MARK TWAIN: QUACK PHILOSOPHER Mark Twain is, according to critics and readers alike, the first great American novelist (Reuben). Throughout his lifetime Twain, born Samuel Longhorn Clemens, held an eclectic mix of jobs, and, wrote a great deal about his experiences and his boyhood. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (AOTS) and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (AOHF) are a pair of novels by Twain that: present the new and radical changes in the early 1800s in contrast to the old fashioned ways; mirror Twain's life as a young boy growing up in a one-horse town on the Mississippi River; and, give the reader an idea of his view that the loss of innocence signals the coming of age. Twain was born in 1835 and Tom Sawyer grew up in the 1840s. Around this time, America, especially the North, was undergoing "revolutionary changes in transportation and communication" (Geise 93). The river steam boat was invented in 1807 (Roberts and Kennedy 305) and subsequently took over mass transportation from sailboats using the ocean (Geise). This was a big change from the previous small scale or trans-ocean transport. After the steam boat came the steam train which revolutionised transportation in a similar fashion, and they synergistically opened the West
. . .
All, or most, of the experiences and feelings Twain had growing up in Hannibal are mirrored in Tom Sawyer's story. Huck is a dirt-poor boy who is practical for the sake of survival. ' Twain had to act like an adult at that age, so here he was saying that boys have to behave like boys before they can become men. Philosophically, Twain wants to show the reader that the boys' loss of innocence is how they became mature adults rather than remain impractical or conscienceless boys as they had been before. Tom once witnessed a murder and experienced conflicts of emotions and had bad dreams until he gave into his conscience and told the true murder story, letting an innocent man go free (Twain 147). The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, notes. His father died and he was thrust into the 'real world,' his school of life without much warning. When they took on board the King and the Duke these other travelers wanted to turn Jim in. He quit school in fifth grade (twelve years old), just as most children did at that time (Kaplan 356).
Approximate Word count =
2270
Approximate Pages =
9 (250 words per page double spaced)
Simply subscribe to view this paper, and 100,000 others.
| CREDIT CARD |
ONLINE CHECK |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
JOIN BY PHONE
|
|
|
