Matthew Enriquez
Mr. Fernando
Period 1
19th December 2018
Capstone Revision
Mark Twain whose real name is Samuel L. Clemens is a realism writer who worked as a steamboat pilot and even traveled towards the West with the hopes of finding gold and striking it rich but his dreams didn’t come to realization so he got a job with a newspaper and that is how he became one the biggest authors ever. Although he achieved his dream of becoming a steamboat pilot he became one at the wrong time as almost simultaneously the civil started and civilians could no long use the steamboats during times of war. Samuel L. Clemens also known as Mark Twain is famous for works such as, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County which are considered texts from the Realism movement. The Realism Movement was a movement to depict the true horrors of real life and not romanticize them as many people did before, specifically due to the enlightenment and industrial revolution. Realism embraced the progressive aims of modernism, seeking new truths through the reexamination and overturning of traditional systems of values and beliefs. Coincidentally the realism movement began in France in the 1850s which is just seventeen years before the Civil War. The time right before the Civil War was a very cruel and terrible place specifically in the South of the United States with all of the racism and mistreatment of the African American People. After the Civil war broke out Mark Twain’s lifelong dream of becoming a steamboat pilot came undone as all civilian traffic was stopped on the river he worked on. After the war he went west in hope to find hold following the Gold Rush but it had already ended by 1855. The beginning of the Civil War occurring seventeen years after the start of the realism movement paved the way for Mark Twain to write using the Realism themes as he is able to relate to them the most. Given all of the negative things Mark Twain went through he may have been inspired by the new popular movement sweeping the west world and thus he decided to write most of his novels and short stories under the realism movement.
Samuel L. Clemens also known as Mark Twain was born on November 30, 1835 in Florida Missouri. His actual name is Samuel L. Clemens but he wrote under the name Mark Twain when he secured his second journalist job. Some other occupations that he had throughout his lifetime consist of being a Riverboat Pilot, Journalist, lecturer, entrepreneur, and inventor. Samuel L.Clemens Died on April 21, 1910 in Redding Connecticut due to a heart attack. At the age of 4 his family moved to Hannibal. Hannibal a town that was booming at the time due to railroad growth and access to the Missouri River. He lived in Hannibal till he was 17. Mark Twain’s parents were polar opposites of each other, his mother loved fun and would laugh and smile everyday but Mark Twain claims to have never seen his father laugh. In 1847 his father died unexpectedly and his mother became the head of the house. Hannibal most likely had a great impact on Mark Twain’s life as Steamboats would arrive at least 3 times a day there and they would blow their whistles alerting almost the entire town. At the age of 9 Mark Twain witnessed the murder of a local man and the next year he witnessed the murder of a slave when his white owner beat him with a metal rod. He went to school till he was 12 but since his father was dead and his family needing income he left school and began working as an apprentice printer at the Hannibal Courier but he would get paid in ration of food rather that straight cash. By 1857 he was finally gonna he able to fulfill his dream and started learning how to pilot a steam boat, and in just two years he became a licensed pilot and this became his job as he rode around in the great river. A steamboat pilot in 1835 brought in a solid amount of money and it was more than enough for Samuel to live on by himself. Unfortunately his service was cut short due to the our break of the Civil War in 1861 which caused all civilian traffic on the river to stop. Because of the war Samuel like others had to choose which side they were going to join, the Union or the Confederacy and he joined the Confederate Army in 1861 I believe this is due to the fact that he had lived in the south all of his life and wasn’t about to go against everyone else in the south and not due to the fact that he supported slavery as he did not support it. After a couple of weeks his unit disbanded and that ended his time in Missouri as he left out West towards California. He went West expecting to strike it rich with gold but by 1862 he was broke and didn’t have a job. Yet again he went to work for another Newspaper office but this time he wrote sketches and editorials. Working at this Newspaper office is how Samuel L. Clemens adopted the pen name Mark Twain. Mark Twain doesn’t necessarily make sense for a name as it was slang commonly used by Steamboat Pilots which mean “twelve feet of water”.
One of the more apparent themes in the novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is the theme of Realism as he represented the life at the time and he also flawlessly represented society at the time in which he was writing this novel. He nearly perfectly represented how it would have been to grow up and live in the village of St. Petersburg, Missouri. Although The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is mostly about his own experiences growing up there are some parts of it that have been made up. One of the more apparent themes in the novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is the theme of Realism as he represented the life at the time and he also flawlessly represented society at the time in which he was writing this novel.The exact same quote also symbolizes how hard reality hits children, as they believe adulthood is great but in reality it's not.
"The widder eats by a bell, she goes to bed by a bell; she gits up by a bell—everything's so awful reglar a body can't stand it.
