ELC Saunders #4, Notes on American Classics (2018)

Although this blog is primarily about the novel A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole, I have also started adding entries regarding the practice of Evolutionary Literary Criticism (ELC), which is more or less the application of evolutionary psychology to literature. Here are some observations on the monograph below, a recent publication in the field. This entry is observation number four regarding this book.

Saunders, Judith P. American Classics: Evolutionary Perspectives. Brighton, MA: Academic Studies Press, 2018.

This month's discussion: Chapter Five: Maladaptive Behavior and Auctorial Design: Huck Finn's Pap

Saunders persuasively makes the argument that Twain helps demonize the institution of slavery in the novel Huck Finn by associating it with the evil character of Huck's father. The story shows that Pap is a bad person in part by showing that he acts contrary to natural parental instincts.

For all animals, including humans, it is in an animal's evolutionary self-interest to invest in its children. Parental caring (especially maternal caring) is hardwired into the brain. The human heart usually quickens at the proverbial story of the mother bear who is willing to risk her own life to guard her cubs. Exploiting your own children and lessening their chances of their own reproductive success is therefore unnatural.

Saunders shows that Twain portrays Pap, the only character deeply committed to slavery and the systematic oppression of blacks, as an unnatural father. Pap tries to steal from Huck, he beats him, and he kidnaps and threatens to kill him. Pap seems to want Huck's money to drink and gamble it away. Saunders makes a strong case that Twain's subtext is that slavery is just as unnatural as Pap's dysfunctional fatherhood.

However, the psychological situation of Pap could be more complicated than Twain lets on. A similar situation is occurring in the politics of the United States today. Poor whites seem to be voting against their economic interests by voting for conservative politicians who implement policies hostile to the immediate interests of the poor. I suspect that those working class whites know their long-term interests better than pundits think they do.

To illustrate the issue, we can modify the story of Huck and Pap. If Pap had many children, and he ran a small business, and if Huck was about to take his money and education and join the interests of larger economic players in the society who threaten to crush Pap's business, say by working for the town bank, then it might be in Pap's evolutionary interests to keep Huck down. Although this scenario is very different from the novel, my point is to show that a parent lowering the potential reproductive success of one child might not be unnatural. Likewise, a group of people on welfare do not necessarily vote against their long-term interests by voting for a politician who cuts funding for welfare. The immediate action may be part of a larger pattern that is in their self-interest.

Saunders's observation is accurate: Twain does seem to portray Pap as unnatural and to link that unnatural behavior to his racism. My point above is that Twain may have been simplifying the portrayal of Pap, both with regard to his parental behavior and with regard to his social and political values.