The Invalid's Story

While the first-person narrator states in the first paragraph of “The Invalid’s Story” that the tale is “the actual truth” (Paragraph 1), the story is in fact a tall tale—specifically, an example of the “frontier” humor that the author so frequently employed. Mark Twain scholar John H. Davis notes that the word “invalid” in the title can be read two ways: This is the story of a man who loses his health, and it is also a story that purports to be real but is in fact invalid. The pun on “invalid” allows readers to see that the characters’ interpretation of the story’s events is invalid, whereas Twain’s use of dramatic irony creates both tension and humor. In turn, this highlights the contrast between an absurdly humorous situation and the story’s more serious underlying themes.

Twain’s critique of Christianity in the story comes from his use of symbolism. In the story, the dead body of John B. Hackett supposedly travels toward his father, Deacon Levi Hackett—symbolically a heavenly father, as suggested by his name or title “Deacon”—in Bethlehem, Wisconsin, alluding to the birthplace of Jesus in Bethlehem, Judea. Other details, including the building of a fire that mimics a burnt offering, confirm this symbolism as the corpse seemingly becomes ever more decayed, spoiled, and odiferous as the story progresses.

The final mention of Bermuda—“neither Bermuda nor any other land can ever bring” the narrator’s health back (Paragraph 44)—relates to Twain’s original intention to place the story within an earlier, serialized account of a trip to Bermuda published by Atlantic Monthly. In that series, the author says Bermuda is like heaven, a metaphor Twain would have extended thematically in “The Invalid’s Story” if it had appeared in the series.

The author’s style builds the theme of The Nature of Mortality, which Twain depicts as both inevitable and unsentimental. The story’s humor comes from Twain’s use of dramatic irony, in which the reader knows more than the story’s characters. As the narrator panics over what he presumes is the smell of a corpse, the reader knows it’s just a package of Limburger cheese. Furthermore, the box from which the smell seems to be coming contains not a dead body, but guns. Symbolism also comes into play in this theme. The equation of the body of a dear, departed friend—as the narrator frequently refers to the corpse—with guns, instruments of death, diminishes any sentiment the friend’s death might otherwise invoke in the reader. Likewise, the fact that the characters can confuse the smell of cheese with the smell of a corpse deflates death’s emotional weight, depicting it in mundanely physical terms.

Twain elevates the humor and his lighthearted approach to morality through his use of the vernacular, or common speech. The character Thompson’s speech is especially funny as he expresses his admiration for the supposed corpse’s odor. He says he’s carried many corpses in the past, but this one “just lays over ’em all!—and does it easy” (Paragraph 21). The narrator, compounding the humor, takes this insult as a compliment. This humor is created as a result of Thompson’s imagined perception of the corpse, which connects to another one of the story’s main themes: The Power of the Imagination. While this theme develops through the arc of the plot, the narrator concludes his story by openly referring to it, saying that imagination has “done its work” and permanently destroyed the man’s health (Paragraph 44).

In the opening and closing scenes, the importance of imagination is emphasized in the form of a frame story. The narrator tells readers about an event that took place two years before to explain the shocking decline of his health. Readers know from the beginning of the story that the narrator will be taking care of the box of guns; the accidental switch in pine boxes is clearly explained. The purpose of the frame story is to create dramatic irony, which allows humor to build throughout the plot.

This humor begins with the inciting incident, in which a stranger places the package of “peculiarly mature and capable” Limburger cheese onto the coffin-box by a stranger. Readers never learn who this stranger is or why he chooses to put the cheese in the express car of the train. Some critics point to a story told by the comic lecturer Charles F. Browne, who performed under the name of Artemus Ward and was a friend of Twain’s, as the source for “The Invalid’s Story.” In Ward’s story, a man puts a package of Limburger cheese in the baggage car of a train because the cheese was too “talented” (strong) to carry. This explanation would suit Twain’s set-up. The humor of strong-smelling cheese persists to this day, as seen in stinky cheese festivals held around the world.

From this point, the story proceeds through a series of increasingly forceful attempts on the part of the narrator and Thompson to mask the smell of the cheese. At the same time, the characters’ lack of knowledge about the true nature of the smell only compounds their problem. Thompson stops up all cracks in the express car, closes the window, and lights a fire, causing him to subsequently break a windowpane so the two can breathe. They attempt to shove the box away, leading Thompson to put his head very close to the cheese and then escape to the platform. Finally, he lights the fire in the center of the car, driving them permanently to the platform in the story’s climax. The actions are farcical; the consequences of an overactive imagination are dire, again creating tension that lasts until the story’s final word: “die.”

Twain leaves several questions unanswered in “The Invalid’s Tale.” The first concerns the narrator’s “home.” The narrator is presumably returning from a trip to Bermuda, which has failed to restore his health, and so he is now on his way home to die. However, the location of the narrator’s home lacks clarity. Since the narrator notes that Cleveland, Ohio, is where he “belongs” (Paragraph 2), it is possible that Cleveland is his home and final destination. Alternatively, the narrator and his boyhood friend could have grown up together in the fictional Bethlehem, Wisconsin; Hackett’s last wish is that his remains be returned to his parents there.

The narrator’s three-week memory lapse during his illness also limits the information readers receive, as it is unclear how the issue with each box’s destination was ultimately resolved. It is also unclear who told the narrator about the mix-up, or who told him about Hackett’s death and his last wishes in the first place (though this is the “first thing [the narrator] hear[s]” when he enters his house [Paragraph 2]). The last unanswered questions are perhaps the most serious: What happened to Thompson? Did he die of typhoid fever, which he feels “a-coming right now” (Paragraph 43)? While these unanswered questions might be intentional on the author’s part, they are undoubtedly the loose ends in the invalid’s invalid tall tale.