The son of John Marshall Clemens, a judge, and Jane Lampton Clemens in Hannibal, Missouri, Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910) adopted the pseudonym Mark Twain when he began to write professionally. Before beginning his literary career, Clemens held diverse jobs, ranging from riverboat pilot and occasional gold-miner to journeyman printer and journalist. He spent much of his early adulthood traveling up and down the Mississippi River by steamboat and throughout the western frontier with his brother Orion, who became Nevada’s secretary of territory in 1861.

Clemens’s earliest works include a series of letters published in regional newspapers that reported the risk and adventure of life on the frontier. Sensing America’s appetite for “news,” especially the sensational kind, Clemens often peppered his reports with outlandish hoaxes and tall tales, which often caused controversy as readers assumed they were true. A headline Clemens wrote in 1853 for his brother’s Hannibal newspaper, Journal, evinces his penchant for irony, comedy, and good-natured satire: “Terrible Accident! 500 Men Killed and Missing!” He explains in the subsequent article, “We had set the above head up, expecting (of course) to use it, but as the accident hasn’t yet happened, we’ll say ‘To be continued.’” Clemens first signed his pen name in 1863 to his “Carson City Letters” series that appeared in Virginia City’s Territorial Enterprise. In 1865, Clemens as Twain published “Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog,” his first short story.

Astounding for both its quantity and quality, Twain’s work is best known for its humorous rendering of human imperfection. While his early novels, short stories, essays and public lectures poke fun at human fallibility with delight and good nature, his later writings assume a moralistic tone, including such works such as What is Man? (1898), the collected fragments that were to make up The Mysterious Stranger (1916), and “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg” (1899). Critics detect an underlying “deterministic” philosophy in his later works. Determinism asserts that humans refuse to accept their inherently sinful nature, which inevitably leads to a moral fall. Pointing to the edifying benefits of sin, some critics read stories like “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg” as an expostulation of “the fortunate fall” myth. Scholars often attribute Twain’s gloomy outlook at the time to personal troubles. Recently bankrupted by investments in the failed Paige typesetting machine, Twain lost his daughter Susy to meningitis in 1896, while he was in Europe on a lecture tour to satisfy his creditor’s demands. Critics also sense optimism in his later moralistic writings. Similar in this respect to his earlier works, he notes in his Autobiography that solid morals always inform worthy and lasting humor. Otherwise, humor is merely “decoration” and “fragrance.” Twain writes: “Humor must not professedly teach, and it must not professedly preach, but it must do both if it would last forever.”

Plot Summary

Part 1

An omniscient narrator opens the story with a description of Hadleyburg, U.S.A., as “honest,” “upright,” and very proud of its “unsmirched” reputation. The town enjoys national renown for protecting every citizen against all temptation from infancy through death. Appropriately, the town motto reads “Lead us not into temptation.” The tale then segues to the bitter thoughts of an “offended stranger,” who has nursed a grudge against the town during the past year for an unnamed, unrequited offense. Rather than murder the one or two individuals responsible, the stranger plots vengeance to “comprehend the entire town, and not let so much as one person escape unhurt.”

The “mysterious, big” stranger puts his scheme into action when he delivers a sack of gold coins, supposedly worth $40,000, to the home of Mary and Edward Richards, who is a cashier at the Hadleyburg bank. Alone when the sack arrives, Mary panics

then notices a note attached to the sack. The note explains that some time ago a financially and morally bankrupt ex-gambler arrived in Hadleyburg, where a citizen gave him twenty dollars and sage advice. Ironically, the stranger amassed a fortune by gambling with those twenty dollars. He now wants to repay his benefactor whose identity can be determined by repeating the words of advice that he spoke so long ago, which are disclosed in a document within a sealed envelope inside the sack. The stranger’s note concludes by asking the Richardses to find the man and to conduct their search either privately or publicly. However, if they choose a public method, all claims must be forwarded to Reverend Burgess, whom the stranger authorizes to open the sealed envelope and verify a match.

Alarmed by the prospect of theft, Mary explains the situation to Edward when he comes home. Edward jokes about burning the letters and keeping the money to themselves, but he promptly goes to the newspaper office to advertise the sack. He favors the public method because neighboring towns will envy Hadleyburg for being deemed worthy to safeguard such a huge sum of gold. Edward and Mary conjecture that the anonymous citizen is the deceased Barclay Goodson. In the course of their speculation, Edward reveals a few secrets about “honest” Hadleyburg. Barclay Goodson and Reverend Burgess, respectively, became the most hated men in town, due in part to Edward’s cowardice. As it happens, Burgess was falsely accused of committing an unnamed deed, which ruined his reputation. Edward knew Burgess was innocent but withheld the information that would have cleared him because Edward feared public reproach against himself. Still, Edward felt guilty about his role in bringing scandal to Burgess, so he advised Burgess to leave town until the crisis passed. Meanwhile, Edward convinced the townsfolk that Goodson withheld the self-incriminating information. Shocked by Edward’s revelations, Mary wavers between outrage and acceptance but ultimately supports her husband’s actions. They alternately indulge in fantasies about keeping the money and self-reproach for entertaining such “awful” thoughts, when Edward decides to cancel the advertisement. Meanwhile, the printer Mr. Cox, the only other person in town aware of the sack, has spent a similar evening with his wife. He, too, decides to stop the ad and meets Edward at the newspaper office, but they are too late to prevent the notice from appearing in the next day’s paper. The men return to their respective homes, where both couples bicker over the right course of action, wavering between greed and self-condemnation.

Part 2

As news about the mysterious sack of gold in Hadleyburg spreads across the country during the next morning, the town celebrates this new confirmation of its honesty, prompting the townsfolk to suggest that “Hadleyburg” be listed in the dictionary as a synonym for “incorruptible.” Pride soon turns into contention as the townsfolk begin to guess at the contents of the envelope. Absorbed in thought and irritable, Mary comes across a letter that she had received earlier from a Howard L. Stephenson, who identifies himself as an associate of Goodson. The letter contains the precise wording of the advice enclosed within the mystery envelope and identifies the late Goodson as the man who spoke it to the stranger. In the letter, Stephenson reports that Goodson generally loathed Hadleyburg but spoke “favorably” of two or three families residing there. He vaguely recalls that Goodson sometimes mentioned a “great service” done for him by someone perhaps named Edward Richards. Stephenson indicates that the man who offered his service to Goodson is the “legitimate heir” of the gold. Since he is uncertain about the details of the good deed and the exact identity of the do-gooder, Stephenson appeals to Edward’s honesty and sense of honor to refresh his memory, adding that he fully expects an honest man to relinquish his claim if an error has been made. Finally, he reveals Goodson’s advice: “YOU ARE FAR FROM BEING A BAD MAN: GO, AND REFORM.”

Mary is elated but not for long, as Edward tries to recall the details of his good deed. After eliminating a series of possible scenarios that include saving his soul, property, and life, Edward “dimly” recalls “rescuing” Goodson from marrying a woman (Nancy Hewitt) who had a “spoonful of Negro blood in her veins.” Satisfied with this sketchy memory, he reconstructs the details of the event.

The mood in Hadleyburg improves markedly by the next day. Eighteen other couples have received a similar letter from “Stephenson,” with the exception that the name of the respective recipient replaces Edward’s. Each husband reconstructs a dubious account of their “service” to Goodson, and each wife dreams of a future of luxury. All the couples accordingly forward their claims to a perplexed Burgess.

Part 3

The residents of Hadleyburg and curious visitors gather at the town hall to learn the identity of the sack’s rightful owner. As instructed, Burgess presides over the meeting. He offers warmly enthusiastic praise of the town’s honesty and thanks the stranger for giving them this opportunity to display their virtue, as each claimant silently rehearses his humble acceptance speech. Burgess reads the first claim and identifies Deacon Billson as its owner. As the crowd cheers, Lawyer Wilson objects and charges Billson with plagiarism. Burgess concedes that he also has a claim from Wilson, which he reads aloud and finds the same piece of advice, “You are far from being a bad man. Go, and reform.” A vigorous debate ensues, when the tanner points out that Billson’s claim differs by including the extra word very. At the urging of the crowd, Burgess opens the sack to retrieve the sealed envelope. Instead, he finds two envelopes, and one of them is labeled, “Not to be examined until all written communications which have been addressed to the Chair—if any—have been read.” Burgess opens the unmarked envelope, which contains a note that reads, “Go, and reform—or, mark my words—some day, for your sins, you will die and go to hell or Hadleyburg—TRY AND MAKE IT THE FORMER.” The note exposes the greed of the claimants and the hypocrisy of the town.

The crowd erupts in pandemonium over the claimants’s deceit, when Burgess announces that he has additional claims. One by one, he slowly reads the names of the other claimants. The crowd delights in the public humiliation of the town’s upstanding members. Edward tries to stop the proceedings and relieve his guilt, but Burgess interrupts him and continues reciting the rest of the names. Resigned to impending humiliation, Edward and Mary wait for their names to be called. Burgess, however, concludes after reading only eighteen claims. As the crowd cheers the sole virtuous couple, Edward and Mary cringe as their hypocrisy settles around them.

Burgess then opens the second envelope, which reveals the entirety of the stranger’s scheme as well as a suggestion that the gold be used to establish a “Committee on Propagation and Preservation of the Hadleyburg Reputation.” The coins, however, are merely gilded slugs. The crowd decides to auction the counterfeit coins and donate the proceeds to Edward, the “one clean man left.” A stranger, “who looked like an amateur detective gotten up as an impossible English earl,” escalates the bidding and purchases the sack for $1282. He declares that he will stamp the coins with the slogan “Go and reform” along with the names of the eighteen claimants, when Dr. Clay Harkness offers the man forty thousand dollars for the sack. The crowd approves the deal, singing “You are f-a-r from being a b-a-a-d man-a-a-a-a-men!”

Part 4

After receiving payment from Harkness, the stranger writes four checks in the amount of $1500 and one for $34,000, each payable to “Bearer.” Keeping one of the smaller checks for himself, he delivers the rest to the Edward along with a note extolling their honesty, which proved that he failed to “corrupt the whole town.” Later, Edward receives a message from Burgess explaining that he refrained from naming him during the proceedings as a gesture of gratitude for Edward’s advice to leave town before news of his scandal broke. Reminded of his cowardice and stung by guilt, Edward burns the checks.

As time passes, Edward and Mary become sick and paranoid. They believe that Burgess knows about Edward’s cowardly silence, and that his gratitude masks a sarcastic accusation. Nearing death, they murmur bits of the truth while their nurses circulate rumors. Edward asks Burgess to visit him before he dies. Confessing his past and present cowardice, Edward tells a roomful of admirers that Burgess had refrained from naming Edward at that fateful town meeting, and “the dying man passed away without knowing that once more he had done poor Burgess a wrong.”

During the town’s next election, Harkness uses the counterfeit coins as a campaign gimmick to unseat the incumbent Pinkerton, whose name was stamped on them along with the other duped claimants. Harkness wins by a landslide. His first official act is to change the town’s name and to delete the word not from its motto, thereby establishing “an honest town once more.”

