9. Eve's Diary (1905)

Summary: The story highlights Eve's experiences in the garden of Eden. She is very observant of everything around her and is talented for coming up with names for all of the animals and strange phenomena around her. She wonders why Adam does not pay as much attention to everything in nature as she does. She states that he is only worried with building shelter and working. After the Fall of Man, Eve reflects on why she loves Adam so much. Forty years later, she passes away.

Commentary: I really liked this short story because of Twain's illustrations of the gender roles. All Eve did was follow Adam around, actually, but it's understandable to not want to be lonely. We are often loneliest when we know there are people around. The story was pretty funny for the most part, but one of the last paragraphs bothered me a bit:

   Then why is it that I love him? Merely because he is masculine, I think.
   At the bottom, he is good, and I love him for that, but I could love him without it. If he should beat me and abuse me, I should go on loving him. I know it. It is a matter of sex, I think.

Oh, Mark Twain. I disagree. I can infer his line of thinking, considering his time period, and I don't really think he was trying to be misogynistic in any way. Regardless, I don't really think that this argument would hold up in today's standards. I'm not a Mark Twain scholar, and I certainly have not attended lengthy debates about the context of this excerpt, but it just leaves me wondering, what about the gay people? I guess because Eve was a heterosexual (as there was no other course to choose from at the time), she did in fact love Adam in that way because of his gender just as a homosexual person would love someone based on their gender. But now that there are more than two people in the world, there is a lot of room for interpretation.