PR Paper contrast & compare on Twain & Thoreau - Essay Example

Both these work of these great explore the ‘façade’ that is life. According to Mark Twin’s “Two ways of seeing a River,” the beauty that he once to marvel in at River Mississippi is no longer present in his eye, something that makes him conclude that that splendor was just a façade that ultimately get lost (Twain, 1883). Mark Twain and Thoreau believe that this façade cut across all facet of life which therefore makes him conclude that life is one big lie. They both believe that this lie is better manifested in the fact that it can no longer stand the onslaught of familiarity as can be demonstrated in the case of River Mississippi.

According to Thoreau in the book “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For,” the world is but a façade that is ever being manipulated by the mass media and other personalities to suit their selfish interest. Just like the way the Germany confederacy was in perpetually transformation before the war such that a German national could never tell at any given time its boundaries, ‘reality’ as we know it is also involved in an unending cycle of metamorphosis (Thoreau, 2006). Even the multiplicity of the so-called internal improvements is just but a façade that only complicate life further.

While Thoreau thinks that there is always an escape route from these lies camouflaged as realities and developments, a route that can enable a person to experience reality that is devoid of any manipulation, Mark Twain thinks that these kinds of lies camouflaging themselves as realities characterize our lives, at times even spicing it up and therefore indispensable in our lives. In fact, Thoreau idea of what we call reality in our daily life is something is a creation of a number of tools the prominence of them all being the mass media which continuously elongated itself the responsibility of shaping people opinion.

According to Thoreau, even what we call progress in our daily life is just a creation of the mass media and therefore unrealistic. Contrary to Mark Twain, Thoreau believes that there is nothing that can be gained from this distortion of reality that surrounds our life. Thoreau even goes out of his way to blame the so-called reality by the mass media for wasting precious time that people can use to attend to serious things that adds value in their life. Mark Twain is of a different view. According to him the ‘reality’ that we perceive is only a façade that disappears after some time, however, despite this act of disappearing it most importantly spice-up our life.

Mark twain wonders loudly what would be of life without these facades masquerading as reality? This is ironic because while Mark Twain is rooting for a life surrounded with beauty from these facades, Thoreau is rooting for a total disappearance from these unrealistic things that have kept him all that time from doing more serious things like reading the Homer which he does ultimately after taking exile from the earthly ‘realities’ that is full of distortion from among others, the mass media.

Despite the unanimity that Mark Twain and Thoreau have on the omnipresence of non-existing realities, their difference on how to react to these ‘realties’ can be said to be emanating from their varying setting that they perceive these realities from. For Thoreau, the reality that he has issues with is that which can be found in town. Mark twain on the other hand is describing the countryside as can be demonstrated his mention of the Mississippi River. Works CitedThoreau, D.

, Henry, Where I lived, and what I lived For, New York: Penguin, 2006.Twain, Mark, Two way of seeing a River. New York: Penguin, 1883.