Characters

John Wharton Billson

Billson is a Deacon with the nickname “Shadbelly.” He is the first of the nineteen claiming ownership of the sack. When Burgess reads his name, the crowd doubts that Billson could have been so generous, shouting: “Billson! Oh, come, this is too thin! Twenty dollars to a stranger-or anybody-Billson”; Wilson falsely accuses him of plagiarism.

Reverend Burgess

The letter attached to the sack authorizes Burgess to break the seals of the sack and the enclosed envelope. Unaware that Edward Richards concealed information that could have cleared him of wrongdoing in a previous scandal, Burgess regards Edward as his savior for advising him to leave town. Burgess repays his perceived debt by not announcing Edward’s name at the town meeting, which leads everyone to believe that Edward is the only truly honest man in town. After the stranger gives the Richardses the proceeds from the auction, Burgess sends them a note that accounts for his action at the town meeting. On his deathbed, Edward burns Burgess once more, since he confesses that Burgess purposely withheld Edward’s name at the town meeting.

Mr. Cox

Mr. Cox is the printer of the town’s newspaper. He is the second person to learn about the gold sack when Edward Richards submits the advertisement to him. Cox dutifully forwards the information to the central office, but hurries back to stop it, hoping to keep the money for himself. At the office, he meets Edward, who has the same idea, but they are too late, since the newspaper printing schedules changed that day, and the clerk submitted the information earlier than usual. Like the Richardses, the Coxes argue about the haste with which they decided to publicly advertise the sack, reasoning that had they only waited, they could have quietly kept the money for themselves.

Barclay Goodson

At the time the story begins, Barclay Goodson is dead. The town surmises that only Goodson was generous enough to give a stranger twenty dollars. Though he once lived in Hadleyburg, he was not born or raised there. He scandalized the town in the past. Although Mary Richards calls him the “best-hated” man in town, Goodson was wrongfully accused of informing Burgess that news of his scandal was about to break. While Goodson generally regarded Hadleyburg as an “honest” town, he also thought it was “narrow, self-righteous, and stingy.” He was supposed to marry Nancy Hewitt, but he broke the engagement at the implicit behest of the community who discovered that she had a “spoonful of Negro blood.”

Jack Halliday

A minor character, Jack Halliday provides ironic commentary on present events in Hadleyburg. He is described as a “loafing, good-natured, no-account, irreverent fisherman, hunter, boys’ friend, stray-dogs’ friend, typical ‘Sam Lawson’ of the town.” According to the narrator, Halliday “noticed everything.” He also guides the reader through the foolish behavior of the town, indicating by humorous conjectures that Deacon Billson was happy because a neighbor broke his leg, and that Gregory Yates rejoiced when his mother-in-law died. His “insider” perspective reveals the town’s hypocrisy despite its virtuous reputation. Halliday’s observations about town life echo the ironic tone of the omniscient narrator.

Dr. Clay Harkness

“Dr.” Clay Harkness appears briefly at the end of the story as a charlatan doctor and political candidate. One of the “two rich men” in town, he made his fortune by patenting a popular medicine. Displaying a “strong appetite” for money, Harkness intends to campaign against Pinkerton in an upcoming legislative election. If elected, he would plan the route for a new railway and reap the financial rewards. He purchases the worthless sack of gilt slugs for $40,000 from the stranger who had bought it at auction after the town meeting. During his campaign, Harkness distributes the fake coins— after stamping the names of the eighteen hypocrites on them—to remind the town especially of Pinkerton’s compromised reputation. He wins the election by a landslide.

Nancy Hewitt

Mentioned only once, Nancy Hewitt is a minor character who does not appear in the story. According to Edward, she was supposed to marry Goodson, who broke the engagement for unknown reasons. The townsfolk later “discovered” that she had a “spoonful of Negro blood.” Edward believes that he passed on this information to Goodson, the “great service” that justifies his claim to the sack of gold. Hewitt’s presence in the narrative also implies the racist sentiment of the town.

Offended Stranger

“Mysterious” and “big,” the offended Stranger is the man that corrupts Hadleyburg. Little else is known about him. Bearing a grudge against the town for an unnamed insult, the stranger carries out a plan that exposes the town’s famous “incorruptible” honesty as a sham. His plot begins when he delivers a sack of fake gold to the Richardses, which throws the town into a greedy frenzy. Critics often identify the Stranger as a Satan figure, since his mischief centers around his “fiendish sack” and brings him “evil joy.” He also might be the “Henry L. Stephenson” whose signature appears on the claimants’s letters. He also might by the stranger who purchases the sack at auction for $1282 and suggests stamping the names of the greedy townsfolk on the gilt slugs to remind everyone of their foolish greed.

Omniscient Narrator

An omniscient, or all knowing, narrator tells the story of “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg.” The narrator knows the innermost thoughts and emotions of the characters and tells the reader their motives and desires. For instance, the manner in which the narrator details Edward’s recollection of “saving” Barclay Goodson informs the reader that Edward’s account is fictional and exaggerated. Here, the narrator also alludes to the frailty of human nature and its will to justify self-deceit in the face of temptation. Similarly, the narrator reports Mary’s thoughts and struggles as she decides whether to keep the money. The narrator appears to empathize with the characters since he knows their agony and self-reproach, which encourages the reader’s empathy. Through the narrator’s ironic tone, the reader becomes aware of “the secret” of Hadleyburg, but also must be wary of adopting the narrator’s point of view, since it may be unreliable.

Pinkerton

Hadleyburg’s banker and one of the “two rich men” in town, Pinkerton is described as “little, mean, smirking, oily.” Rubbing his “sleek palms” together, he boasts that the sack of gold certifies Hadleyburg’s honest reputation. Among the nineteen claimants, he too receives a letter from “Stephenson” and forwards a claim to Burgess. Near the end of the story, Pinkerton loses the election to “Dr.” Clay Harkness, who distributed fake coins stamped with Pinkerton’s name. Though no guiltier than the rest, Pinkerton is perhaps singled out for this heightened humiliation because of his professional association with money.

Edward Richards

A hard-working man of modest means, Richards is Hadleyburg’s bank cashier and one of the “nineteen principal citizens” of the town. Though some of these residents acquired their status through wealth and power, Edward’s respectability appears to be based on strength of character. Though he and his wife are poor, Mary is comforted that “we have our good name.” At the start of the story, Edward

Topics for Further Study

As a critique of “community,” “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg” demonstrates the dangerous consequence of a “herd mentality.” Do you agree or disagree with Twain’s representation of American communities and the spirit of the nation as a whole, as oppressive and inhibi-tive to individualism? In your opinion, what is more important, individual expression or group cooperation? Use concrete examples from national or local history or current events to support your argument.
Discuss how today’s society is influenced by communal values. Does society today encourage and tolerate individual views and opinions, or is it as rigid and close-minded as Twain’s Hadleyburg? Perhaps it is a combination of these characteristics. Use quotes from newspaper and magazines where possible. You can also choose an excerpt from literature and analyze the community it describes. Use textual evidence.
Great detail is given about the opinions of the Hadleyburgians, what they believe and whom they hate. What are omitted are the viewpoints of the victims of this powerful public judgment. What are the so-called outcasts, Goodson and Burgess, thinking? Write a version of events from either or both of their points of view. You may choose to name the “sin” these men supposedly committed.
Hadleyburg can be understood as a microcosm of America and the story has been interpreted as warning adhering too closely to “nationalism.” Using historical, literary, and other resources define “nationalism.” Focusing on one or two events that are popularly understood as nationalistic, explain whether nationalism as you define it is a beneficial, productive force or a dangerous and oppressive one. You can contrast two events to discuss how nationalism changes according to the situation and need.
Earl F. Briden argues that interpretations of “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg” as a “fortunate fall” story are mistaken. He cites the various obstacles to such an interpretation. For instance, in his other writings, Twain recognizes the fortunate fall philosophy as an excuse for “sinning one’s way to moral security.” The story teaches commercial not moral lessons. The residents’ shame represents a superficial response to “getting caught,” not deep penitence. Psychologically unstable people like the Richards are unable to learn moral lessons from their experiences. Briden also offers Tom Sawyer’s argument against fortunate fall philosophy from Tom Sawyer Abroad (1892-94). Tom states that lessons learned from life “ain’t no account, because the thing don’t happen the same way again—and can’t.” Using textual evidence from the story, related works by Twain or other relevant literary works, argue for or against one or more of the points delineated by Briden. You may also choose to compare the Briden’s various points and note contradictions or expand on them.

has little aspirations for material gain. Although he grumbles about working hard, it is a “moment’s irritation” and a simple kiss from Mary cheers him up. His first reaction to the sack of gold reflects his sense of honesty. He advertises the sack in order to bolster the town’s reputation for honesty, but Edward entertains notions of keeping the money for himself. He complains: “Always at the grind, grind, grind, on a salary—another man’s slave, and he sitting at home in his slippers, rich and comfortable.” Though well intentioned at heart, Edward fears public disapproval. This fear explains his cowardice, particularly during Burgess’s scandal, when he withheld evidence and let Goodson take the blame for Burgess’s absence. At the town meeting, Edward again submits to his fear of public opinion, cowering in silence and shame as the crowd praises his virtue. Edward eventually owns up to his cowardly deeds n his deathbed, and in the process damages Burgess’s reputation again.

Mary Richards

A minor character, Mary is the “dutiful wife,” who supports her husband’s dubious logic and actions. Introduced as a model of female Christian piety, Mary is Edward’s wife, whose morality also is shaped by public opinion and applied in the spirit of practicality. For example, when she learns that Edward withheld the truth about Burgess, she wavers between condemning and excusing him. As she discovers his other lies, she rationalizing her husband’s behavior on a relative scale of moral conduct.

Howard L. Stevenson

Non-existent, Stephenson is merely a fictitious persona conjured by the offended stranger to facilitate his corruption of Hadleyburg. The signature of “Howard L. Stephenson” appears on the letters sent to the nineteen claimants, each of whom believes he is the sole recipient. Each letter reveals the identity of the person who gave twenty dollars to the stranger (Goodson) as well as his advice, the conditions which satisfy a claim to the gold. The letter suggests that Stephenson was Goodson’s guest. It also relates Goodson’s true opinion of the town. Part of the offended stranger’s ruse, the letter tells each recipient that Goodson mentioned him by name for doing him some “great service,” which entitles him to the gold. The letter-writer concludes that he is “almost sure” of the name Goodson mentioned, so he appeals to their fabled honesty to satisfy his inquiry.

Tanner, Hatter, Saddler, and the Mob

These characters form the crowd that gathers at the town hall. With their cheers and jeers, they typify a “mob.” Expressing strong opinions, they act in unison to shame everyone into agreeing with their perspective. Joyous in the misfortunes of others, the mob ridicules the nineteen claimants. The power of a mob works by intimidation, which plays on an individual’s fear of exclusion.

Thurlow G. Wilson

The second to claim ownership of the sack, “Lawyer Wilson” appears at the town meeting. As Billson “humbly” accepts it, Wilson charges him with plagiarism, claiming that Billson sneaked into his office and read the note while he was away from his desk. He uses this lie to explain the presence of two claims that seem identical. At first the crowd sympathizes with him, but Wilson eventually becomes an object of ridicule when Burgess reveals there are more claims. Earlier, Wilson and his wife plan a pretentious “fancy-dress” ball upon receipt of Stephenson’s letter.

