Mark TwainMark TwainMark TwainMark Twain

Important Points

•1. Mark Twain’s Major Works

•2. Characteristics of Twain’s Writings

Mark Twain

grew up on the Mississippi River

at 12, father died, left schoola printer's apprentice, a printer, a silver miner, a steamboat pilot and a frontier journalist

gave him a wide knowledge of humanity

tragic events in later life

his investments failed,

had to give lectures to pay off his debts,

his wife and two daughters died

works

“The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County”

a frontier tale that makes nationally famous

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

two adventures book” The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

highly praised by Hemingway (“From which all modern American literature comes.“)

Samuel Clemens’ Major WorksSamuel Clemens’ Major Works

• The Gilded Age written in collaboration with Charles Dudley Warner

• Life on the Mississippi

Samuel Clemens’ Major Works

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 　

The Man That Corrupted Hardleybug 　 The Mysterious Stranger Autobiography These works contain bitter attacks on the

human race

The Innocents Abroad Roughing It Pudd'nhead Wilson The Prince and the Pauper A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court American Claimant

Writing Features

local colourism

represented social life through portraits of local places which he knew best drew from his own rich fund of knowledge of people and places

tall tales (highly exaggerated) a texture of most l

ocal color literature ， a kink of humor

a master oflanguage

shortconcrete direct in effect

simp1e, even ungrammatical sentence & structures

words

he used colloquial language, vernacular language, dialects

American dialect

an American language

Mark Twain was the first truly American writer, and all of us since are his heirs, who descended from him."

Mark Twain’s Writing Features

humor

is of witty remarks mocking at small things and making people laugh

is a kind of artistic style used to criticize the social injustice

The Adventures of Hucklberry Finn

commonly regarded as one of the Great American Novels, and is one of the first major American novels written in the vernacular, characterized by local color regionalism.

It is told in the first person by Huckleberry "Huck" Finn, best friend of Tom Sawyer and narrator of two other Twain novels.

It noted for its colorful description of people and places along the Mississippi River. By satirizing a Southern antebellum society that was already anachronistic at the time, the book is an often scathing look at entrenched attitudes, particularly racism. The drifting journey of Huck and his friend Jim, a runaway slave, down the Mississippi River on their raft may be one of the most enduring images of escape and freedom in all of American literature.

Major themes

novel that embodies the search for freedom. He wrote during the post-Civil War period wh

en there was an intense white reaction against blacks. Twain took aim squarely against racial prejudice, increasing segregation, lynchings, and the generally accepted belief that blacks were sub-human. He "made it clear that Jim was good, deeply loving, human, and anxious for freedom."

Huck is in moral conflict with the received values of the society in which he lives, and while he is unable to consciously refute those values even in his thoughts, he makes a moral choice based on his own valuation of Jim's friendship and human worth, a decision in direct opposition to the things he has been taught.

a bildungsroman