Through the Marxism Principle
Ever read or heard Twain’s works?
Mark Twain’s short story The ₤ 1,000,000 Bank Note uncover the society’s ideology of respecting people material based presented by the shift of economic situation of Henry Adams. According to Marx, the moving force behind human history is its economic systems, for people’s lives are determined by their economic circumstances. A society is shaped by its force of production, the method it uses to produce the material elements of life. This essay tries to discover the ideology which is delivered in the story relating to Marxism principles, how does Henry Adams’ power is described in the story, what makes the ideology constitutes the way people behave and think, and how does the ideology gives impacts to the way people think in the story.
Mark Twain biases the position of Henry Adams as a poor who turns to a millionaire to shows the society ideology of respecting a person by regarding to the number of material a person has. The more a person has money, the more a person is being respected by others.
The author presents the ‘before and after’ economic and social condition of Henry Adams including how the others behave towards his economic condition. Before Henry turns to be a ‘sudden millionaire’, he appears to be very dreadful tramp and poor. ‘I had only a dollar in the pocket, this money fed and sheltered me twenty-four hours. During the next twenty-four I went without food and shelter’. The narrator shows how people treat him when he is in a very limited economic condition. When Adams, enter the tailor shop for a new clothes, the employee of the shop gives Henry Adams a very unfriendly service. The manner emerges only because Adams appears to be very dreadful physically wearing a rag and looks more miserable than a flunkey.
He took me into a back room, and overhauled a pile of rejected suits, and selected the rattiest one for me. The fellow worked up a most sarcastic expression of counterance
‘..I’d only expect gentleman like you to carry large change’
As the owner of the shop saw the bank note, there is a very contrast shift of the way people act towards the main character.
‘Rush these things through, send without any waste of time. Let the minor customers wait…’ .
Within the same setting, Henry experiences two contrasts people’s manner towards himself. Interesting and ironic case occurs when the owner said ‘Because he can’t tell a millionaire from a tramp’ and the main character said ‘My friend, you shouldn’t judge a stranger always by the clothes he wears.’. The idea about ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ comprehended by the shop owner is actually comes to be misleading only because the owner encounters the bank note. Suddenly, this idea makes the owner assumes Henry Adam as a person who should be respected for the wealth he own. The idea is not completely wrong but the idea of power gained from material comes to effect to people, who believe on the idea of materialistic, lost their logic. There is difference the way the cashier and the shop owner thought, cashier thinks rationally that it will be impossible for a millionaire appears like a tramp. Orang seperti pemilik toko itu bisa disebut sebagai seorang borgeoise atas pekerjaannya yang memiliki property, yaitu pakaian, yang menjilat seseorang.
The ideology of power based respect influence much the mass media publishing news to the society. Like in the story, the newspaper becomes to strong tools to spread out the ideology which then reconstruct society’s way of thinking.
For I had become one of the notorieties of the metropolis of the world, and it turned my head, not just a little but a good deal, you couldn’t take up a newspaper, without finding in it one or more references to the ‘vest-pocket million-pounder’ and his latest doings and sayings. At first, in these mentions, I was at the bottom of the personal-gossip column; next, I was listed above the knights, next above the baronets, next above the barons, and so on, and so on, climbing steadily.
Thus, it builds a new idea how to put someone and how to give someone a respect including the level of respect to others depending on a particular person’s economic level. The effect of this media occurs in the story when Henry Adams visits American Minister to pay a thing. There, the minister seems to be very shocked of Adams presence in his office. The unusual thing done by the minister is apologizing to Adams of something which he did not really do.
He received me with the enthusiasm proper in my case, upbraided me for being so tardy in my duty and said that there was only one way to get his forgiveness and that was to take the seat at his dinner-party that night. ‘I beg your pardon, sir, I though I knew you’ – Mr Lloyd Hastings, apology for he does not invite Henry Adams to a dinner party.
Even someone who already a day or a second know or being a friend of this millionaire can be suddenly a close friend only because the particular person he met is a popular person. It turned out that he and my father had been schoolmates in boyhood, Yale students together later, and always warms friends to my father’s death.
In conclusion, the ideology of valuing people in the story is well influenced by the contribution of mass media and the misleading of the concept ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’. The main character wants to be in an equal position, wants to be treated the same as the high class people by saying the concept, but the shop owner perceive it differently.
Twain’s effort to use the concept of ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ to help people to be in an equal position fails in the story, because the motivation of commodification, an attitude of valuing things for their resale possibilities, has already reconstruct the way people think.