Gregory Yates, L. Ingoldsby Sargent, Nicholas Whitworth, and Others

Mentioned at the town meeting, these characters have submitted claims for the gold. Each one deceitfully attempts to claim ownership and suffers the consequences of public humiliation.

Themes

Hypocrisy

Several narrative elements render the honest reputation of Hadleyburg suspect from the beginning. The narrator describes a town that “care[s] not a rap for strangers or their opinions,” while a couple of its residents so severely offend a stranger that he feels compelled to wreck revenge against the whole town. After the stranger delivers the sack of gold to the Richardses, Mary becomes anxious about theft, exclaiming, “Mercy on us, and the door not locked!” She regains composure only after she “listens awhile for burglars.” The suspicion, fear, and malice evinced by these events belie the town’s “unsmirched” honesty and suggest that an imperfect reality lurks beneath the surface. The real nature of Hadleyburg becomes apparent as the story progresses. In the privacy of their homes the townsfolk slander each other, revealing the mutual hatred that exists in the community. For instance, Goodson ranks as the “best-hated,” followed by Burgess. Edward’s silence not only causes an undeserved scandal for Burgess, but his deception also leads the townsfolk to blame Goodson for Burgess’s rapid departure from the town. In addition, Edward hides his involvement in the scandal from Mary, because he fears that she would expose him. He even admits that he only warned Burgess after he was sure that his actions were undetectable. Edward says, “[A]fter a few days I saw that no one was going to suspect me [of warning Burgess], and after that I got to feeling glad I did it.” Edward’s revelations to Mary suggest that even before the tempting sack of gold appeared, a complex web of self-interest and deceit ensnared Hadleyburg that contradicts its boastful claims of thorough integrity. Hypocrisy, not honesty, defines the town’s character, since the residents preach honesty but practice self-interest and deceit.

Morality, Ethics and the Innateness of Human Sinfulness

The story of Hadleyburg teaches a moral lesson to both characters and readers alike. The town’s secrets raise a series of moral questions. For instance, would the Richardses have been right to keep the gold since it would not have “hurt” anybody? Was it ethical for Edward to conceal the evidence that could have cleared Burgess? Mary justifies her husband’s actions by reasoning that they could ill-afford to bring public disapproval upon them. Furthermore, she claims that as long as Burgess did not “know that [Edward] could have saved him. . . that makes [withholding the information] a great deal better.” Edward soothes his guilty conscience by warning Burgess of impending trouble, but only when he ensures that “no one was going to suspect me.” Such decisions demonstrate the self-serving interests of human nature, which tends to make unethical choices when confronted by difficult situations, and as Edward’s character illustrates, cowardice further complicates a lack of ethical conviction. Besides Edward and Mary, other townsfolk succumb to the same temptation offered by the sack of gold, including the Coxes, the Wilsons, and the Billsons. In this way, the story represents an honest, universal response of human nature to the temptation of “easy” money. Although the residents of Hadleyburg are not consciously predisposed to sin, their collective response suggests the innate weakness of human nature.

The Eden Myth and the “Fortunate Fall”

Critics have described “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg” as a story of “the fortunate fall.” In other words, the moral regeneration comes through learning from past mistakes. Thematically similar to the biblical story of Adam and Eve and John Milton’s Paradise Lost, the town’s debacle results in improved understanding, or as Mary says, protected and untested virtue is as sturdy as a house of cards. Although the townsfolk lose their “Eden,” in the process they learn a practical means to achieve honesty. After their hypocrisy is exposed, Hadleyburg will seek out temptation in order to test and solidify their virtue, which the town’s modified motto indicates: “Lead us into temptation.” The reformed town realizes that its survival depends on trading its smug standard of honesty for an authentic, provable version.

Individual versus Society

Mary and Edward’s dilemma in “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg” illuminates the influence of communal values on the lives of individuals, especially how those values override individual judgment. The town hall scene dramatizes the destructive and seductive nature of conforming to a group identity. Assuming a “mob” or “herd” mentality, the crowd condemns or praises at the least provocation. For instance, when Wilson’s accuses Billson of plagiarism, the crowd erupts and “submerge[s Wilson] in tides of applause,” but as soon as they hear of Wilson’s fraud, they break into a “pandemonium of delight” and applause becomes ridicule. In ‘ The Role of Satan in “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg,’” Henry Rule likens the crowd’s behavior each time it starts jeering loudly to the unthinking and impulsive behavior of the “automatic dog” that “bark[s] itself crazy.” Rule’s comparison places the crowd’s reactions on the level of animals, which instinctively respond to any external stimuli.

Despite the unappealing portrait of the Hadleyburg community as a mob, the townsfolk discourage nonconformity, as in the cases of Burgess and Goodson. On the other hand, conformity reaps benefits, as in the case of the Richardses, who yield to public opinion and net $38,500! Twain ironically represented the real cost of Mary and Edward’s “success” by describing their anguished consciences and consequent decay into physical and psychological frailty. Although the story seems to discourage conformity to communal standards, it neither condones the pursuit of individualism. Instead, the story turns a cynical eye toward conditions of American society, which advocates individuality and liberty in principle, but in actuality limits personal freedoms under the guise of community standards. In “The Lie that I Am I: Paradoxes of Identity in Mark Twain’s ‘Hadleyburg,’” Earl F. Briden and Mary Prescott claim that the story attempts “to embody a turn-of-the-century American society in which . . . a personal, original, and undetermined, freely-willing selfhood could scarcely be found.”

Style

Verbal Irony

Commonly and simply referred to as “irony,” verbal or rhetorical irony hinges on discrepancies between reality and the words a writer or speaker uses to represent reality. A fictional character may or may not be aware of the contradictions, but the meaning of the text often depends on the reader recognizing them. According to the Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms, “Irony is commonly employed as a wink’ that the listener or reader is expected to notice so that he or she may be ‘in on the secret.’” If such effects are consistent throughout the text, ironic tone characterizes the narrator or speaker’s voice. Satire frequently uses irony, which produces, but is not limited to, comic effect.

In “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg,” the exaggerated descriptions of the town as “most honest,” “upright,” and “unsmirched” identify the ironic tone of the narrator’s voice, especially as the reader recognizes that this model of virtue has deeply offended a stranger and makes Mary feel threatened by burglars. The story contains numerous contradictions between the reality of Hadleyburg and its reputation for virtue. Early examples include Edward’s quiet history of lying, Mary’s generally disdainful opinion of the neighbors, and their conjecture that only Goodson, born and raised outside of Hadleyburg, could have been generous enough to give a stranger twenty dollars.

The narrator uses a neutral journalistic tone to report the ridiculous, self-serving and hypocritical behavior of the townsfolk. His tone produces a comic effect that emphasizes the contradiction between the town’s reputation and reality. For instance, when Edward struggles to remember his “great service” to Goodson, the narrator reports: “Thereafter during a stretch of two exhausting hours [Edward] was busy saving Goodson’s life.” Highlighting the visions of rampant greed that consumed Hadleyburg after the nineteen residents received their letters from Stephenson, the narrator tells how each wife “put in the night spending the money . . . an average of seven thousand dollars each . . .”

Among the residents of Hadleyburg, only Jack Halliday notices of the town’s hypocrisy and assumes the ironic tone of the narrator. He observes the town’s fluctuating moods as they brood over the gold sack, seeing how they take pleasure in others’ misfortunes, such as the injury of a neighbor or the death of a mother-in-law. Halliday guides the reader through the verbal irony of the text, particularly by his ability to see through hypocrisy and to tell the difference between the town’s reputation and its reality.

Dramatic Irony

A type of situational irony, dramatic irony registers differences between what the characters know and what the reader knows as well as differing levels of information available to characters at any give point in a story. Like verbal irony, the discrepancy produces a comic effect. Verbal and dramatic irony often combine forces to heighten the writer’s intent. For instance, partially informed characters make remarks unaware of the full meaning those words convey.

Like the verbal irony of “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg,” dramatic irony underscores the hypocrisy of the town. Numerous plot devices feature dramatic irony, including the nineteen letters from Stephenson, the “favor” Burgess erroneously grants Edward by not naming him, and the applause showered upon the guilty Richardses for their honesty. Throughout the various twists and turns of the plot, the omniscient narrator keeps the reader informed of the “real” situation in Hadleyburg by means of dramatic irony.

Dramatic irony among the characters allows Burgess to exact his own subtle revenge on the townsfolk. Although he seemingly expresses no anger or bitterness about his scandalous past, Burgess avenges himself during the town meeting and only he and the reader is privy. Knowing before-hand that he has claims from nineteen prominent residents of Hadleyburg, he announces them one by one and feigns surprise at each name. Burgess purposely pauses between each name to give them the ignominy due them. Perhaps Burgess relishes the opportunity to humiliate the people that turned against him. In addition, Burgess’s advance knowledge about who submitted claims infuses verbal irony into his opening speech at the meeting, “Today your purity is beyond reproach. . . there is not a person in your community who could be beguiled to touch a penny not his own.” Both Burgess and the reader can recognize the ironic tone of his hyperbolic praise.

Parable

The literary form of “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg” closely resembles the parable. According to the Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms, a parable is “a short, realistic, and illustrative story intended to teach a moral or religious lesson.” A parable is a specific type of allegory. Whereas allegories convey multiple meaning on various levels-for instance, the obvious, surface tale means one thing but a deeper, symbolic story means something else-parables tell realistic stories in response to particular situations.

On its surface, “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg” tells a story about the demoralizing forces at work in an ordinary American town at the turn of the century. The motivations and desires of the townsfolk typify those of an average American community. The townsfolk’s tendency to deceive, be greedy, and serve self-interests suggest parallels to the general behavior of American society, specifically to the character of American society in the 1890s. In “The Lie That I Am I: Paradoxes of Identity in Mark Twain’s ‘Hadleyburg,’” Briden and Prescott discuss the opposing aims of individualism and communal cooperation that inform the Puritan ethic which helped to shape the American society. In his story, Twain dramatized the disastrous consequence of this struggle.

Critics also interpret “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg” in terms of the Eden myth, in which Hadleyburg represents Eden. Edward and Mary become Adam and Eve figures, the offended stranger becomes the snake or Satan, and Goodson representing God. In “The Role of Satan in ‘The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg,’” Rule describes Hadleyburg as an “ironic Eden”—a paradise already “fallen” into sin—which an ironic Satan visits in order to restore rather than condemn. Rule asserts that American society became “diseased by hypocrisy and money-lust,” similar to immoral Babylon rather than wholesome New Canaan, the model for America’s early settlers. Hadleyburg symbolizes the status of humankind after the fall into sin.

Historical Context

“The Gilded Age”

In Twain’s lifetime, the America experienced astounding industrial progress and unprecedented social ills. Andrew Carnegie, Cornelius Vanderbilt, John D. Rockefeller, and other so-called “robber barons” made fortunes developing the American steel, railroad, and oil industries. While they strengthened America’s industrial power and ushered the nation into the modern world, they grew their monopolies at the expense of smaller companies and the interests of ordinary workers by successfully influencing the President and Congress.

