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Mark Twain's contributions to literature
Mark Twain's contributions to literature
Contributions of mark twain
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Halley’s Comet, Mark Twain, and the American South
Mark Twain was born Samuel Langhorne Clemens on November 30th, 1885. It was during this period of history that Halley’s Comet was visible to Earth (Upton, 2013). Why that in itself may not be that remarkable, what does make it interesting as it pertains to Mark Twain is when it was visible again. Halley’s Comet returned to Earth about 75 years later (Upton, 2013). It was during its return on April 10th, 1885 that Mark Twain passed away. In fact, Twain hoped to die during the comet’s return. Twain stated, “I came in with Halley’s Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don’t go out with Halley’s Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: ‘Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together (Upton, 2013). While this is at the very least an interesting fact about Mark Twain, his literary works are what he is famous for.
Twain published at least thirty books and pamphlets and thousands of articles during his lifetime (Mark Twain Papers & Project: A
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Slavery, which is no doubt the darkest part of the pre-Civil War American South, is alive and well during the period in which The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is set. Huckleberry Finn unhappy with the life is now living, decides to run away from St. Petersburg, Missouri. Not long after he leaves, he encounters a runaway slave named Jim and they travel the Mississippi River together on a raft. Being a runaway slave makes Jim a fugitive. Obviously, there were many cases of runaway slaves in the pre-Civil War American South. Most of the time, the outcome was very poor for a runaway slave. Luckily, the reader didn’t have to endure this outcome as Jim was freed at the end of the
Together, Huckleberry Finn and a runaway slave named Jim head south along the Mississippi during one summer. During their adventures, Huck has trouble with his conscience—he knows Jim is a runaway, and that the socially correct thing to do would be to turn him in and get him sent back to his owner. However, whenever the opportunity to do so arises, Huck finds it impossible to do. Near the end of the book, when Huck is out meandering and Jim is still on the raft in the river, Jim is captured by an old man as a runaway and gets sold for $40. It is here, at this point, that Huck has his largest moral dilemma. Should he let Jim remain captured, as he is legally the property of Miss Watson, or should he rescue the true friend who has stayed steadfastly and unwaveringly by his side? Huck does not want to remain “wicked,” as he himself calls it, so he writes a letter to Miss Watson informing her that her slave is being held by a Mr. Phelps down south of Pikesville. He cannot, though, bring himself to send the letter. He winds up ripping the letter to shreds, with the comment, “All right, then, I’ll go to hell” (p. 207). He is willing to sacrifice his soul, and do a deed he believes he will be damned for, to save Jim, the runaway slave. It takes a character of great moral strength to do what he did.
I believe this is why Mark Twain blows every proportion out of the water as much as possible, to show the future readers how ridiculous he saw the world. Ernest D. Mason writes, “...Yet closer reading of the novel reveals that Huck supports Jim and his quest for freedom somewhat as a rope supports one who is being hanged.” (Mason 1). This quote not only proves many people’s arguments about how Twain intended this to be an anti-racist novel, but also just shows the reader that Huckleberry Finn himself is not a bad kid by any
Mark Twains The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is one of the greatest American novels ever written. The story is about Huck, a young boy who is coming of age and is escaping from his drunken father. Along the way he stumbles across Miss Watson's slave, Jim, who has run away because he overhead that he would be sold. Throughout the story, Huck is faced with the moral dilemma of whether or not to turn Jim in. Mark Twain has purposely placed these two polar opposites together in order to make a satire of the society's institution of slavery. Along the journey, Twain implies his values through Huck on slavery, the two-facedness of society, and represents ideas with the Mississippi River.
This book is set in the year 1852 in the south. It is a coming of age novel about an adolescent boy named Huckleberry Finn. In this early stage of his life, Huckleberry is taught many of life’s lessons that will help him deal with events that may occur later on in his life. Huck fakes his death in order to run away from his alcoholic father and his caretaker, Mrs. Watson, and also to escape from being “sivilized”. While floating down the Mississippi River, he meets Jim, the runaway slave who is owned by Mrs. Watson. His life begins to change when he is faced with many moral struggles along the way. He has to fight against society’s views, which conflict with his views. One of the most significant moral struggles that confronts him is the issue of slavery. Throughout the novel, Huck Finn becomes more self-reliant and mature. He begins to understand the evil in slavery and he realizes that he must follow his own conscience in his actions towards Jim.
