The Innocents Abroad

The idea of pilgrimage, a journey to a sacred place undertaken as an act of religious devotion, is central to Christianity. Christian thinking traditionally sees human life as a pilgrimage to the afterlife; on a smaller scale, Christian believers have often made journeys to various shrines and holy sites. Twain uses pilgrimage as the symbolic framework of The Innocents Abroad. Although the travelers visit various cultural sites in Europe, the real goal of the trip is the Holy Land and especially Jerusalem, the city where Jesus lived and died. They do many things that pilgrims to the Holy Land traditionally have done, such as walk the Via Dolorosa and wade in the River Jordan. Especially in the latter part of the book, Twain persistently refers to his fellow travelers as “pilgrims,” stressing the religious purpose of the trip.

The word “pilgrim” also resonates with the Pilgrim Fathers, the Protestant settlers who established the New England colonies in the 17th century. Twain is connecting his fellow travelers with the original Americans. But while the original Pilgrims emigrated from Europe to America, Twain’s pilgrims make the opposite movement. The goal of the first Americans was to escape the Old World, while modern-day (of Twain’s time) Americans desire to rediscover the Old World. Twain refers to them in his subtitle as “New Pilgrims” and stresses that they come from the land of “Progress” (i.e., America).

In Christian theology, the city of Jerusalem is a symbol of heaven, the ultimate goal of the pilgrimage of life. Likewise, Jerusalem is the climax and goal of the pilgrimage of The Innocents Abroad. Everything that occurs after Jerusalem, as the pilgrims make their way back home, constitutes the “falling action” of the book as they return to their mundane lives at home to reflect on everything they have seen.