Although a few prospered enormously, average Americans paid a price for progress. America’s agricultural economy gradually shifted toward industry, as unemployed farmers began migrating to the cities. The modern city emerged in this era, along with a host of urban ills: overcrowding, unsanitary living conditions that bred disease, and poverty. Most laborers worked at factories for low wages and usually in dangerous conditions. Unable to live on their parents’ meager incomes, children also went to work at factories.

Twain coined the phrase “The Gilded Age” to describe the period of American history from the 1860s through the 1890s. This phrase resonates with the image of the gilt slugs in “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg.” Although Twain did not explicitly address specific social and political problems in his story, he dramatized the theme expressed by the adage “All that glitters is not gold.” The people of Hadleyburg learn the consequences of pursuing illusions. As the nineteen claimants demonstrate, it often leads to ruin. Their self-imposed humiliation over a worthless sack of gilt lead

Compare & Contrast

1844: Samuel Morse sends his first message over telegraph.

1876: Alexander Graham Bell invents the first “speaking telegraph” machine, or telephone. Advances in communications technology shrink the geographical distance between regions, which allows Americans to view themselves as a nation.

1990s: The Internet and the World Wide Web become household words. With the click of a “mouse,” individuals connect with people all over the globe. The development of fiber optics in communications technology makes high quality, overseas calling inexpensive and convenient. The world is often described as a “global village.”
1860s-1880s: The American railroad industry standardizes and consolidates routes, which facilitates movement of freight and passengers between different regions. In 1886 railroads adopt a standard gauge. In 1883 the American Railway Association establishes four national times zones (Eastern, Central, Mountain, and Pacific) to standardize train schedules.

1976: Regular commercial flights of the British-French supersonic transport plane, the Concorde begin. Breaking the sound barrier, the Concorde’s maximum cruising speed is 1,354 miles per hour. Traveling west, time of arrival is hours earlier than time of departure. For example, a departure from London at 6 p.m. arrives in New York at 4 p.m. the same day.
1860s-1890s: “The Gilded Age,” a phrase coined by Twain, describes a period of industrial progress and wealth, during which a few industrialist prosper while the majority of Americans work in unsafe factories for low wages. Corruption, scandal, and bribery pervade Washington, D.C., as “big business” interferes with the legislative process.

1992-2000: William Jefferson Clinton serves as President. America experiences a period of unprecedented economic growth. The Clinton administration predicts a budget surplus of $9.5 billion for 1999 and estimated to grow to $1.1 trillion by 2010. In 1999, the nation struggles with moral questions in the wake of Clinton’s “inappropriate” sexual relations with an intern.
1886: Haymarket Riots in Chicago. Workers demonstrate for safer conditions and an eight-hour workday. Largely due to the violent nature of the riots, the workers fail. In 1918, the Supreme Court reverses the Keating-Owen Act (1916), which regulated child labor. The eight-hour workday and six-day workweek become the standard for U.S. factories during World War I. Employers concede to workers’ demands as increased mechanization increases productivity.

1990s: Multinational corporations allegedly exploit foreign labor to gain competitive advantage in a global marketplace. For instance, Asian workers earn low wages producing shoes that retail for over $100.

serves to warn a nation obsessed with material wealth and “progress” of the human cost involved.

The Birth of a Nation

With the consolidation of railroads and advances in communication America began to consider itself a true nation. In 1869 the first transcontinental railroad was completed, and by 1886 all railroads adopted a standard gauge. Switchovers between regional lines became seamless, which simplified the movement of freight and passengers across the country. In 1844 Samuel Morse invented the telegraph, and in 1876 Alexander Graham invented the “speaking telegraph,” or the telephone. The advent of new technology in transportation and communication helped break down regional differences, which created a sense of community and a national identity among people living in the United States.

Critics identify Hadleyburg as a microcosm of America society, representing both the strengths and weaknesses of the nation. Hadleyburg also benefits from contemporary developments in print technology. By advertising the stranger’s money-bag in the newspaper, word spread across the country. The mass production of the printed word let Hadleyburg brag about its honesty on a national scale. The narrator claims that “the name of Hadleyburg the Incorruptible was on every lip in America, from Montreal to the Gulf, from the glaciers of Alaska to the orange-groves of Florida; and millions and millions of people were discussing the stranger and his money-sack.” Through the printed word the mutual interests of a community extend beyond the boundaries of a single locale, which eventually shaped a national American identity in the minds of Twain and his contemporaries.

However, rapid communication also comes with drawbacks. A small town communicates not only its successes to the world via newspapers and telephone lines but its failures as well. Critics point out the oppressive nature of community in “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg,” noting the disastrous effects of “slavish” attention to public opinion. In this way, Hadleyburg embodies the inherent dangers of conforming to preconceived notions of national identity.

Critical Overview

“The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg” received mixed reviews when it first appeared in Harper’s Monthly and later in the collection The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg and Other Stories and Sketches. Despite the range of critical estimations of the story, the magazine version of the story enjoyed a wide audience and earned Twain about $2000. Many commentators detected a movement away from Twain’s trademark humor and light-hearted satire toward a moralizing didactic tone. A reviewer for Living Age states: “Mark Twain at his best is as good in his own line as any living writer of English prose. . . The snag on which he now seems most apt to run his vessel is that of edification. He is too fond of being didactic, or pointing morals, of drawing lessons, of teaching the old world how to conduct its affairs.” This reviewer longs for the “gleams of the old humor” and “outbursts of the old daring” that marks Twain’s previous literary efforts and recommends that Twain return to his successful style of “gleaming humor,” “daring exaggeration,” and “vivid and ‘full-steam ahead’ narration.” On the other hand, William Archer of the Critic defended the moralistic tone of his story: “Perhaps you wonder to find Mark Twain among the moralists at all? If so, you have read his previous books to little purpose. They are full of ethical suggestion.” Archer praised “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg” for delivering a “sermon that sticks.” Citing Twain’s story as a perfect parable, Archer explained that the appeal of a parable lies in its dramatic content, illustrating a lesson in an enjoyable fashion.

Scholars usually situate “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg” within the context of Twain’s other so-called “serious fiction.” Late in his life, Twain addressed various philosophical and political issues in both his essays and fiction. His contemporaries often balked at these forays into the sober side of literature. “Mark Twain, ardent patriot as he is, has an inability to put himself in the situation of a foreigner or of one who lived in another generation than the present,” remarked the reviewer for Living Age. “He is conspicuously defective in the historic sense; and one who is defective in the historic sense had best keep his views on politics to himself.” Still, Twain himself viewed humor as more than mere entertainment. In Mark Twain: A Study of the Short Fiction (1997) Tom Quirk quotes Twain as saying, “Humor must not professedly teach, and it must not professedly preach, but it must do both if it would last forever.”

Numerous critics have admired the literary structure of “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg” for its “economy” and “efficiency.” Archer claimed, “A more tight-packed piece of narrative art it would be hard to conceive.” Quirk remarked, “The prose is wonderfully cadenced, but it is stripped for action and running headlong toward some undisclosed end.” Commentators usually appreciate the town hall meeting as “pure dramatic comedy.” According to Quirk, Twain “approached the Hadleyburg story sometimes with the instincts of a dramatist and sometimes with the calculated intellectual interests of a philosopher, and throughout with the spontaneous trust that the tale would tell itself.”

In the latter half of the twentieth century, many critics approach “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg” in terms of the ethical implications of

What Do I Read Next?

Genesis 1-3, The Old Testament contains the story of Adam and Eve, the Original Sin, and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. “Hadleyburg” is often interpreted as an allegory of this story.
The Awakening (1899) by Kate Chopin, published the same year as “Hadleyburg,” provides a woman’s point of view on the oppressions of community. The protagonist, Edna Pontellier, struggles with traditional expectations of a wife and mother. In her rigid society her attempts to break boundaries results in tragedy.
The Yellow Wallpaper (1899) by Charlotte Perkins Gilman explores in eye-opening detail the alarming consequences of societal oppression of women whose desires transgress patriarchal norms.
The Scarlet Letter (1850) by Nathaniel Hawthorne relates the story of Hester Prynne, a Puritan woman who bears a minister’s child out of wedlock. Refusing to reveal the father’s name, she is forced to wear a red letter “A” as punishment. This novel is a deep exploration of the often-malicious motives of collective identity and community.
A Hazard of New Fortunes (1890) by William Dean Howells explores the psychological struggles of a self-made American millionaire who finds his financial interests at odds with his social conscience. Howells was a close personal friend of Twain and one of his most ardent literary admirers.
Paradise Lost (1667) by John Milton is an epic poem describing the fall of humankind. The poem views the original Fall as fortunate and ultimately redemptive and develops Satan’s character in detail. Critics argue that Milton created a sympathetic portrait of him, likening the archfiend to a tragic hero. The poem also introduces the idea of a Satan who unwittingly performs God’s will. Difficult read for younger readers.
“Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog” (1865) by Mark Twain is considered the story that launched Twain’s literary career. The work exemplifies his humorous style and features the “frame narrative” or story-within-a-story that became one of his hallmarks. The story also uses the “anti-genteel” narrator that frequently appears in his work.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885) by Mark Twain is considered one of his masterpieces, and it exemplifies his humorously ironic style and simultaneously addresses historical issues.
“The Cask of Amontillado” (1846) by Edgar Allen Poe, a classic “revenge story”, has been identified as a source for “Hadleyburg.” The tone and meaning of Poe’s macabre story is much more somber and fatalistic.

the story, debating whether Twain advocated a deterministic philosophy, a moralistic code, or some combination of both. Some critics find that “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg” expresses the inherent sinfulness of human nature, while others emphasize that moralistic impulses inform the story, highlighting the freedom of choice available to the characters as well as the ethical implications raised by the ironic narrator. However, commentators on both sides puzzle over the basic contradictions of these philosophies. Quirk considers Twain’s story as an “absurdist’s nihilistic parable, full of misfired messages, dramatizing the impossibility of accurate understanding and communication.” Quirk adds that the only philosophical consistency in this story is its inconsistency, a symptom of the instability of human nature that Twain so vividly captured. Some critics interpret “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg” as an amalgam of literary motives and styles that define Twain as a mature

writer. In The Authentic Mark Twain (1984) Everett Emerson analyzes the story as an expression of “inconsistent” determinism that presupposes limited freedom of choice. Though things are indeed “ordered,” as Edward Richards recognizes, the presence of freedom of choice allows for flexibility in the cosmic order. Other critics discuss “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg” as a uniquely American story, dramatizing the essential conflict between individualism and communal cooperation that has molded the American character since Puritan times. The story has also been recognized for its critique of materialism.

Criticism

Yoonmee Chang

Yoonmee Chang is a Ph.D. candidate in the English Department at the University of Pennsylvania. Her dissertation focuses on class and labor issues in Asian American literature. In the following essay, she discusses Mark Twain’s “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg” as an exploration of nation formation and a critique of the attendant ills generated by a strong sense of “community.”