Still a problem in today’s society, the treatment of African Americans continues to cause problems in books, movies, television, and music. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, a novel by Mark Twain, Huck Finn, and a runaway slave, Jim, search for freedom while traveling down the Mississippi River. Throughout their journey characters including Huckleberry Finn, the Phelps Family, and the Duke and King, depict racism and discrimination of African Americans in differing ways.
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn In recent years, there has been increasing discussion of the seemingly racist ideas expressed by Mark Twain in Huckleberry Finn. In some extreme cases the novel has even been banned by public school systems and censored by public libraries. The basis for these censorship campaigns has been the depiction of one of the main characters in Huckleberry Finn, Jim, a black slave. Jim, is a "typical" black slave who runs away from his "owner," Miss Watson. At several points in the novel, Jim's character is described to the reader, and some people have looked upon the characterization as racist. However, before one begins to censor a novel it is important to separate the ideas of the author from the ideas' of his characters. It is also important not to take a novel at face value and to "read between the lines" in order to capture the underlying themes of a novel. If one were to do this in relation to Huckleberry Finn, one would, without doubt, realize that it is not racist and is even anti-slavery. Through society, Huck’s father and Huck, Mark Twain reveals a challenge to slavery.
Mark Twain was a free spirit with a love for the outdoors, Twain had felt closely tied to the grand Mississippi River. Mark Twain was so tied to the river that he took to his pen name from a river people used to call that meant “ two fathoms deep”. Twain grew up in the city of Hannibal, Missouri a town located directly off of the river. Mark was so in love with the river and steamboats he pursued his dream and at the age of twenty-one he became a riverboat pilot. During the civil war the Mississippi river was closed to all traffic so Twain decided to pack up and head west to Nevada. This is where Twain took to journalism and began to develop the style of writing that made him, so famous
Another theme that is dealt with in this book is slavery. In fact, slavery is one of the main topics that has been frequently debated in regards to Huckleberry Finn since it was first published. Twain himself was vehemently anti-slavery and Huckleberry Finn can in many ways be seen as an allegory for why slavery is wrong. Twain uses Jim, a slave who is one of the main characters, as a way of showing the human side of a slave. Everything about Jim is presented through emotions: Jim runs away because Miss Watson was going to sell him South and separate him from his family; Jim is trying to become free so he can buy his family's freedom; and Jim takes care of Huck and protects him on their journey downriver in a very materialistic manner.
When Finn finds out about Jim’s situation, he decides to let him be. The two of them accompany each other during their journey, and begin to form a friendship. With the reminder that they are from different classes and races to society, the choice to become friends is something that is unreal in the real world, at the time being. However what is truly unrealistic is Finn’s decision, or lack thereof, to turn Jim in as soon as possible. This is when the story starts to become fictional, according to 19th century America. A white person letting a runaway slave continue running away, let alone refusing to turn him in is blasphemy. In 19th century America, you were supposed to be as discriminatory as humanly possible. In 19th century America, those of color are like a car or a house, just property to invest in. You weren’t supposed to befriend or show much compassion to anyone of color if you were white. Yet here comes Huckleberry Finn bonding with runaway slave Jim. This action continues to affect the story’s events further down the line. Cutting to sometime after the pair initially embark on their journey, the two are making their way , when they are nearly seen by some criminals. While the crooks themselves don’t play an important part, the actions Finn performs are. He briefly thinks of turning Jim in, and considers abandoning him. The reason why this is necessary to point out, is that Twain is using Finn’s conflict to help with
Mark Twain uses humor, irony, and satire in his short stories. Also known as Samuel Clemens, he was a writer of the late 19th century in America. Most famously known for his work The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Mark Twain was born on November 30th, 1835, in the state of Florida, Missouri. He was the sixth child in his family, making him the youngest child.
