Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by the pseudonym Mark Twain, has been central to American literature for over a century. His seemingly effortless diction accurately exemplified America’s southern culture. From his early experiences in journalism to his most famous fictional works, Twain has remained relevant to American writing as well as pop culture. His iconic works are timeless and have given inspiration the youth of America for decades. He distanced himself from formal writing and became one of the most celebrated humorists. Mark Twain’s use of the common vernacular set him apart from authors of his era giving his readers a sense of familiarity and emotional connection to his characters and himself.
Mark Twain is world
…show more content…
He was one of the first to descriptively verbalize southern speech in writing. Not only was it uncommon for people of Twain’s era to write in vernacular, it was new-fangled for him to write about the subject of vernacular itself. It is a difficult task to write about, much less in, a dialect to which one is foreign without appearing foolish. Twain’s ability to both with ease marked him as an authority on the subject.
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
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.
The following paper relies heavily on Clemens’ personal correspondence taken from the University of California Press’ five volume collection of his letters. Additionally, Joseph B. McCullough and Janice McIntire-Strasburg’s Mark Twain at the Buffalo Express, the edited collection of Twain’s writings for the Express, provided a useful source of his public writing during his stay in Buffalo. Justin Kaplan’s comprehensive biography, Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain, was also useful and careful to include much information about his Buffalo experience. Unfortunately, no found notebooks or journals written by Clemens record the hectic years from 1869 to 1872.
“The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” is a piece of fiction that is so strongly written it can be conceived as the truth. Mark Twain’s ability to paint a clear and realistic picture of the Southern way of life in 1885 is unparalleled in any author. The story of Huckleberry Finn is one that gives ample opportunity for interesting sights into the South at that time. The story consists of Huck and a runaway slave, along with two men and Huck’s faithful friend Tom Sawyer and some points of the novel, floating down the Mississippi’s shores and encountering different feats of Southern culture, tragedy, and adventure. A nice example of Twain’s ability to turn an event on a river into an analysis of Southern culture is a fun bit of the story where Huck
Mark Twain’s syntax and diction make a distinct writing style that conveys not at all simple ideas about life and oppression through a young and uneducated boy who speaks mostly in messy and short sentences. The passage above shows Mark Twain’s skill at conveying adventure and childish fun just by vivid imagery- something heavily relied on in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Words and phrases such as: “best fun”, “right down good sociable time”, and the misspelled, “intellectural” in the passage show Twain’s entirely informal diction. Mark Twain also chooses to write with a very life-like syntax, using short sentences and rambling character dialogue.
During the latter nineteenth century, the famous author Mark Twain, less commonly known as Samuel Clemens, produced The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. A few years prior to the publishing of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain released possibly his most famous book, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, which is very much an adventure novel. In the early chapters of Twain’s sequel, it appears that¬¬¬¬ The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is another adventure novel, and that it is just following a different character from Twain’s earlier world of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. However, it is quickly realized that The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is in fact not an adventure book for the youth, but a much more mature story with a large amount of symbolism and satire. This novel by Mark Twain follows the life of a young boy, Huckleberry Finn, as he rides down the mighty Mississippi River on a makeshift raft. Along the way, the boy runs into many various challenges, or episodes, which seem to hinder his progress down the Mississippi. Deep satirical and symbolical meaning can be found in each of these episodes, as Mark Twain was known to love satire and to enjoy making fun of all aspects of life and society. Many have praised The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as a “great American novel” due to many conventional themes that they try to find in Huck’s ‘adventures’. The Adventures of Huckleberry
This novel is a period piece, set in the south before the onset of the Civil War. In order to fully immerse the reader into this setting, Twain made sure to include all of the different dialects that a person in that setting might hear. As the Athenaeum deftly explains, “(The characters are) schooled in half a dozen extraordinary dialects—the Pike County dialect in all its forms, the dialect of the Missouri negro, and ‘the extremest form of the backwoods South-Western dialect,’ to wit.” This makes the story and characters more entertaining, as it allows the reader to truly immerse themselves into the narrative.