America celebrated the 400th anniversary of its discovery in 1893 with the lavish Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The Exposition was part of a nascent tradition, starting with London’s Crystal Palace in 1851, which grandly boasted its nation’s culture, science and industry to itself and the world. Central to the exposition was the concept of the “nation,” that there was a unified cultural, political and geographical entity to speak of. The idea of the “nation” is a powerful ideology, uniting diverse race and class groups along common, abstract goals and moral tenets. History has demonstrated that goals and tenets that come be recognized as “national” or as comprising “nationalism” are so sacred that citizens are willing to die for them. Historians and literary critics have noted that it is often when the internal cohesion of “nations” are threatened, that such grandiose productions like the Columbian Exposition appear. Large-scale, ideological projects like this, at best, hope to reunify fragmenting parts and, at worst, manufacture an artificial, public perception of national unity.

Late nineteenth century America, in which Mark Twain wrote “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg” (1899), was just such a fragmented era. It was a period where America-as-nation began to be concretely imagined, as advances in transportation and communication linked distant regions. But it was also a time when that unity was thrown into question as the common American citizen realized that her low-paid, back-breaking work was mainly contributing to the outlandish wealth of a few powerful men. For the average laborer, her “nationalist” dedication to building up American industry reaped paltry personal rewards. Mark Twain was no stranger to the paradoxes of contemporary society. He is credited with coining the phrase, “The Gilded Age” to describe a time (1860s to 1890s) when America’s sparkling and powerful industrial facade thinly concealed a phalanx of social and political ills. In “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg,” he provides a localized account of the process of American nation-building and then moves on to critique the Hadleyburgians as examples of blind and mechanistic adherents of potentially invidious communal ideologies like “nation.”

With Samuel Morse’s invention of the telegraph, Alexander Graham Bell’s creation of the

“Advances in print technology allow the Hadleyburgians to understand themselves as both a local community and part of a larger ‘nation’ comprised of a cluster of such communities.”

telephone, and the consolidation of the regional railroad lines, America ceased to be a series of loosely linked, disparate geographical regions. Within minutes an order for coal or meat products, transported in recently invented refrigerated train cars, could be placed across North America. For a reasonable price an individual could travel by rail anywhere across the continent in the comfort of a Pullman, or sleeping train car, invented by George Pullman in 1864. Geographical distances were shrinking much in the same way as advanced technology today has fashioned the world into a “global village.” What nineteenth-century residents of the United States were experiencing was the birth of America as a nation.

Advances in print technology allow the Hadleyburgians to understand themselves as both a local community and part of a larger “nation” comprised of a cluster of such communities. Benedict Anderson in Imagined Communities (1983) argues that it is precisely the development of print-capitalism that caused individuals to perceive themselves as part of a community. In particular, the form of the newspaper, widely circulated, rapidly consumed, and reporting both local and “national” events in the vernacular, assumes that its readers are part of a larger group who read and care about the same news. This audience comprises the basic unit of community. In addition, by giving them a glimpse of the events in other regions, for instance in “national” sections of local editions, newspapers link their readers’ and their particular community to a constellation of other communities and audiences. Through the narrative created by the newspaper, these various communities perceive themselves as living life simultaneously, for instance, while Hadleyburgians are announcing the birth of a baby, the Brixtonites may be celebrating the election of a new mayor. The aggregate of these linked, simultaneously living communities forms a “nation.” Importantly, there are other bonds through which communities can be linked, based on shared geography, history, language, and cultural and religious practices; Hadleyburg understands itself to be similar to Brixton but not to Caracas.

Anderson’s analysis of the relationship between print-capitalism and community formation is played out in “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg.” The printed word unites the Hadleyburgians in a community of that both celebrates and despises itself. The nineteen claimants share such similar-if not identical-responses to the stranger’s first note, and later Stephenson’s secret-bearing letters, that they could be said to be acting as a collective whole, a community. Each husband fabricates a dubious account of the “great service” bestowed on Goodson and each wife fantasizes about holding fancy parties. In an earlier stage when only the Coxes and Richardses knew about the sack, Twain described their actions and conversations as “seeming plagiarisms of each other.” To be sure, Hadleyburg had been behaving as a community even before the arrival of the sack and the notes, as evidenced by their group condemnation of Goodson and Burgess.

As a unified, local community, the Hadleyburgians also understand themselves as connected to the larger “national” body. Edward Richards’s immediate reaction to the stranger’s note is to print it in the newspaper, gleefully anticipating the “noise it will make” in “mak[ing] all the other towns jealous” that Hadleyburg was entrusted with such a sum of money. The unnamed newspaper has quite a far-reach, exaggeratedly so. By “breakfast-time next morning the name of Hadleyburg the Incorruptible was on every lip in America, from Montreal to the Gulf, from the glaciers of Alaska to the orange-groves of Florida; and millions and millions of people were discussing the stranger and his money-sack.” As Anderson demonstrates, communities understand themselves as discrete and unique but simultaneously linked to similar groups who have assumed interests in their news, “national” news as it were. The stranger’s note printed in the newspaper serves just this purpose. Proud of its unity by virtue of its unassailable honesty, Hadleyburg differentiates itself as a unique and unified community while linking itself to related communities under the rubric of the “nation.” Significantly, as widespread as Hadleyburg’s news is, it stops at the boundaries of the United States as Twain’s contemporaries understood it. By circumscribing the news within the four “corners” of Montreal, Alaska, Mexico and Florida, Twain maps out the borders of what he considers to be the American nation.

The printed word also unites Hadleyburg in contempt. As Burgess reveals that there is more than one note claiming ownership of the sack, the community roars in ridicule. The consensus of derision builds as Burgess reads the nineteen names one by one. In “The Lie that I am I: Paradoxes of Identity in Mark Twain’s ‘Hadleyburg,’” Earl Briden and Mary Prescott interpret the Hadleyburgians as unthinking duplicates who slavishly serve public opinion. The God that they worship is “everybody.” In this kind of community, individualized selfhood is illusory and each citizen finds him and herself blindly performing “repetitive, automatic, duplicated” actions that deterministically push them forward to a predictably ignoble end. Even their nationally acclaimed honesty is merely a means to “communal self-approval” as the town is “motivated to perpetuate not the empirical reality [of its honesty] but the reputation for it.”

The town hall scene in Part 3 offers a clear demonstration of “herd mentality.” Briden and Prescott discuss the robotic Hadleyburgians who are seduced or intimidated by it-better to be part of the jeering mob than its victim. The undifferentiated crowd is roused by the least provocation, capriciously alternating between praise and contempt (for instance in the case of Wilson). Except for the nineteen claimants, the citizens do not have individual names but are generically labeled, for instance “the hatter” or “the tanner.” Even the nineteen claim-ants-the Billson, Wilson, Wilcox, Cox-seem to be duplicates of each other as Briden and Prescott point out. In other words, the underbelly of Hadleyburgian unity is a degenerate and even malicious herd mentality that punishes those, like Goodson and Burgess, who refuse to serve it. The result is a stupefied group intellect, or lack of it, that seeks to homogenize the opinions and desires of its members.

This dangerous homogenizing power of community was a prevalent problem in Twain’s America. As the nation grew larger and more diverse, encompassing individuals of different ethnic backgrounds and economic classes who emigrated from various countries, the social and political unification of its citizens became problematic. Lisa Lowe writes in Immigrant Acts (1996) that recruiting diverse citizens into a generic course of “nationalism” is a powerful ideological technique. For instance, at the turn of the nineteenth century, immigration increased at a dramatic rate. These new Americans were prime targets for exploitation by big business. With limited networks and language abilities, and sometimes a fear of being returned to their country of origin, many immigrants accepted substandard wages and conditions. They frequently lived on factory premises in unsanitary, overcrowded hovels provided by the employer who profited enormously from his teams of pennies-per-hour workers. Why did American workers tolerate this treatment?

These new Americans were often seduced by the “American dream,” the still ubiquitous myth that if one only works hard, one will no doubt achieve prosperity. This myth was supported by the popular Horatio Algers dime novels of the day and widely told rags-to-riches stories of industrial magnates like Andrew Carnegie. This myth of the American dream is an ideology, that is, a powerful abstract concept that aligns diverse individuals towards a common goal for the benefit of the powerful few. Those in power can be the military, the national government, capitalist leaders or a cooperation of several such groups. The “American dream” is one of the sacred tenets of this nation and its ideological power is evident in its ability to convince individuals to accept debased qualities of life, like the immigrant workers discussed above. Nationalistic behavior in this case is believing in the fictive American dream, continuing to work for pennies in the hopes of achieving it, and disseminating this ideology to other (would-be) Americans. The spread and success of this ideology perpetuates a situation where individuals bewilderingly subjugate themselves to exploitation for the sake of a nebulous idea of “nation.”

The above example provides a historical illustration of the Hadleyburgians unquestioning and slavish adherence to communal ideals. This kind of rigid group mentality defuses rebellion either by recruiting resisters for an abstract, and perhaps empty, common goal or punishing them severely for their insurgence, using images of past rebels, like Goodson and Burgess, to intimidate them. In this way, a community, and in the larger sense a nation, assumes the power to homogenize minds and inhibit individual thought. Lowe writes, “The national institutionalization of unity becomes the measure of the nation’s condition of heterogeneity.” In other words, when a nation “threatens” to become diverse and pluralistic, it tends to disseminate ideas and even policies of sweeping and unifying nationalism in order to stanch such diversification. Hadleyburg as a microcosm of America represents this kind of homogenizing process. In light of the town hall proceedings, the town motto probably should read: “Agree with the group or be destroyed by it.” The Richardses are well versed in this doctrine, as shown by their inability to disabuse the crowd of its error when it congratulates them for being the only “clean” ones left. The Richardses choose to waste away and die rather than go against the community’s opinion.

The town hall scene serves as an ever-relevant warning against degenerate, malicious, but seductive mob mentality. Despite the so-called “redemption” of the town at the end of the story, at least nineteen lives are destroyed by the consensus of the community. Perhaps the nineteen claimants “deserved” their fate, but the community also ruined Burgess and Goodson’s lives simply because they went against the grain. Hadleyburg, as both microcosm and part of the nation, represents the dangerous effects of cultural homogenization and blind allegiance to communal values.

Source: Yoonmee Chang, for Short Stories for Students, The Gale Group, 2000.

Jack Scherting

In the following essay, Scherting asserts that Poe ‘s “The Cask of Amontillado” served as inspiration for Twain.

“I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race, where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat. Assuredly we bring not innocence into the world; we bring impurity much rather; that which purifies us is trial.” These well-known lines from Milton’s Areopagitica (1643) may have provided Mark Twain with the thematic element for his story “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg” (1899). But the structural similarities between Twain’s story and Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado” (1846) are close enough to suggest that Poe’s work was a much stronger and more immediate influence.

In the first place, both tales concern men seeking revenge for some unspecified insult. Poe’s narrator, Montresor, explains his motive: “The thousand

“In Twain’s story, we also find that the avenger exploits the vanity of the citizens of Hadleyburg to execute his plan.”

injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I could, but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge.” In Twain’s version, the corrupteor (known only as Stephenson) relates the cause of his grievance as follows: “I passed through [Hadleyburg] at a certain time, and received a deep offense which I had not earned.”

