A True Story

Content Warning: This section references racism and enslavement.

“A True Story” uses a frame story to center Aunt Rachel and give her agency in telling her story. The name of the story itself, “A True Story, Word for Word as I Heard It” sets the expectation that Twain is merely reporting what he has been told, so the inclusion of a frame is significant, as it necessarily alters the way in which readers will receive the story. The context in which Twain published the story likely explains why he felt the frame was necessary. Though the Civil War was over, racial prejudice and inequality certainly were not, and including the figure of Misto C allows the story to engage directly with those realities.

Misto C, a stand-in for the author himself, sees Aunt Rachel at the beginning of the story as a respectful and cheerful person who “can’t have had any trouble” in her life (591). This echoes stereotypes of enslaved people as content with their lot—stereotypes the story assumes readers will share. Misto C’s misperception therefore becomes the reader’s own as Aunt Rachel takes over the narration and it emerges that she has experienced a great deal of “trouble.” The story returns only once to the outside frame to give a description of where Aunt Rachel is physically and metaphorically. Speaking about her separation from her family, she has “gradually risen” and “now tower[s] above [Misto C], black against the stars” (592). Aunt Rachel, who starts the story seated below Misto C, is now at her pinnacle, a character the narrative encourages readers to recognize as full of life and human complexity; her movement evokes the story’s movement towards The Possibility of Human Connection. Twain’s use of colloquial speech functions similarly, lending verisimilitude that encourages readers to approach Aunt Rachel as a real, multifaceted human being.

However, if the story subverts the caricature of the “happy slave” to reveal the suffering underpinning it, it does not stop at that suffering. Aunt Rachel’s smile disappears when Misto C poses his question, but the story that follows isn’t one of unrelenting hardship. Though she mentions right away that she was enslaved, she follows this with fond anecdotes about her family life—in particular, her mother and her son Henry. The tone becomes more tragic when Aunt Rachel loses her family at an auction only to end on a triumphant note with the near-miraculous reunion of Rachel and Henry. The overall picture is therefore one of The Complexity of Joy in an Unjust World. Aunt Rachel holds nothing back as she describes the life of an enslaved person: sold at auctions, judged by men on a pedestal, and forced away from her family in chains. However, she balances these moments not only topically (with recollections of happier times) but tonally, frequently employing humor, as in a self-deprecating description of her outsized anger with the rowdy soldiers: “I was jist a-boomin’! I swelled aroun’, an’ swelled aroun’; I jist was a-itchin’ for ‘em to do somefin for to start me” (593).

For the most part, Aunt Rachel is the originator rather than the butt of these jokes. Nevertheless, the piece does seem to invoke some racist stereotypes. When the Union army takes over her enslavers’ home, the officers ask her to cook for them, to which she replies, “Lord bless you, dat’s what I’s for” (592). She speaks highly of the Union generals whom she cooks for, and it is unclear whether she recognizes the irony of her situation: continuing the same labor she has always done, though nominally free. The framing of the text as a “true story” makes it hard to say definitively whether this marks a reversion to stereotypes of the “happy slave.” It is possible that Aunt Rachel simply appreciates the limitations of her situation and is on balance grateful that she is now serving Union soldiers.

This complexity underpins Aunt Rachel’s final answer to Misto C’s question, which is also the story’s last line: “Oh, no, Misto C—, I hain’t had no trouble. An’ no joy!” (594). The line is ambiguous and presumably meant ironically, as Aunt Rachel has clearly experienced both trouble and joy. Perhaps she means to say she that she finds joy in events like the reunion with her son despite the 22 years she has been separated from the rest of her family. Perhaps she is being literal and joy isn’t the thing that makes her laugh and smile. Perhaps she is suggesting that her pain and joy are inseparable; to discount one is to discount the other.

It’s not an easy answer for Misto C, and the frame doesn’t close the story. The work ends with the story within the story because, as the title suggests, the narrative is ultimately meant to be Aunt Rachel’s: It’s not important how the character of Misto C reacts, though it is important how the story’s readers respond to hearing about the atrocities of slavery and one woman’s endurance of them. At the same time, there is a limit to the story’s depiction of Black Women Defying Racism and Sexism. Aunt Rachel can only speak through Twain, and while this may reflect historical reality, it is a reminder that even her story is not ultimately hers alone.