"Well, everybody does it that way, Huck." (Twain 280 )
He also supports his Realism style of writing by choosing a small town such as St. Petersburg he could have written about a better known location or even had a more likable character. Mark Twain wanted to give a view of his own life through this novel even going to the extent of providing a realistic view of a community with separations in societal classes, most clearly shown when he points out life’s of slaves and the imbalance between rich and poor people. Although Mark Twain himself didn’t have anything against the slaves and didn’t hate black people, he still represents the hatred that many people showed towards these slaves during the time period in his books as many didn’t even see them as normal human beings and saw slaves as a completely different species.
"Well, what of it? They'll all lie. Leastways all but the n*****. I don't know him. But I never see a n***** that wouldn't lie. Shucks!"(Twain 55)
He also supports his realist form of writing by choosing a small town such as St. Petersburg he could have written about a better known location or even had a more likable character.
“Say, Huck, if we find a treasure here, what you going to do with your share?"
"Well, I'll have pie and a glass of soda every day, and I'll go to every circus that comes along. I bet I'll have a gay time."
"What you going to do with yourn, Tom?"
"I'm going to buy a new drum, and a sure-'nough sword, and a red necktie and a bull pup, and get married." (Twain 197)
Although Mark Twain did change it a little bit as he portrayed St. Petersburg the way he would like to remember it. He did not change the religious manner in which the south operated, as Mark Twain himself wasn’t a very Religious man The Adventures of Tom Sawyer still has a reference to one of the biggest religions in the south when Mark was growing up, Christianity.
"Oh, Tom, I reckon we're goners. I reckon there ain't no mistake 'bout where I'll go to. I been so wicked."
"Dad fetch it! This comes of playing hookey and doing everything a feller's told not to do. I might a been good, like Sid, if I'd a tried — but no, I wouldn't, of course. But if ever I get off this time, I lay I'll just waller in Sunday-schools!" And Tom began to snuffle a little.
"You bad!" and Huckleberry began to snuffle too. "Consound it, Tom Sawyer, you're just old pie, 'longside o' what I am. Oh, lordy, lordy, lordy, I wisht I only had half your chance."(Twain 92) Another way in which he portrays life in St. Petersburg at the time is by using their “speech” which stays true to how people would have sounded like talking in that time period in a southern city such as St. Petersburg. But towards the end of the novel Mark Twain begins to lose his realist writing format and begins introducing wild twists that are almost never seen in everyday life which can be seen as an escapist for of literature which is a form of writing which immerses the reader in exotic situations or activities.
The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County is another great example of realism literature as it portrays relatable realistic characters which readers may be able to picture right away. Especially if the reader is able to think of someone who can relate to Smiley as they may know someone who is just like him. Mark Twain makes Smiley like a common man giving him characteristics that many people have such as impatience and even a gambling problem which can be cause by boredom in their town, city, or community.
After going through Mark Twain’s biography I feel I have found what has shaped him on his journey to becoming a full time author of great novels such as The Adventures Of Huckleberry Fin, and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Key points like his father dying when he was young and that forcing him to quit school later on and find a job in order to support the household. Also things like witnessing two murders as a young boy also more than likely shaped his outlook on life. Add in the fact that he lived and fought during the time of the Civil War and seeing his country in shambles may have affected what he thinks of life in America. And Finally the fact that he had to postpone his dream of piloting a steamboat until he was about 23 years old helped him realize that with hard work and dedication to your dream sooner or later you can and will achieve it. I believe Mark Twain was shaped and molded by all of these occurrences including being raised by polar opposites of each other and having his father just suddenly die it would have an extremely great affect on him. If I had these sort of things happen in my life I don’t believe there would be any chance of it not having an affect on me especially since witnessing three deaths at a very young age would most definitely cause me to have a certain out look on life. Due to the time period in which Mark Twain grew up and lived in he was molded by major events like the movement westward towards the new West and being part of a war that killed nearly 1.26 million Americans also affected his life. Therefore because he went on to write primarily realism literature he decided to portray life exactly how it seemed to him especially due to the fact that he doesn’t necessarily write much on anything other that real life at the time.
All of Mark Twain’s past experiences helped to shape his way of writing whether it be from the events that he witnessed with his own two eyes or the events that indirectly affected his life, he used those events and turned them into literature that does not sugar coat anything and some stories even depict certain character traits from when he was growing up. Mark Twain was writer whom didn’t care about sugar coating life or making it seem better than it was but rather was more concerned with portraying exactly what it would feel like to live and or grow up in the 1800s or more precisely in a southern town during the 1800s. This is more than likely due to what he experienced growing up it those same southern cities that he writes about, experiences such as having to leave school early to help his mother, and witnessing America in shambles giving him a better view in how new America was to being its own country and trying to compromise its views on slavery between the South and the North resulting in the Civil War. Because of the time period Mark Twain grew up and lived in we were treated to great novels like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer which nearly perfectly represent what it was like to be a boy from Missouri from 1835-1900.
Works Cited
Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. American Publishing Company, 1876
Twain, Mark. The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County. American Publishing Company, 1865
Mark Twain Biography, Biography.com Editors. The Biography.com website. https://www.biography.com/people/mark-twain-9512564. December 19, 2018, A&E Television Networks