The Invalid’s Story (Criticism)

Criticism

Ryan D. Poquette

Poquette has a bachelor’s degree in English and specializes in writing about literature. In the following essay, Poquette discusses Twain’s use of shifting points of view and expressive descriptions to create a magnified humorous effect in Twain’s story.

Mark Twain was a master when it came to employing various writing techniques for humorous effects. This is definitely true in “The Invalid’s Story,” a tale that while funny, was almost universally panned by Twain’s contemporary critics for its in-depth treatment of death smells — which was considered an exercise in poor taste. However, as E. Hudson Long suggests in his Mark Twain Handbook, Twain had gotten used to writing such “bawdy” tales, which “had been too enthusiastically greeted by his readers” in the Western United States, so the author probably did not “realize entirely that such things might give offense.”

Long further notes that Twain was adept at knowing not to cross the line, and that he “realized the impropriety of bringing smoking-room humor into the drawing room.” Since this is the case, “The Invalid’s Story” can be taken as an intentional exercise that was meant to amuse, not offend. By employing a first-person narrator who periodically draws attention to the reality of the situation, and by describing smells in progressively more expressive language, Twain pushes the boundaries of humor in “The Invalid’s Story.”

When the narrator of “The Invalid’s Story” is introducing his tale, he builds up to it, making it seem like it will be a grand story by insisting that “it is the actual truth.” Steven E. Kemper notes in his article “Poe, Twain, and Limburger Cheese” that this style of opening mimics the stories of Edgar Allan Poe, which in turn adds additional humor for those readers who notice the parody. In this first paragraph, Twain’s narrator briefly mentions “a box of guns” as the cause of his weak condition, something that he then explains in the second paragraph of his story, where Twain mimics “another of Poe’s techniques,” clarifying “the factual mystery for the reader by flatly explaining it.”

It is this explanation of the narrator’s “prodigious mistake,” the fact that he is “carrying off a box of guns” instead of his friend’s corpse, that gives the reader inside knowledge that the narrator did not have when he was taking his fateful train trip two years ago. This inside knowledge is increased a few lines later, when the narrator notes how a stranger “set a package of peculiarly mature and capable Limburger cheese” on the coffin-box. After he says this, the narrator backtracks, drawing the reader’s attention to the fact that he did not know about the cheese at the time. He says that, “I know now that it was Limburger cheese, but at that time I never had heard of the article in my life, and of course was wholly ignorant of its character.”

Throughout the story the narrator repeats this trend of giving inside information, through the use of a specific viewpoint. The majority of the story is told in a first person, limited viewpoint, where the narrator says only what he knew at the time of the fateful events. He tells his story as if he is there, and has no knowledge of the future that he has already lived. However at certain points, the narrator uses a first person, omniscient, viewpoint, letting his hindsight influence the narrative and giving the reader knowledge that the narrator himself did not have during the train ride.

After these first references to the gunbox and cheese, Twain’s narrator resumes his tale in the first person limited viewpoint, and waxes on about his sadness over his friend’s death, which increases when he smells the cheese and thinks it is his friend’s corpse: “There was something infinitely saddening about his calling himself to my remembrance in this dumb, pathetic way.” However, Twain periodically brings the reader’s attention back to the reality of the situation — the corpse is really a box of guns with smelly cheese on top — so that he can be sure that his audience does not start thinking there is a real corpse in the train, as the narrator and Thompson do. If this were to happen, the humorous comedy of errors that exists with the gunbox and cheese would change to a morbid drama about a poor corpse that torments two men.

The next instance where Twain has his narrator refer to the guns and cheese takes place after Thompson first notices the smell. “He gasped once or twice, then moved toward the cof — gunbox, stood over that Limburger cheese part of a moment, then came back.” At this point, the narrator catches himself before he says “coffin,” noting that it is in fact a “gunbox” with a piece of “Limburger cheese” on top. Twain needs this reference here to break up the long stretch of narrative where the narrator refers to the “corpse.” The next reference takes place when the two men are getting ready to attempt to move the box of guns: “We went there and bent over that deadly cheese and took a grip on the box.” During this moving attempt, Thompson slips, falling “down with his nose on the cheese.” The reader, now once again assured that the smell is from the cheese, can continue to enjoy the story.

The final reference to the gunbox and cheese on the train trip occurs when Thompson attempts to mask the smell with carbolic acid. As the narrator notes, “He sprinkled it all around everywhere; in fact he drenched everything with it, riflebox, cheese and all.” With this last reference, the narrator names everything as they are in real life, without slipping and almost referring to the two items as the corpse, as he did before.

Twain’s strategic system of references to the gunbox and cheese serves a purpose; it allows the reader to get involved in the story enough to be amused by it, while pulling them back out into reality every once in a while so they are still aware of the joke. By taking the reader to the edge of propriety and then back several times, Twain reaches a greater intensity of humor, and a potentially depressing tale becomes laughable to the reader. With this elaborate system in place, Twain then employs progressively more expressive descriptions of the stench in the train, which magnify the humorous quality of the smells even more.

Like the references to the gunbox and cheese, the descriptions of the odor start out relatively tame when the narrator notices, “a most evil and searching odor stealing about on the frozen air.” The narrator’s next description of the smell is a little more graphic, saying that the “odor thickened up,” and that it “got to be more and more gamy and hard to stand.” By describing the odor as being “thick” and “gamy,” it sets up an image in the reader’s mind of something palpable, something that could be touched and felt, a particularly unpleasant thought. Also, although the smell is “hard to stand,” for the time being the two men are coping.