Imagine it’s the 1800's. You're walking along the banks of the Mississippi river, in your newly free life, enjoying the view. There's just one thing, you're a black man. Next thing you know a slave holder cracks you across the back of the head, and drags you away to his plantation. There you work for the rest of your life, unpaid, doing hard, laborious work. This was the real life experience of many people during the contentious era of slavery. Mark Twain was a regionalist American writer who grew up on the Mississippi, piloted a steamboat on the river, and was surrounded by the horrors of slavery during his childhood which influenced him to write the controversial novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
The famous person chosen to be analyzed in this paper is the famous literary author, Mark Twain. Originally named as Samuel Langhorne Clemens, Mark twain is the name of the author selected for the paper. American novelist and humorist, Mark Twain is more known for his two most important writing "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn". These two were written in the 19th century and have been known as greatest American novels.
My own story, which started more than 25 years after Mr. Twain’s career started, is one of Mr. Twain’s best work, but then again I would be a bit biased wouldn’t I? I should start by saying that Mr. Twain had written my story every-which way. He started it in the winter of 1872, worked on it more than a year later in the spring and summer of 1874, then skipped a whole nother year,
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, is one of the most widely loved and celebrated American writers. Next to William Shakespeare, he is arguably the most prominent writer the world has ever seen. In his works, Mark Twain depicts the everyday life of American people. They reflect the crisis of American democracy, on which Twain first placed high hopes and in which he was disappointed until the end of his life.
Mark Twain who’s real name is Sir Langhorn Clemens is one of the best loved writers of America. Twain’s appeal to the readers is based on various factors. Some see in his humour the explanation for his great popularity. Others feel that it is the least of his attractive features and he is more certain of remembrance as a great novelist than as a humourist and satirist. Despite all these conceptual dilly-dallying there is an understanding between him and his public. That’s why he continues to have an almost seductive charm for his readers. The reasons for his success are sentimental. America always sees him with real affection, as the first of her writers to draw from the American soil, the material for an original and lasting work. Thus
Mark Twain himself had this to say about his novel: "Huckleberry Finn is a book of mine about a boy with a sound heart and a deformed conscience that come into conflict...and conscience suffers defeat.” In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, his view of society starts out as naïve and childish, but as he experiences life on the Mississippi, he grows into a man with a realistic standpoint of what the world really was. He develops his views through other characters he meets meandering the mystical waters of the River. Along with major changes in Huck’s standings, Twain uses social commentary to attack the formalities of the people and environment he lived in harmony with in a subtle, sophisticated manner.
Mark Twain’s works are some of the most studied and exalted when it comes to American Literature. Twain lived in many different places in his life time, thus his works had roots in many different areas of American Culture. From a silver prospector to a printing press worker, he held many different jobs in these locations. He is also regarded as one of the greatest humorists of American Literature. In fact, his works were considered to have no place in literature by many experts until the 1910’s. He is regarded as one of the greatest American authors of all time. And of course, from being such a prestigious writer, he has and award named after him, and it is to be given to the best humorist of the year.
In the literary work ‘The Adventures of Tom Sawyer’ by Mark Twain, the reader is introduced to a mischievous and headstrong boy named Tom Sawyer. Mark Twain, the pseudonym of Samuel Langhorne Clemens is an American writer, journalist and humorist who won a worldwide audience for his stories of the youthful adventures of Tom Sawyer. He is characterized to be the quintessential writer in the regard of playing significant roles in shaping the American literature canon. Besides, for decades many literary scholars note that Twain’s novels consider being the paragon of the writers; “Mark Twain remains as central as ever not only in American literature” Cox (1910) and “The father of American literature… the first truly American writer and all of us
Mark Twain’s life influenced his work and his future career as a writer. Mark Twain’s real name is actually Langhorne Clemens. He was a Journalist, Lecturer, and Novelist who came into fame for his narratives such as The Innocents Abroad, Roughing It, and Life on the Mississippi. He is also famed for his boyhood Adventures such as The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Mark Twain was a humorist and an intense moralist. These traits about his personality and his morality towards life and himself can be seen in his writing. These traits that are held in his writing and the Quality of his writing have made his popular public figure and one of Americas best and most beloved authors.