Second, both of these men are willing to defer vengeance until they can find a suitable means of exacting it—one which will cause the offending victims to suffer and, at the same time, leave them aware of the agent of their suffering. “At length I would be avenged,” says Montresor, “this was a point definitely settled—but the very definitiveness with which it was resolved precluded the idea of risk. I must not only punish, but punish with impunity. A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong.” Likewise, in Twain’s story we learn that Hadleyburg’s nemesis has nursed his grudge for a long time before he finally devised a suitable plan of action: “All through his wanderings during a whole year he kept his injury in mind, and gave all his leisure moments to trying to invent a compensating satisfaction for it.” And in his final letter to the citizens of Hadleyburg, the “corruptor” expressed a criterion for revenge much like Montresor’s: “Any other man would have been content to kill one or two of you and call it square, but to me that would have been inadequate; for the dead do not suffer.”

Third, in exacting revenge both Montresor and Stephenson use identical means to achieve their ends: they exploit human vanity by challenging the reputation of their victims. Montressor appeals to Fortunato’s ego to gull him into the wine cellar: “He had a weak point—this Fortunato—although in other regards he was a man to be respected and feared. He prided himself on his connoisseurship in wine.” In Twain’s story, we also find that the avenger exploits the vanity of the citizens of Hadleyburg to execute his plan. “You were easy game,” Stephenson gloats, “you had an old and lofty reputation for honesty, and naturally you were proud of it—.” Moreover, the characters in the two stories lure their victims into uncompromising situations with tempting bait—in Poe’s, it is a cask of rare wine; in Twain’s, a stack of gold bars. Both avengers reveal themselves when they have finally tricked their victims into situations from which they cannot extract themselves. Fortunato is chained to a wall, and the citizens of Hadleyburg are committed to conflicting claims for the gold bars which are in reality gilded lead.

Finally, in addition to these parallel patterns in the plots of the two stories, there is also a textual similarity to indicate that Poe’s story influenced Twain’s. Mottoes are used to complement the themes of both stories. Montresor’s coat of arms is inscribed “Nemo me impune lacessit” (No one attacks me with impunity,) and Hadleyburg’s official town seal contains the words “LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION.” (The not was deleted after the “corruptor” made his point).

The two stories were written from different points of view and to create different literary effects; however, these parallels still suggest that Twain had read Poe’s work and that the story served in a sense as a prototype for “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg.” While writing, Twain was probably not even conscious that he was incorporating important elements of Poe’s tale into his own; nevertheless, these elements are there and stand as another example of Poe’s seminal influence on later authors. Much to his embarrassment, Twain himself was made aware of the subtle manner in which previous reading often determines the pattern of an author’s current writing project. In his Autobiography, he related a case in point concerning his unconscious plagiarism of the dedication in a volume of Oliver Wendell Holmes’s poems. Twain’s remarks on the matter provide a fitting conclusion for this paper. Twain observed. . . .

that all our phrasings are spiritualized shadows cast multitudinously from our readings; that no happy phrase of ours is ever quite original with us; there is nothing of our own in it except some slight change born of our temperament, character, environment, teachings and associations; that this slight change differentiates it from another man’s manner of saying it, stamps it with our special style and makes it our own for the time being; all the rest of it being old, moldy, antique and smelling of the breath of a thousand generations of them that have passed it over their teeth before!

Source: Jack Scherting, “Poe’s ‘The Cask of Amontillado’: A Source for Twain’s The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg,”’ in The Mark Twain Journal, Vol. XVI, No. 2, Summer, 1972, pp. 18-19.

Helen E. Nebeker

In the following essay, Nebeker extends critic Henry B. Rule’s discussion of the role of Satan in “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg,” arguing against Rule’s assertion that the “man” of the title refers to Satan.

Regarding Professor Henry B. Rule’s article “The Role of Satan in “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg’” (Studies in Short Fiction, Vol. 6, Fall, 1969), I suggest that his thesis can be strengthened and extended by taking a second look at the identity of the Corrupter. The assumption prevails that the Man of the title is naturally the Stranger alias Stephenson, or by extension, as Mr. Rule so carefully develops, Satan. However, in contradiction, and completely supported by the text of the story, I believe that the reference is not to Satan but to another who is fully revealed as the story unfolds. This premise takes Mr. Rule’s explication one step further, both in his treatment of Twain’s “determination to rehabilitate Satan’s character” and in his belief that “man is nothing more than a machine that responds . . . to outside stimuli.” It further adds dimension to his discussion of the Eden myth.

To absolve Satan of the guilt of being the Corrupter and thus participate in rehabilitating his reputation, we must note the careful detail by which Twain indicates the initial moral bankruptcy of Hadleyburg. Mary, left with the gold, flies to lock the door, to pull the window-shades and then stands listening for burglars, in this most honest of towns. Later, she tells her husband “it is fast getting along toward burglar-time.” Then successively we learn that Edward is envious and covetous, that Mary cannot conceive of her husband having done a generous deed, that Edward has permitted Reverend Burgess to bear the blame for a crime he did not commit. We hear Mary condone her husband’s act; we note her snobbery when she says of Burgess,” . . . he is always trying to be friendly with us, as little encouragement as we give him. . . . I wish he wouldn’t persist in liking us so. . . .” And in this same conversation, we see the mean spirits of the Wilsons and the Wilcoxes and the Harknesses, as

“Twain could not have pled Satan’s case more powerfully than he does in this story where the Great Gambler, already flung from Heaven by a vengeful God, finds himself the tool of a “benevolent’ Providence.”

we will later see the same faults in the other “caste-brothers.”

Furthermore, even Jack Halliday, the “natural” man, is not generous and joyous but mean and petty, a man who rejoices in his townspeople’s unhappiness and who becomes “dissatisfied with life” when they appear happy again. And Barclay Goodson, the “one good generous soul in this village” emerges even more tarnished. He calls the people, “to the day of his death,” “. . . honest, narrow, self-righteous, and stingy.” He tells them to “go to hell.” He is the “best-hated man,” a “soured bachelor” and a “frank despiser of the human species” until “. . . Heaven took Goodson.”

Certainly, in view of these details, Satan can be, in no real sense, the Corrupter. He can be that only in a secondary way of offering the catalyst of gold, which will, ironically, result in regeneration rather than the destruction that has been his goal.

Now at this point I begin to differ with Mr. Rule. Satan is, indeed, “the tempter who speeds Hadleyburg to its fall by the lure of gold,” but he is not “the ruler of this world.” He, himself, has no free agency; he cannot determine the outcome of his scheming. This bitter, brooding, evil stranger, motivated by his desire for vengeance, can act only as a force for moral regeneration. He is as bound by his nature (“made as I am,” he says) as are any of his victims. Twain could not have pled Satan’s case more powerfully than he does in this story where the Great Gambler, already flung from Heaven by a vengeful God, finds himself the tool of a “benevolent” Providence. As Mary so vehemently exclaims, “Ordered! Oh everything’s ordered. . . .” or as Edward sighs, “It—well, it was ordered. All things are.” And we, the readers, are able to see clearly that this applies even to Satan himself. Satan is not the Great Corrupter; he is merely a pawn.

What, then, does all this presage? How are we to identify the Corrupter, remain true to the text, and strengthen and extend Mr. Rule’s thesis? Simply by seeing all of the factors already developed herein in terms of a Calvinist ethos which Twain both knew and detested. Generally stated, that interpretation of God and man goes something like this: The Great Creator, offended (as was the Stranger) by his creations, Adam and Eve, seeks revenge (as does the Stranger) and fully effects it (as the Stranger cannot) by driving these, his children, from Eden, condemning them to a corrupt, mortal life. Hence-forward, according to Calvinist doctrine, fallen man must dwell in absolute depravity, victim of his own evil nature, unable to save himself, predestined to eternal hell-fire, unless he is divinely elected, by Providence through Grace, for salvation—a blessing reserved for a select few. Hence man, in his very origin is corrupt, and God, in condemning man to his fallen nature has become the Great Corrupter.

Now to substantiate my thesis contextually. The Richards—representative of all their “caste-brothers”—are the general run of mankind. Carnal, weak, tempted, they are victims of their corrupt human nature. Barclay Goodson (God’s Son), appointed as an instrument for their redemption, is a narrow, carping, condemning misanthrope (created in His Father’s image?) who has in him no power unto redemption and lies “in his grave. . . .” Thus, if man ever had a chance, he muffed it by offending his Saviour who seems, in Twain’s hands, far more mortal than heavenly. God has further betrayed his mortal creatures by having them taught to pray from their birth, “Lead us not into temptation,” thus assuring their destruction when temptation does occur.

Satan, then, is left apparently unchecked in his efforts to demoralize man. But the Great Corrupter corrupts even this Master of Evil, perverting his destructive plans to a regenerative force—but in dreadful form. For Satan, feeling most un-Satan-like respect for the “virtue” of the Richards, acts to reward the old couple, with money, of course, bringing them to their death from guilt and despair. Thus the human, weak, but essentially guiltless man and his wife are completely destroyed, as they further injure Burgess, at once the most innocent and the most wronged.

The horror deepens when we realize that “Dr.” Clay Harkness, “one of the two very rich men” actually profits from the debacle. Although he has been one of the nineteen, by fortuitous circumstances (Grace and Providence), he takes advantage of the whole hoax and, in the words of Twain, “Harkness’ election was a walk-over.” Twain’s malicious satire on the Calvinist doctrine of salvation of the “divinely elected,” without reference to merit, must be obvious.

Now, the explanation of America as Fallen Eden is inescapable. For man, by nature corrupt, can never, even in a new world, resist temptation— especially in the form of gold or materialism. So the noble experiment is doomed from the outset and man and Eden fall, victims of the Great Corrupter.

Source: Helen E. Nebeker, “The Great Corrupter or Satan Rehabilitated,” in Studies in Short Fiction, Vol. VIII, No. 4, Fall, 1971, pp. 635-37.

Henry B. Rule

In the following essay, Rule argues that “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg” is an Edenic analogy, casting Satan in the role of the “man” of the title of the story.

“I have always felt friendly toward Satan,” Twain wrote in his Autobiography. “Of course that is ancestral; it must be in the blood, for I could not have originated it.” Perhaps it was “ancestral,” for Twain described in another passage of his Autobiography his mother’s sympathy for Satan. He wasn’t “treated fairly,” she claimed. After all, he was just a sinner, like the rest of us. Sinful man cannot save himself by his own efforts; his hope lies in “the mighty help of pathetic, appealing, imploring prayers that go up daily out of all the Churches in Christendom and out of myriads upon myriads of pitying hearts. But,” she asked, “who prays for Satan?” It is doubtful that Jane Clemens caused many of her fellow Presbyterians to relent in their hardened attitudes toward Satan. But her son, Sam, apparently heard her and decided to do something about this injustice. In his article “Is Shakespeare Dead?” Twain said that when he was seven years old he asked his Sunday-school teacher, Mr. Barclay, a stone-mason, to tell him about Satan. Mr. Barclay was willing to set forth the five or six facts concerning Satan’s history, “but he stopped there; he wouldn’t allow any discussion of them.” Upon hearing that Sam was thinking about a biography of Satan, Mr. Barclay was “shocked” and made the boy stop writing. Mr. Barclay’s victory was temporary, however, for Twain never relinquished his determination to become Satan’s biographer. Among his writings in which Satan plays the lead role are “Letters to Satan,” “Sold to Satan,” “A Humane Word for Satan,” “Letters from Earth,” “That Day in Eden,” and the two major works of his old age— “The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg” and The Mysterious Stranger.

