автору из Wikidata

1835–1910. Mark Twain. американский писатель, журналист и общественный деятель (1835–1910)

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THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT By Mark Twain

APPENDIX.

The weather in this book

EXPLANATORY

The Colonel Mulberry Sellers here re-introduced to the public is the same person who appeared as Eschol Sellers in the first edition of the tale entitled "The Gilded Age," years ago, and as Beriah Sellers in the subsequent editions of the same book, and finally as Mulberry Sellers in the drama played afterward by John T. Raymond.

The name was changed from Eschol to Beriah to accommodate an Eschol Sellers who rose up out of the vasty deeps of uncharted space and preferred his request—backed by threat of a libel suit—then went his way appeased, and came no more. In the play Beriah had to be dropped to satisfy another member of the race, and Mulberry was substituted in the hope that the objectors would be tired by that time and let it pass unchallenged. So far it has occupied the field in peace; therefore we chance it again, feeling reasonably safe, this time, under shelter of the statute of limitations.

MARK TWAIN. Hartford, 1891.

THE WEATHER IN THIS BOOK.

No weather will be found in this book. This is an attempt to pull a book through without weather. It being the first attempt of the kind in fictitious literature, it may prove a failure, but it seemed worth the while of some dare-devil person to try it, and the author was in just the mood.

Many a reader who wanted to read a tale through was not able to do it because of delays on account of the weather. Nothing breaks up an author's progress like having to stop every few pages to fuss-up the weather. Thus it is plain that persistent intrusions of weather are bad for both reader and author.

Of course weather is necessary to a narrative of human experience. That is conceded. But it ought to be put where it will not be in the way; where it will not interrupt the flow of the narrative. And it ought to be the ablest weather that can be had, not ignorant, poor-quality, amateur weather. Weather is a literary specialty, and no untrained hand can turn out a good article of it. The present author can do only a few trifling ordinary kinds of weather, and he cannot do those very good. So it has seemed wisest to borrow such weather as is necessary for the book from qualified and recognized experts—giving credit, of course. This weather will be found over in the back part of the book, out of the way. See Appendix. The reader is requested to turn over and help himself from time to time as he goes along.

CHAPTER I.

The Earl of Rossmore vs. the American Claimant—Viscount Berkeley proposes to change places with the Claimant— The Claimant's letter—Lord Berkeley decides to visit

America

It is a matchless morning in rural England. On a fair hill we see a majestic pile, the ivied walls and towers of Cholmondeley Castle, huge relic and witness of the baronial grandeurs of the Middle Ages. This is one of the seats of the Earl of Rossmore, K. G. G. C. B. K. C. M. G., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., who possesses twenty-two thousand acres of English land, owns a parish in London with two thousand houses on its lease-roll, and struggles comfortably along on an income of two hundred thousand pounds a year. The father and founder of this proud old line was William the Conqueror his very self; the mother of it was not inventoried in history by name, she being merely a random episode and inconsequential, like the tanner's daughter of Falaise.

In a breakfast room of the castle on this breezy fine morning there are two persons and the cooling remains of a deserted meal. One of these persons is the old lord, tall, erect, square-shouldered, white-haired, stern-browed, a man who shows character in every feature, attitude, and movement, and carries his seventy years as easily as most men carry fifty. The other person is his only son and heir, a dreamy-eyed young fellow, who looks about twenty-six but is nearer thirty. Candor, kindliness, honesty, sincerity, simplicity, modesty—it is easy to see that these are cardinal traits of his character; and so when you have clothed him in the formidable components of his name, you somehow seem to be contemplating a lamb in armor: his name and style being the Honourable Kirkcudbright Llanover Marjorihanks Sellers Viscount-Berkeley, of Cholmondeley Castle, Warwickshire. (Pronounced K'koobry Thlanover Marshbanks Sellers Vycount Barkly, of Chumly Castle, Warrikshr.) He is standing by a great window, in an attitude suggestive of respectful attention to what his father is saying and equally respectful dissent from the positions and arguments offered. The father walks the floor as he talks, and his talk shows that his temper is away up toward summer heat.

"Soft-spirited as you are, Berkeley, I am quite aware that when you have once made up your mind to do a thing which your ideas of honor and justice require you to do, argument and reason are (for the time being,) wasted upon you—yes, and ridicule; persuasion, supplication, and command as well. To my mind—"

"Father, if you will look at it without prejudice, without passion, you must concede that I am not doing a rash thing, a thoughtless, wilful thing, with nothing substantial behind it to justify it. I did not create the American claimant to the earldom of Rossmore; I did not hunt for him, did not find him, did not obtrude him upon your notice. He found himself, he injected himself into our lives—"

"And has made mine a purgatory for ten years with his tiresome letters, his wordy reasonings, his acres of tedious evidence,—"

"Which you would never read, would never consent to read. Yet in common fairness he was entitled to a hearing. That hearing would either prove he was the rightful earl—in which case our course would be plain—or it would prove that he wasn't—in which case our course would be equally plain. I have read his evidences, my lord. I have conned them well, studied them patiently and thoroughly. The chain seems to be complete, no important link wanting. I believe he is the rightful earl."

"And I a usurper—a—nameless pauper, a tramp! Consider what you are saying, sir."

"Father, if he is the rightful earl, would you, could you—that fact being established—consent to keep his titles and his properties from him a day, an hour, a minute?"

"You are talking nonsense—nonsense—lurid idiotcy! Now, listen to me. I will make a confession—if you wish to call it by that name. I did not read those evidences because I had no occasion to—I was made familiar with them in the time of this claimant's father and of my own father forty years ago. This fellow's predecessors have kept mine more or less familiar with them for close upon a hundred and fifty years. The truth is, the rightful heir did go to America, with the Fairfax heir or about the same time—but disappeared—somewhere in the wilds of Virginia, got married, end began to breed savages for the Claimant market; wrote no letters home; was supposed to be dead; his younger brother softly took possession; presently the American did die, and straightway his eldest product put in his claim—by letter—letter still in existence—and died before the uncle in-possession found time—or maybe inclination—to—answer. The infant son of that eldest product grew up—long interval, you see—and he took to writing letters and furnishing evidences. Well, successor after successor has done the same, down to the present idiot. It was a succession of paupers; not one of them was ever able to pay his passage to England or institute suit. The Fairfaxes kept their lordship alive, and so they have never lost it to this day, although they live in Maryland; their friend lost his by his own neglect. You perceive now, that the facts in this case bring us to precisely this result: morally the American tramp is rightful earl of Rossmore; legally he has no more right than his dog. There now—are you satisfied?"

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