The Innocents Abroad

The narrator and main character of the book, Twain presents a complex and multifaceted persona. A blunt-speaking American from the West, he sees through pretense and fraud immediately. He is sometimes comically belligerent and irritable, sometimes times fun-loving and affable. He is a man with a keen sense of justice and strong democratic sympathies. In a few places, Twain shows a mischievous tendency that recalls Huck Finn (e.g., breaking into Athens at night and stealing grapes from a field). Despite his satirical irreverence, Twain also has a sentimental streak and a reverence for beauty. Twain’s juggling of these different sides of his persona creates the variety of tone in the book, from bitingly sardonic to lyrically poetic.

Twain implicitly identifies with Western (he uses the word “Christian”) culture with its distinctive ideals and standards of living, and he grows more critical of cultures the further removed they are from the Anglo-Saxon world. He is severely critical of Turkish society and mores, for example. However, Twain’s humane sympathy for life underlies even his harshest cultural criticisms. He laments the trampling of local religious sensibilities, mistreatment of animals, and the disrespect shown by an audience of opera fans toward an aging singer. He notes hypocrisy and double standards wherever he finds them, and he questions his own preconceptions.

Another endearing quality of Twain is his readiness to laugh at himself. A good example is his remark about the pre-travel screening test:

I did avoid a critical personal examination into my character by that bowelless committee, but I referred to all the people of high standing I could think of in the community who would be least likely to know anything about me (11).