Twain’s interest in Satan bore its most remarkable fruit in the year 1898. In that year he avowed his determination to rehabilitate Satan’s character, began the first version of The Mysterious Stranger, and finished “The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg.” His resolution to rescue Satan from centuries of slander was candidly expressed in his article “Concerning the Jews.” In this article Twain declared that he had “no prejudice” against Satan and admitted that he even leaned “a little his way, on account of his not having a fair show”: “All religions issue bibles against him, and say the most injurious things about him, but we never hear his side. We have none but the evidence for the prosecution, and yet we have rendered the verdict. . . . As soon as I can get at the facts I will undertake his rehabilitation myself, if I can find an unpolitic publisher.” Acting upon his determination to restore Satan’s character, Twain jotted in his notebook the plot outline for the first version of The Mysterious Stranger: “Story of little Satan Jr. who came to Hannibal, went to school, was popular and greatly liked by those who knew his secret. The others were jealous and the girls didn’t like him because he smelled of brimstone. He was always doing miracles—his pals knew they were miracles. The others thought they were mysteries.” The final version of The Mysterious Stranger was laid in a sixteenth-century Austrian village rather than in the Hannibal of Twain’s youth. But for his best Satan, story. “The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg,” Twain did return to the scene of his earlier masterpieces—the small village in the American hinterland—only this time the innocent vision of boyhood is supplanted (there are no children in “Hadleyburg”) by the disillusioned gaze of adulthood.

A good deal of critical attention has focused on the ethical and philosophical import of “Hadleyburg,” but little on its allegorical ingenuity, and to miss this aspect of the story is to miss much of its satirical and moral force. The purpose of this essay is to examine “Hadleyburg” as another example of the Eden myth that, as R. W. B. Lewis in his The American Adam has demonstrated, is so prominent in the American literary tradition. When

“In Twain’s treatment of the Eden myth, Satan plays the role of savior rather than corrupter. The Eden of Hadleyburg, microcosm of America, is already corrupted by greed and deceit before Satan arrives on the scene.”

one recognizes that “the mysterious stranger” in the story is Satan, then Hadleyburg becomes an ironic Eden that is diseased by hypocrisy and money-lust—an Eden that is symbolic of the fallen hopes of the American forefathers for a new paradise on Earth where mankind could begin afresh in peace and brotherhood and Godliness. In Twain’s treatment of the Eden myth, Satan plays the role of savior rather than corrupter. The Eden of Hadleyburg, microcosm of America, is already corrupted by greed and deceit before Satan arrives on the scene. Although his initial motivation may have been revenge, the result of Satan’s machinations is to lead Hadleyburg, perhaps without his volition, to some degree of moral reformation.

The character of the stranger in “Hadleyburg” is the same as that of Satan in the Bible and in folklore. His strangeness, his non-human difference, is suggested at the beginning of the story by a repetition of the word stranger. Hadleyburg “had the ill luck to offend a passing stranger.” Mrs. Richards is “afraid of the mysterious big stranger” when he enters her house. He introduces himself to her with the words, “I am a stranger.” (ibid.) In the letter that he leaves with her, he declares, “I am a foreigner,” and his confession as to why (“made as I am”) he cannot gain his revenge by merely killing the citizens of Hadleyburg also stresses his foreign-ness or strangeness. In the past, he was “a ruined gambler”—a reference to the greatest gamble of all time, Satan’s foiled rebellion against Jehovah; he even thinks in gambling terms: “Yes, he saw my deuces and with a straight flush, and by rights the pot is his.” Now, his home is in Mexico, land of fiery heat, and he is several times associated with hell-fire. When he arrived at his plan to corrupt Hadleyburg, his whole head was “lit up with an evil joy”; and the guilty Richards remarks upon receiving a note from him, “It seems written with fire—it burns so.” Like the Satan in the Book of Job, he is a wanderer (“all through his wanderings”). Like the Satan in Genesis, he is the master of disguises; the disguise that he chooses for his appearance at the town-hall meeting (“an impossible English earl”) suggests Prince Satan’s aristocratic lineage as does also the name Stephenson (Greek stephanos, a crown) that he signs to the letter addressed to the nineteen principal citizens of Hadleyburg.

His dominion over Hadleyburg (Hadesburg?) is Satanic in its method and extent. He is the trickster and schemer of Christian and biblical fame. This “bitter man and revengeful” spent “a whole year” laying his snare for the men of Hadleyburg. He is the father of lies who leads Richards to tell his first lie to his wife and who unmasks the lie that the whole town had been living. He is the tempter who speeds Hadleyburg to its fall by the lure of gold, for he knows that in Hadleyburg “the love of money is the root of all evil”; as he slyly tells the citizens at the town-hall meeting, “I have dealings with persons interested in numismatics all over the world.” The ease with which he manipulates the Hadleyburgians through their greed proves him to be “the ruler of this world.” The town-hall meeting is “the synagogue of Satan” or the Devil’s Mass of Christian folklore: “The house droned out the eight words in a massed and measured and musical deep volume of sound (with a daringly close resemblance to a well-known church chant),” ending with “a grand and agonized and imposing ‘A-a-a-a-men!’” The pious folk of Hadleyburg have given themselves over to Satan and have become his “children.”

The names of the other main characters suggest their symbolic roles in Twain’s fable. Richard’s name implies that he is a “son of riches” who yearns for the wealth of his master, Pinkerton the banker. His first words in the story disclose his envy of Pinkerton: “‘I’m so tired—tired clear out; it is dreadful to be poor, and to make these dismal journeys at my time of life. Always at the grind, grind, on a salary—another man’s slave, and he sitting at home in his slippers, rich and comfortable.”‘ Even his given name Edward (Anglo-Saxon ead riches and weard guardian = guardian of riches) suggests his social status as well as his occupation at the bank. On the other hand, Twain places the Reverend Mr. Burgess (historically, his name denotes a freeman of a borough who owed special duties to the king and had special privileges) somewhere in between the position of those within the boundaries of Hadleyburg society, like the Richardses, and a true outsider, like Jack Halliday. His speech at the town meeting shows that he believes in the shibboleths of Hadleyburg, and as a minister he had held in the past an important position in society. But the fact that he has been cast out of Hadleyburg society because of the accusation of some crime that he didn’t commit allows him a certain freedom from the narrow code of Hadleyburg, and he is able to perform the virtuous and sacrificial act of perjuring himself in order to save the Richardses from disgrace. Jack Halliday’s name connotes his freedom from the pressures of Hadleyburg’s business community. He is the only man in town who maintains a “holiday” mood as he jokes and laughs at the principal citizens throughout their vacillations from “holy happiness” to sad and sick reverie. Apparently, he was born outside of Hadleyburg respectability. He is a kind of “natural” man or grown-up Huck Finn, this “loafing, good-natured, no-account, irreverent fisherman, hunter, boy’s friend, stray-dog’s friend.” It is ironic that these two outsiders—the ruined minister and the no-account loafer—are chosen to be the leaders of the town-meeting, a tribute to their moral superiority.

The name of Goodson (God’s son) reveals his role as Christ in the world of Hadleyburg. His alienation from society is due neither to force nor to birth, but to his own moral conviction. He is the most hated man in town, for he sees through its sanctimonious cant. But everyone knows privately that he is the “one good generous soul in this village”, and Satan points out (while making a pun) that he was the only man in Hadleyburg who “would give away twenty dollars to a poor devil.” If we keep in mind the significance of Goodson’s name, then the attempt of Richards (the son of riches) to save the soul of Goodson (the son of God) becomes highly ironic. Goodson’s moral force, mysterious origin, and spiritual destination are suggested when Satan admits that at first he was afraid that Goodson might mar his plan to corrupt Hadleyburg, for “he was neither born nor reared in Hadleyburg. . . . But heaven took Goodson” (ibid.). Goodson’s propertyless state and the hatred of the village philistines for him are also in the Christ tradition, but his defiance and bitterness do not conform to the character of the meek and loving Christ in the Gospels. However “years and years ago” (as long ago as 2,000 years?) he had been a man of love rather than hate. In his youth, Goodson had been in love with a girl named Nancy Hewitt, but “the match had been broken off; the girl died”; and Goodson became “a frank despiser of the human species.” The etymology of the sweetheart’s name—Nancy (diminutive-variant of Anna, from the Hebrew hannah, grace) Hewitt (diminutive-variant of Hugh, Teutonic for spirit) reveals the spiritual or heavenly quality of Goodson’s love. Twain strongly suggests in the story that the broken engagement and the girl’s death were due to the village gossip “that she carried a spoonful of negro blood in her veins” (ibid.). The love of Goodson for this racially mixed girl, therefore, recalls the love of “the heavenly bridegroom” for mankind in general, and the broken engagement and the death of the girl may represent Twain’s despairing conviction that the love of Christ is doomed in the world of Hadleyburg. “God’s son” has gone to heaven, and Satan has a clear field.

The true god of the Hadleyburgians is Mammon, one of Satan’s chieftans, not the God of love to whom they pray in church. The piety of Mrs. Richards, who plays the role of Eve in Twain’s allegory of the Fall, is completely ineffectual as protection against the golden temptation of Satan. When Satan knocks on her door, she is piously reading the Missionary Herald, but as soon as he leaves her alone with the gold-sack, her tranquility is shattered. At first she weakly struggles against its fatal attraction and mutters a few prayers, but she soon finds herself kneeling in worship at the golden altar of Satan: “She turned the light down low, and slipped stealthily over and kneeled down by the sack and felt of its ridgy sides with her hands, and fondled them lovingly; and there was a gloating light in her poor old eyes.”

The picture of poor Mrs. Richards kneeling before the sack of gilded coins is a blistering satire on the place of wealth in the Protestant fundamentalism of the citizens of Hadleyburg. Twain depicts the gross adulteration of virtue by money, piety by wealth, in the minds of these pious folk with beautiful irony in their unconscious language. “What a fortune for the kind man who set his bread afloat upon the waters!” exclaims Mrs. Richards upon reading Satan’s first letter. In his speech to his townspeople, Rev. Burgess unwittingly accentuates the relationship between piety and profit in the minds of the Hadleyburgians by his mixture of Christian and commercial terminology. The town’s “reputation” for honesty, he declares, is “a treasure of priceless value,” and he predicts that “under Providence its value will become inestimably enhanced.” He then rises to a climax: “Today there is not a person who could be beguiled to touch a penny not his own—see to it that you abide in this grace.” And the audience responds, “We will! We will!” The religious words providence and grace acquire a new ironic intensity when one recognizes that they refer to the guidance and inspiration, not of God, but of Satan. Satan is the ruler of Hadleyburg. The irony becomes even more sardonic when, in a parody of the Puritan doctrine of inherited sin, the minister urges his townspeople to transmit their reputation “to your children and to your children’s children.”

