A True Story

“Aunt Rachel, how is it that you’ve lived sixty years and never had any trouble?”

This quote is what the whole story hinges on. This question prompts Aunt Rachel’s narrative and elicits all the thematic elements and complexities that her story entails. Notably, the question reflects Misto C’s misinterpretation of the persona Aunt Rachel presents to him—possibly one cultivated to appease her enslavers.

“Misto C—, is you in ’arnest?”

Aunt Rachel’s first dialogue introduces her voice and vernacular; it also comments on the scene’s racial and class dynamics. Aunt Rachel makes sure that Misto C’s question reflects a genuine desire to know before she, a Black servant, presumes to tell her story; implicitly, she is also asking readers if they are open to hearing the story of a formerly enslaved person.

“I was bawn down ’mongst de slaves; I know all ’bout slavery, ’case I ben one of ’em my own se’f.”

Aunt Rachel begins her story by stating that she was once enslaved. It immediately exposes the irony of Misto C’s question: He thinks she hasn’t had any “trouble,” yet she undoubtedly experienced much pain and suffering when she was enslaved.

“Dey was black, but de Lord can’t make no chil’en so black but what dey mother loves ’em an’ wouldn’t gibe ’em up, no, not for anything dat’s in dis whole world.”

The racism underpinning this quote—the implicit assumption that a Black child is worth less than a white one, even if a mother’s love can compensate for it—exemplifies the complex dynamics surrounding the overall text. If one assumes Twain is presenting Aunt Rachel’s words verbatim, the racism is internalized prejudice; if he is tweaking them, he may be speaking from implicit prejudice or calibrating his portrayal for a racist audience. At the same time, the intent is clearly to humanize Aunt Rachel through her assertion of familial love—one of the main ways the story evokes The Possibility of Human Connection across race.

“I wa’n’t bawn in de mash to be fool’ by trash! I’s one o’ de ole Blue Hen’s Chickens, I is!”

This quote, spoken here by Aunt Rachel’s mother, appears three times in the text. It presents a third voice distinct from Misto C’s and Aunt Rachel’s but also influences the latter, helping her show her own strength later in the story. The quote itself is regional and refers to what the people of Maryland call themselves. “Blue Hen’s chickens” historically refers to a dominant and quick-tempered person, usually a woman.

“Aunt Rachel had gradually risen, while she warmed to her subject, and now she towered above us, black against the stars.”

This is the final time that the narrative breaks the inner story to return to the narrator, Misto C. His description of Aunt Rachel’s physical position on the porch signifies a reversal: Where she had started in an inferior position below him on the steps, she is now above him. The quote suggests that Aunt Rachel is not only an equal of Misto C but someone whose strength exceeds his—someone who commands the narrative and finishes the story without returning to the frame from this point forward. However, this vision of Aunt Rachel taking charge of her narrative is complicated by the fact of Twain framing it for publication under his own name.

“I took and tear de clo’es mos’ off of ’em, an’ beat ’em over de head wid my chain.”

When her son is taken from her, Aunt Rachel fights back and uses her chains to fight the auctioneers. The chains, a symbol of oppression, transform into a weapon in another instance of Aunt Rachel’s strength and in a reversal of 19th-century gender and race stereotypes. Aunt Rachel is neither meek and passive like a traditional woman nor content in her enslavement as enslaved people were reputed to be; the moment exemplifies the theme of Black Women Defying Racism and Sexism.

“So de big Union officers move in dah house, an’ dey ask me would I cook for dem. ‘Lord bless you,’ says I, ‘dat’s what I’s for.’”

When the Union soldiers run the Confederate Army out of Newbern, sending Aunt Rachel’s enslavers out, she remains to cook for the Union Army. It’s an ironic situation: She is happy to be free of her enslavers, yet she is still confined to the same role (and, she suggests, proud to fill it). Freedom from enslavement isn’t the same as freedom from inequality.

“He wouldn’t be little no mo’ now—he’s a man!”

The Union general points out to Aunt Rachel that her son will have changed in 13 years. The fact that Aunt Rachel only remembers her son as the little boy who promised her freedom is both a reminder of the tragedy of slavery and a reminder of her motherly instincts.

“So he sole out an’ went to whah dey was recruitin’, an’ hired hisse’f out to de colonel for his servant.”

Henry, now a man, sets out to fulfill his promise to his mother. Yet to do that he must, ironically, become a servant for a colonel. This quote highlights another way in which racial inequality and prejudice permeated the North as well as the South.

“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. An’ dey was a waltzin’ an a-dancin! my! but dey was havin’ a time! an’ I jist a-swellin’ an’ a swellin’ up!”

Aunt Rachel’s voice is particularly evident in this passage. The rhymes and repetition bring levity to a generally dark story, once again raising questions of authorship and intent: Aunt Rache’s humor suggests her strength of character while also evoking racist stereotypes.

“I jist straightened myself up, so—jist as I is now, plum to de ceilin’, mos’—an’ I digs my fists into my hips.”

Before Aunt Rachel repeats the words that her mother used to say, she performs her mother’s actions, straightening herself up and making herself appear strong. Her physical presentation of herself in the scene resembles the moment in which she stand on Misto C’s porch, highlighting a recurring motif of height as a physical representation of equality and strength of character.

“I don’t sleep no mo’ dis night. You go ‘long,’ he says, ‘an’ leave me by my own se’f.”

After Henry hears his mother say what his grandmother said in the kitchen before bandaging him up, he takes some time for himself. It’s a moment of tension and dramatic irony: Readers are meant to intuit that this is Henry before Aunt Rachel realizes his identity, and are thus left wondering whether Henry will come back and reunite with his mother.