Life on the Mississippi

Twain mentions on how we as teenagers and smaller kids should consider on hearing and thinking more when adults try to give us advice, because most of them have already been through what we are living now. On the lesson he gives us an advice on how becoming a better liar can make you a much smarter person in a very humorous and entertaining way.

1. Twain uses a lot of humor and sarcasm throughout his story to create his satire.

These paragraphs mention a couple of immoral aspects of Twain’s life. When he buries his grandmother under the grapevine, he justifies his reasoning through common sense. “The vine needed fertilizing, my aunt had to be buried, and I dedicated her to this high purpose.” This justification is ironic because his deceased grandmother is providing life for the vines. He also refers to the Constitution in support of his actions. “Does that unfit me for the President? The Constitution of our country does not say so.” Irony also occurs when Twain admits that he dislikes the poor. “I regard the poor man, in his present condition, as so much wasted raw material.” This statement is ironic because the office of the presidency swears on oath to support and serve the entire population of the United States. Because of this, the ironies placed in these two paragraphs further bring out the humor of this

Samuel Langhorne Clemens better known by the name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. Twain was raised in Hannibal, Missouri, and served an apprenticeship with a printer and then worked as a typesetter, contributing articles to the newspaper of his older brother Orion Clemens. He became nothing less than a national treasure. He captured a world audience with stories of boyhood adventure and with commentary on man's faults that is humorous even while it probes the roots of human behavior. One of his most famous essays (satire) that I will analyze is, “A Presidential Candidate”, which was written on June 9th, 1879, in which he evokes a sarcastic tone to mock presidential candidates by using syntax, diction, irony, and examples from his own past.

Realism best represents the literary movement that America was facing at the time because the texts’ use detail that show how things really happened, how things really sounded, how they really looked, and used this literary style to get the reader more involved to see how the text will make them react while reading instead of just focusing on the narrator and the writer. While reading The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County Twain says “ He never smiled, he never frowned, and he never changed his voice from the gentle-flowing key” (Twain 4). Twain uses these words to show real details that the other movements would never use in their

Mark Twain is satirizing the advice young people are given by authoritative figures on different issues in life. The words of wisdom used to guide youth usually promote the same ideals and are repeated so often that in some sense they lose their strength. That does not mean though that the issues they touch upon are not important. Twain uses humor to actually make young people go beyond the banality and conformity and ask questions of importance.

Thus, Twain’s early experiences in life helped him to flesh out a well-rounded vocabulary and sparked his interests in adventure and traveling. Twain spent his boyhood in the riverside town of Hannibal, Missouri where he, “experienced the excitement of the colorful steamboats that docked at the town wharf, bringing comedians, singers, gamblers, swindlers, slave dealers, and assorted other river travelers” (Gribben). His exposure to much of the world at a young age opened his eyes to people groups, travel, and differences in dialect that would all become subject matter of his later writing. Twain wrote in Life on the Mississippi that he became acquainted with all the “different types of human nature that are to be found in fiction, biography, or history” while he worked as a steamboat apprentice (128). The diverse people and places he met during his time on the river all became awe-inspiring to him and served as the foundation for his works to come. Countless

In the passage “Two Ways of Seeing a River,” author Mark Twain attempts to share the feelings of loss he experienced after he was disillusioned to the beauty of the Mississippi River. Twain was a famous Nineteenth century author who had previously worked as a steamboat captain and who grew up along the river. The organization of the paragraphs in relation to each other is linear, and the content of each paragraph is dominated by a different rhetorical device.

The Mississippian time period was the period that a lot of amphibians and lizard like creatures were formed which was major to leading up to the jurassic and triassic witch when thing got bigger which was the effect of leading to those I this time period was to 359.9 to 323.2 million years ago. It was later than the jurassic and triassic period so the thing in this time period were little not as big as the up coming periods and eras. In this period the Gondwana was just coming in and the Euramerica which was kinda of a fish like thing.

The Mississippi River is highly regarded as the most important river in Louisiana. One of the lesser known rivers is just as phenomenal, however. The Atchafalaya River (pronounced At-cha-fa-lie-uh), which is adjacent to the Louisianan southern half of the Mississippi River, is so much of a phenomena that the United States Army Corps has been put in charge of controlling the river!

The first half of Life on the Mississippi was ideally written and reading the extremely detailed and captivating account of Twain's apprenticeship was quite enjoyable. However, the second part of the book was not as fascinating. The short stories were frequently only two pages long and were not very well connected to be a clear read. Though a few of the characters Twain met on his journey were quite interesting, the majority of them merely served as an example of a certain characteristic which he wished to further discuss. This may be due to the fact that Twain was much older by the time he made the trip in the second half of the book, and he had grown aware of the various faults of humanity and thus wrote more analytically and critically than he did in the first half to reflect his change in character and the change of the times he lived in.

One writing that Mark Twain is not as famous for, but is still a well known piece of work for showing the use of humor in his writings is, “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County”. This work starts off slow without much humor until later on in the writing. The humor picks up as Twain includes bits of sarcasm to the mix. The humor in this short work is not so hidden or subtle as it may have been in some of Twain’s other writings. One example of this sort of dry humor is, “And Smiley says, sorter indifferent like, ‘It might be a parrot, or it might be a canary, may be, but it an't it's only just a frog.’” (Jumping Frog). This shows a side and type of writing that is not usually seen with Twain. Usually the humor in his writings was always sort of hidden away and harder to pick out, but in this work, it is more obvious that he is trying to make it humorous. “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” may not be as widely known as some of Twain’s other work, but it is a good example of how he includes humor into his writings to catch the reader’s attention and to provide some comic relief from, at times, tense situations.

Another way to divide the criticism of the ending of the novel is to split the seriousness and the satire. The novel can be viewed as satire, with Tom providing the comic relief with his Romanticist like ideas. On the contrary, it can be viewed with utter disappointment, in regards to an overall poor and easy way to end the novel. As Marx argues, humour is used to mask the very human existence in which Huck faces (Page 337-338). I believe that Twain wants to abandon the notion of seriousness (slavery, southern hospitality, etc) to that of foolishness and childlike antics. Take, for instance, when Huck does some reconnaissance dressed as a woman, but gets caught in the act when he catches the lead ball between his legs (Page 48-54).Or when the town first realizes that Huck is gone and fires cannon over the water and throws mercury poisoned bread into the river. Superstitious, but silly antics like these and many others help back up the notion for humour. Although both of these events occur near the beginning of the novel, their direct sense of humour can be linked to the ending and its own satire. I believe that Twain’s message was impartial to that of the touchy subjects of slavery and general prejudice, but more so to that of the direct targeting of laughter and folly of the

Twain’s satire is that he wants the kids to take his advice and learn from it. Normally you get advice to be patient and diligent in college or when you get a career, but in this case he gives you this advice to become a batter liar in a humorous and entertaining way.

Mark Twain uses humor to show all that is wrong with society in many different ways. Humor is mostly shown through hypocrisy in “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” which is conveyed through the people in Huck’s life. Twain uses wit and humor to show what needs to be reformed in society.