Fallen Hadleyburg is a microcosm of fallen America. Rather than the new Canaan, the Kingdom of God in the wilderness that the forefathers had envisioned, America had become the new Babylonia devoted to the golden altar of Mammon. “I am grateful to America for what I have received at her hands during my long stay under her flag.” confesses Satan with a fine sense of irony. The scene at the beginning of the town-hall meeting for Devil’s mass) constitutes an acid satire on American greed. Flags—emblems of national honor and pride—are everywhere: “The platform at the end of the hall was backed by a showy draping of flags: at intervals along the walls were festoons of flags; the gallery fronts were clothed in flags; the supporting columns were swathed in flags; all of this,” says Twain in what appears to be a pun, “was to impress the stranger [i.e., Satan], for he would be there in considerable force, and in a large degree he would be connected with the press” (Twain’s low opinion of newspapers is well known). At the center of this patriotic display sits the gold-sack “on a little table at the front of the platform where all the house could see it.” The whole audience rivets its attention on it “with a burning interest, a mouth-watering interest, a wistful and pathetic interest. . . tenderly, lovingly, proprietarily. . . .” The scene is a brilliant satire on national avarice; and what makes the satire even more effective is the revelation that the “gold” discs are lead covered with gilt—a perfect symbol for the falsity of what Twain called “the gilded age” and its pursuits.

The one thing in this ironic Eden of Hadleyburg that is more precious than gold is the town’s “reputation” for honesty. The false and empty pride of Hadleyburg in its honesty represents the apple that Eve plucked—“the very apple of your eye”, as Satan described it to the Hadleyburgians—and anticipates its fall. Hadleyburg values its reputation for honesty mainly for business reasons: “the mere fact 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.” The true substance of Hadleyburg’s honesty is indicated by Mrs. Richard’s words as soon as she realizes that she is alone with a sack of gold: “Mercy on us, and the door not locked!” Filled with anxiety, she flies about locking the door and pulling down window shades. It is their reputation for honesty that the Hadleyburgians treasure, not its reality. Some of the most cutting ironies in the story spring from the incongruity between private deed and public appearance. When Satan at the town-meeting speaks of the “invulnerable probity” of the Richardses, they “blush prettily; however,” Twain adds sardonically, “it went for modesty, and did no harm.” Any act is permissible as long as it is performed in the dark. “Oh, bless God, we are saved!” cries Mrs. Richards when Burgess fails to read their test-remark. Salvation for these pious people consists of keeping their sins hidden from public view. Edward Richards is so fearful of public opinion that he repents of his one act of virtue—his warning to Burgess of the town’s plan to ride him on a rail. “Edward!” gasps his wife Mary. “If the town had found it out—” “Don’t! It scares me yet to think it. I repented of it the minute it was done.” Obviously, the apple (i.e., Hadleyburg “honesty”) in this Eden is ready to drop from the weight of its own corruption. Satan’s purpose is to force the inhabitants to eat this bitter fruit of their hypocrisy.

To accomplish this aim, that master engineer, Satan, manipulates his weak and foolish Edenites with superhuman precision. The mechanical actions of the dog in the audience at the town-hall is an amusing image of the automatic reflexes of the Hadleyburgians to Satan’s relentless stratagems: when the crowd rises to its feet, so does the dog; when the crowd roars, the dog barks “itself crazy.” The Richardses constantly have the feeling that their actions are controlled by a force outside of themselves, but they are too weak to resist. “Do you think we are to blame, Edward— much to blame?” Mary asks. “We—we couldn’t help it, Mary. It— well, it was ordered. All things are”, Edward answers truthfully enough, although he would have been shocked to know that his actions were “ordered” by Satan, not God. Man is nothing more than a machine that responds automatically according to outside stimuli—this is the philosophy of man described in Twain’s “bible,” What is Man? written the same year as “Hadleyburg,” and in many respects an enlightening commentary on the short story. Satan has no need to perform crude miracles; all he has to do is to activate the human mechanism with the desire for wealth and the need for the approval of his fellows and set it on its track. Each human piston goes through its cycles with perfect timing. When Edward puts on his hat and leaves his house “without a word,” he doesn’t need to communicate his intentions to his wife: both have arrived at the same conclusion in silence. In the meantime, Cox, the newspaper editor, and his wife go through the same series as did the Richards: elation and pride, fidgety silence, unspoken agreement, and departure. Richards and Cox meet at the foot of the printing-office stairs; again there is no need for words; but Satan has timed their mechanical reflexes so precisely that they meet just two minutes too late to spoil his plan. Later, the rest of the nineteen principal citizens go through the same intricate series of maneuvers as does their “caste brother Richards.” Each puppet has been cast in the same mold, and Satan knows exactly which lever to pull or button to push to accomplish his ends.

This picture of robot man is grim and pessimistic, but not without hope. In What is Man? Twain states that in man’s “chameleonship” lies “his greatest good fortune.” The human machine cannot change from within, but the influences that dominate it can be changed. The duty of government, therefore, should be to lay “traps for people. Traps baited with Initiatory Impulses toward high ideals.” That is exactly what Satan does in “Hadleyburg”: he traps his victims into reform. The lies of the Father of Lies are an agency of truth. He weaves a snare of lies about the Hadleyburgians to force them to recognize that they have been living a monstrous lie.

Immediately after Satan sets into motion his machinations, the moral reformation of the Richardses begins. His stratagems lead this pathetic, middle-aged Adam and Eve to know the truth about themselves. Mary, who subscribes to the Missionary Herald, is very soon convinced that charity does not begin at her home by the realization that her husband lacks the generosity to give “a stranger twenty dollars.” They both become aware that the only person in the town capable of an act of such magnanimity was the hated outcast Goodson. Edward must admit to Mary that the town’s hostility toward Burgess stems from an injustice and that he hasn’t the courage to right the wrong. Stripped of illusions concerning themselves, they can see the town in its true light. “Edward, it is my belief that this town’s honesty is as rotten as mine is; as rotten as yours is,” Mary confesses. Treading the well-worn path of Puritan regeneration, the Richardses are led first to a perception of their own sinfulness and then to a public confession. Whether or not Edward dies in a state of grace, his death-bed confession does have three beneficial results: (1) it enables him to the under the illusion, at least, that he is “a man, and not a dog”—like the automatic dog in the town-hall audience; (2) it at last clears Burgess of the crime that the town had charged against him; and (3) it completes the destruction of the false pride of the town by revealing that its last respected important citizen had also sinned.

It is safe to conclude, therefore, that Satan is Hadleyburg’s greatest benefactor. In addition to his arsenal of therapeutic lies, he has one other mighty weapon against humbuggery—laughter. When Satan traps the Hadleyburgians into facing the shattering discrepancy between their pious pretentions and their secret venality, they explode into roars of whole-hearted laughter that sweeps away their hypocrisy. The change of the motto of the town from “Lead us not into temptation” to “Lead us into temptation” proves that the experience has had a lasting effect. As Satan in The Mysterious Stranger points out: “. . . your race, in its poverty has unquestionably one really effective weapon—laughter. Power, money, persuasion, supplication, persecution—these can lift at a colossal humbug—push it a little—weaken it a little, century by century; but only laughter can blow it to rags and atoms at a blast. Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.” The pious citizens of the town are quite unaware of the ironic application of their chant as Satan leaves the town-hall: “You are f-a-r from being a b-a-a-d man—a-a-a-a-men!” Satan’s original motive may have been revenge, but the result of his labors is to bring Hadleyburg to an understanding of its corruption so that it can reform. That he reveres virtue can be seen in his apology to Edward: “I honor you—and that is sincere, too.”

Satan as man’s benefactor is a fairly common idea in nineteenth-century literature. The cynical Mephistopheles in Goethe’s Faust, of which Twain owned several translations, is clearly an unwitting servant of God; his duty is to stimulate man’s discontent so that he will constantly strive for a higher ideal. Other books that he read— The Gods by Robert G. Ingersoll (who was one of Twain’s heroes), and La Sorciere by Jules Michelet (which Twain probably read in preparation for his Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc) defend Satan and his devils as humane and civilizing forces in the world. Most likely, however, Twain’s characterization is derived from the Bible, which he had memorized as a boy during many weary Sabbaths. Many Biblical passages depict Satan as a servant of God whose functions are to test man’s faith, punish his wickedness, and purge his flesh “that his spirit may be saved.” Perhaps Satan’s major service to man is to chasten his pride. This is the role that he employs to bring about the fortunate fall of the Eden of Hadleyburg. Saint Paul himself was aware of Satan’s usefulness as a means of humbling man’s pride: “And to keep me from being too elated by the abundance of revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, to harass me, to keep me from being too elated” (I Cor. 12:7). Possibly this and similar passages in the Bible, in addition to the encouragement of his kindhearted mother, inspired little Sam at the age of seven to rescue Satan from nineteen centuries of Christian defamation. “Hadleyburg” is the finest product of that long endeavor.

“Hadleyburg” is far superior to The Mysterious Stranger, the other major Satan story of Twain’s old age. It is more subtle, more wittily devious in its presentation of Satan and mankind and their relation to one another. “Hadleyburg” achieves the unity of tone and aesthetic distance that satire and irony require, while The Mysterious Stranger violently alternates between the vulgar antics of a P. T. Barnum side show and the nakedly ferocious tirades of a world-hating, self-hating old man. Twain himself once described the reason for the artistic failure of The Mysterious Stranger: “. . . of course a man can’t write successful satire except he be in a calm judicial good-humor. . . in truth I don’t ever seem to be in a good enough humor with anything to satirize it; no, I want to stand up before it & curse it, & foam at the mouth,—or take a club & pound it to rags & pulp.” For once, while writing “Hadleyburg,” Twain found the emotional restraint to create a work of art. Standing alone among the products of his old age for the neatness and precision of its form and the richness of its allegorical ironies, “Hadleyburg” might be compared to two other American treatments of the Eden myth—Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” and Melville’s Billy Budd.

Source: Henry B. Rule, “The Role of Satan in ‘The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg,’” in Studies in Short Fiction, Vol. VI, No. 5, Fall, 1969, pp. 619-29.

Sources

Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, revised edition, New York: Verso, 1991.

Archer, William. “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg-New Parable,” in The Critic, Vol. 37, November, 1900, pp. 413-415.

Briden, Earl F. “Twainian Pedagogy and the No-Account Lessons of ‘Hadleyburg,’” in Studies in Short Fiction, Vol. 28, No. 2, 1991, pp. 125-134.

Briden, Earl F. and Prescott, Mary. “The Lie that I Am I: Paradoxes of Identity in Mark Twain’s ‘Hadleyburg,’” in Studies in Short Fiction, Vol. 21, No. 4, 1984, pp. 383-391.

Emerson, Everett. The Authentic Mark Twain: A Literary Biography of Samuel L. Clemens, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1984.

Lowe, Lisa. Immigrant Acts, Duke University Press, 1996.

Quirk, Tom. Mark Twain: A Study of the Short Fiction, New York: Twayne, 1997.

Murfin, Ross, and M. Ray Supryia. The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms, New York: Bedford, 1997.

Review of The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg and Other Stories, in Living Age, Vol. 227, December 15, 1900, pp. 695.