The Life of Samuel Clemens A.K.A. Mark Twain Samuel Langhorne Clemens is better known as Mark Twain, the distinguished novelist, short story writer, essayist, journalist, and literary critic who ranks among the great figures of American Literature. Twain was born in Florida Missouri, in 1835, To John Marshall Clemens and Jane Lampton. As a new born Twain already had moved four times westward. In 1839 the family moved again, this time eastward to Hannibal, Missouri. Hannibal was a frontier town of less than 500 residents. As small as the town was it offered valuable materials and opportunities for a young writer. Most of the residents knew Samuel well, considering they were on the lower half of the social scale, such as poor whites and slaves. The town of Hannibal was mostly used for farmers coming in from the countryside. It was also a river town, swamped with travelers moving up stream and down stream. Some of the travelers were steamboat men, circus performers, minstrel companies, and showboat actors. Since all this action was going on all the time, that opened a big door to the beginning of Samuel’s stories. It provided a huge source of literary material. Shortly after the death of his father in 1847, he ended the brief period of his schooling to become a printer’s apprentice. Like many nineteenth century authors, he was preparing for his writing career later in life. Working as a Printer’s apprentice he got practice as a typesetter and miscellaneous reading. The first thing Samuel wrote as a used piece was a few skits for his brothers Orion’s Hannibal newspaper and a sketch, for The Dandy Frightening The Squatter, published in Boston in 1852. The first real book ever published by Mark Twain was Life on the Mississippi River. Between 1853 and 1857 Clemens worked a journeyman printer in seven different places. During this trip of making sketches and writing stories, he began eastward by boat. Twain started writing letters telling about his visits to New York and the Middle West in 1867. On his trip he seemed to have gotten him self in a lot a trouble such as disorderly conduct. After time passed Mark kept writing short stories here and there and a few sketches also. However, in 1869 he became part owner of the Buffalo Express. In 1870 Mark met the girl of his dreams and Olivia Langdon and
Mark Twain was born Samuel Langhorne Clemens on November 30, 1835, in Florida, Missouri. When Samuel Clemens was four years old, his family moved to Hannibal, Missouri, where he spent his childhood. Clemens first approach to literature was through typesetting for a newspaper in 1851. At the time Orion, his brother, was a newspaper publisher in Hannibal. From 1857 until 1861, he served as the pilot of a riverboat on the Mississippi River. He later used this experience in creating his novels. His first writings appeared in a newspaper on February 2, 1863 under the pen name “Mark Twain.';
Throughout the novel by Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, there were countless times that Jim was mistreated and hurt. Jim was a slave, but Huck Finn developed a strong friendship with him. He felt as if he shouldn’t be trusting Tom the whole time, yet still did. Ultimately, Tom knew that Jim was set free and was only planning and following through with the escape to have fun. The way Jim was treated was very harsh, and people took advantage of it, knowing that he was a slave and couldn’t do anything about it. The ending was not appropriate. At the end of the book, Jim did not get the ending he deserved. He was mistreated and faced hardships of being the minority race, so he had to do what people told him to do if they were white.
Mark Twain, the pen name of Samuel Clemens, was the author of many stories, including, "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" and "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County". He was born in 1835 and died in 1910. Although his education was limited, he was able to be an apprentice printer which may have started his career in writing. A few of the notable qualities in Mark Twain's character shows that he was honest, determined, and had a good sense of humor.
In the appropriately titled novel, "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn", by author, Mark Twain, a young boy, named, Huckleberry Finn's life is completely changed. The story is basically that, Huck is sent to live with his strict relatives that try to conform him into someone he isn't, but, sequentially ends up traveling down the Mississippi River, with an escaped slave, Jim. As the novel progresses, Jim and Huck develop an extremely close friendship, which makes him change his views on slavery. Despite numerous chances, Huck never turns Jim in, because of his new outlook on slavery. Although slavery is a main theme in the book, it is not the only one. Because, author, Mark Twain creates a social critique by juxtaposing the idea of freedom against conformity, civilization, and social order. The reader can comprehend that although Jim is clearly looking for freedom, Huck is also, and desperately. Even though Huck is clearly not a slave, he still feels trapped with inescapable restrictions, and limitations, his new guardians and society has placed upon him. It is hard for Huck to conform to a way of life filled with hypocrisies. The novel as a whole reveals Huck’s resistance to conformity in a culture filled with religious hypocrisies. Many characters that affect Huck's freedom, like, his father, Widow Douglas, Miss Watson, Aunt Polly and Sally, the duke and the King constrain Huck to the confinement of his freedom, forcing him to begin his ultimate adventure.