Mark Twain's "The $30,000 Bequest" I

After reading Mark Twain's "The $30,000 Bequest" last spring in Paula's Twain class, it was interesting to return to this short story with a more content based focus.  Last year, we approached the piece with a critical lens on Twain's use of literary devices such as inversion, irony, names, etc.  With that previous discussion in mind, it was especially interesting to re-examine "The $30,000 Bequest"with our attention more on the dynamics of wealth and fantasy in the story and how thematically, Twain's representation's of wealth and desire are significant to the underlying ethos of the story.

One thing that I was confused about in our class discussions, and in my second reading of the story, was Twain's inversion of gender roles. Last semester, we discussed Twain's use of inversion in general, and how his surprising twists work to force we readers to question the story we are reading and examine it with a more awake, critical eye.  In this more specific context however, (i.e. not in the context of Twain's body of work as a whole) I wondered, and still wonder, what his inversion of gender roles says about his readers' expectations of wealth management and female agency.  Are we supposed to scoff at the notion of a financially savvy female, Aleck, and see her husband, Sally, as pathetically emasculated?  In a thematic context, that is, regarding the general theme of wealth and fantasy, I have a hard time understanding why an inversion of gender roles serves to make us question the illusory and adulterating nature of wealth as happiness.  Why is a woman in control so unrealistic? Let me also say that I do not mean to sound rhetorical in my questioning of Twain's device.  I recognize that at the time, society did perceive women less capable and more dependent; I'm just still unsure how this inversion, in this case, is effective in it's critique of wealth's corrupting potency.

Regardless of my uncertainty, I think Twain's inversion of reality and fantasy is a highly effective technique that works to expose the warped and degrading nature of incessant greed and desire.  That in the end of the story we realize that Aleck and Sally's grand plans and assured visions were mere illusions is kind of a mind-fuck (for lack of a better expression).  The form of the story, a constant mounting tension used to describe the build up of wealth, is a sort of "form as a revelation of content" technique in that in the end, we realize that the story never happened just as wealth never happened for Aleck and Sally.  Ultimately, Twain's use of illusion and reality works to expose the all-consuming nature of greed and desire and how blinding this desire is in the face of reality, morality, and veritable happiness.