As the smell increases, so does the narrator’s use of more expressive language. After Thompson has noted that the corpse should have been buried the past summer, the narrator describes the increased potency of the stench in semi-ironic terms: “By this time the fragrance — if you may call it fragrance — was just about suffocating.” By calling the smell a “fragrance,” the narrator is being ironic, because he is saying something that is the opposite of what he means. However, like the second reference to the gun box, where the narrator almost slips and says “coffin,” he qualifies his ironic statement by saying, “if you may call it a fragrance.” The effect of the smell can be seen in the two men’s facial color, “Thompson’s face was turning gray,” and actions, “Thompson rested his forehead in his left hand.”

The next reference to the smell also uses ironic language. After the carbolic acid only serves to increase the potency of the smell, the narrator notes that “the two perfumes began to mix,” and that “pretty soon we made a break for the door.” Twain is slowly but surely increasing the potency of the smell both in the story and as an image in the reader’s mind. A reader can only imagine how bad something must smell to refer to it ironically as a “perfume,” and to be strong enough to make two men run outside.

The narrator’s final reference to the stench pulls out all of the stops, using ironic language that places the stench on a new scale of potency. After the final bonfire of smelly items is lit in a desperate attempt to mask the cheese smell with other smells, the narrator notes that “all that went before was just simply poetry to that smell.” Poetry is one of the highest forms of artistic expression, so by using it in an ironic sense to denote the smell, the stench transcends all previous boundaries, setting up an almost unfathomable image in the reader’s mind. The poetic language continues, as the narrator notes that “the original smell stood up out of it just as sublime as ever.” The word “sublime” is used by poets to denote something that is larger than man, and which should be held in awe. It is usually reserved for mountains, forests, and other large forms of nature that make man feel small. When Twain applies the word “sublime” to the smell, he is attempting to express that the smell is larger than anything ever before experienced. Like nature, which often overpowers man in literature, the stench overpowers the two men who almost suffocate from it as they run outside onto the train’s platform.

Although “The Invalid’s Story” was received badly by critics such as Everett Emerson, who calls the story’s humor “unspeakable,” and Gladys Carmen Bellamy, who notes that Twain’s emphasis on the stench of corpses seems to “emphasize the indignity of human life,” it does not appear that Twain meant to offend with his story. In fact, Twain structures the story so that the reader is free from any moral obligation to feel sorry for the “corpse,” which is really a box of guns with a piece of cheese on top. This knowledge, which is repeated at various points throughout the tale, helps to increase the level of humor associated with the smells. Likewise, through his use of increasingly more potent descriptions of the “corpse” odor, Twain magnifies the humor even more, as readers get an increasingly more palpable mental image. And even though many critics do not like these images, the story has stood the test of time with popular audiences. Long notes that “many present-day readers find pleasure” in these improper writings, and that “we frankly delight in much that offended past sensibilities.”

Source: Ryan D. Poquette, Critical Essay on “The Invalid’s Story,” in Short Stories for Students, The Gale Group, 2002.

What Do I Read Next?

• In Laughter: A Scientific Investigation, published in 2000, neurobiologist Robert R. Provine examines humor as a function of social relationships. Using research from various social field experiments and exploring past ideas from such noted psychoanalysts as Sigmund Freud, Provine presents laughter in all its forms and even distinguishes between laughter and smiles. It also includes a section on neural disorders that are associated with laughter and the types of laughter therapy used by some psychologists today.
• Twain was one of the most noted American humorists during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when many of his writings were published in magazines like the Atlantic Monthly. In 1925, ten years after Twain’s death, Harold Ross founded The New Yorker, a magazine that would help to define humor in the modern era. In Fierce Pajamas: An Anthology of Humor Writing from “The New Yorker,” editors David Remnick and Henry Finder collect the writings of more than seventy New Yorker contributors, including such noted humorists as Woody Allen, James Thurber, Dorothy Parker, and Steve Martin.
• Although Jon Scieszka’s The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales (1993) is technically a children’s book, its brand of unique and irreverent humor has delighted people of all ages. The book parodies well-known fairy tales and themes, such as the ugly duckling, through the use of a mischievous narrator who even parodies the book itself.
• The Bible according to Mark Twain: Irreverent Writings on Eden, Heaven, and the Flood by America’s Master Satirist, published in 1996, collects a number of Twain’s irreverent views on institutionalized religion. However, even though they are staged in a humorous context, Twain’s parodies of religion pose some serious, thought-provoking questions, and reveal Twain’s intimate knowledge of the Bible.
• Although Twain’s dark side normally manifested itself through his biting humor, sometimes the author was just plain dark. In The Devil’s Racetrack: Mark Twain’s Great Dark Writings, published in 1981, the author explores the less pleasant aspects of humanity, such as disease and death, in a realistic fashion — without the humor that normally made these topics palatable to his readers.
• Some of Twain’s short stories were not well-received by the critics because of their raucous and bawdy content, which sometimes broke social taboos. In fact, Twain was noted for misbehaving in real life, a fact that showed up in his writings. Mark Twain’s Book for Bad Boys and Girls, published in 1995, collects many of Twain’s essays, sketches, and stories that exalt misbehaving.
• Mark Twain’s Roughing It, published in 1872, is one of his many semi-autobiographical accounts that he wrote about his travels. In this case, Twain writes about his journey to and daily life in the developing American West. The book displays the rustic, Western style of humor that would characterize many of Twain’s later stories.