Mark Twain: How his childhood affected his writings

Mark Twain: How his childhood affected his writings

Introduction

Mark Twain wrote many novels and short stories. Two of the most well known are Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. Tom Sawyer is a novel about a young boy, named Tom, and his friends who seek adventure and excitement to escape their lives. He lives with his Aunt Polly and his half brother Sid, who often tells on Tom for his misbehaviors. Throughout the novel, Tom violates the rules and conventions of St. Petersburg's society, and each time Tom becomes a hero through innate cleverness and ingenuity. Huck Finn, which is the sequel to Tom Sawyer, is a deeper book concentrated on the nature of reality. It is about a boy ,named Huck, who runs away from his abusive father to Jackson Island. Here he meets a black slave named Jim, who ran away in search of freedom. The two of them float down the Mississippi River on a raft to freedom. On their way the experience many adventures and trials. Many of Twain's themes in these novels include family, friendship, and adventure to contrast racism, social class, and hypocrisy.

Twain's writing were affected greatly on his life growing up in the South. The characters in his novel, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, are drawn from his boyhood world. Tom Sawyer was based on him and his friends, Aunt polly was based on his mother, Judge Thatcher his father, Mary and Sidney are based on his brother and sister, and so forth. Twain wrote mainly about the South near the Mississippi, because that is where grew up and worked. He knew the culture very well, and he used the things he knew about in his writings. An example of this is slavery. Twain used slavery as a major issue in Huckleberry Finn because he grew up in a time when slavery was very common. Twain beleived slavery was wrong and that all people were equal, and he shows us this in his writings. It has been said of Mark Twain that he was an "American writer and humorist, whose best work is characterized by broad, often irreverent humor or biting social satire."(Twain INT 97) Mark Twain uses satirical characters, a humoristic style, and realism to portray to the reader his vision of the late 19th century America.

Mark Twain shows his vision of America through his use of satirical characters. James l. Roberts explains that "Satire uses humor and wit to criticize human institutions, manors, and persons."(Tom Sawyer Cliff 81) An example, of satire, in Tom Sawyer, some of the school kids were reciting poetry on examination day. The girls compositions were filled with insincerity, gushiness, and floweriness. Which got the audiences attention, little did they know these girls were putting in a scene. Most of these girls were rebellious and just wanted to look good in front of everyone else. They did so by becoming something they were not, by being ...