Mark Twain Life on the Mississippi - Essay Example

Full & or Number) Life on the Mississippi (by Mark Twain) 20 September (estimated word count 049) The Literary Style of Mark Twain The writing style of Mark Twain (real name Samuel L. Clemens) can be described as a bit wordy; it is also irreverent on certain matters pertaining to American social culture or life in general, and lastly, a social commentary based on biting satire on what he saw in American life, such as the pretensions of some people. He is mocking at times in this aspect, pointing out the many inconsistencies he observed in some people he had met in his travels. His style is the reflection of his perception of life as a broad canvas that is enclosed in a foggy vastness that is best seen dimly as a series of interconnected events in one long continuum. Aside from being wordy, satirical and humorous, his style is also realistic in a sense because he tries to portray the people he met and the places he had been to as really authentic. This is shown by his frequent use of the native dialect, using a language that is conversational, often with grammatical errors and racist or foul words intentionally included (Gribben 1). This is the essence of his writing style his readers find refreshing and interesting enough to make him a world-famous and relatively wealthy writer in his time. An example of this extreme humor that at the same time puts a satirical twist to it is this passage in the first chapter (The River and its History) concerning the first sighting of the Mississippi River by a white man named De Soto and the intervening years before any serious expeditions were sent to further explore it. He contrasted this lack of interest to that of a possible discovery of a creek in the North Pole by which European nations and America will send fifteen different teams, “one to explore the creek and the rest to hunt for each other!” The Varied Life Along the Mississippi River Life along the Mississippi River is very greatly varied, because the entire region in which the river runs through is very large indeed and it is also very productive, in that it could support a large or dense human population because of its immense fertility. It sheer size can at times boggle the mind, because the vastness of its river basin alone can be compared to that of the combined areas of England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Austria, Italy and Turkey (Twain 8). Any person can meet all kinds of people just by traveling along the Mississippi River, get to meet all types of fellow river passengers such as gamblers, comedians, singers, swindlers, and slave dealers (Gribben 1) because this regions is teeming with people on the go, going somewhere else to earn their living or find their fortunes. Mark Twain himself admitted that he purposely changed his life by aspiring to be the river pilot that he often admired in his youth; it provides good income on a high salary and it is also a very good way to get a real-life education in lieu of education obtained in schools. He did not attend high school or college; he was a self-taught expert because he is very observant of people behaviors, actuations, and actually that of human nature itself whether found in all of fiction, biography or history (ibid.); he got a real education by meeting all types or kinds of people along the way in his frequent travels along the Mississippi River as a pilot. His adventures on the Mississippi served as a substitute for his formal education and he relished this part of his life because it provided him with many materials for his writings. A significant event in his life was the coincidence of him piloting the last steamboat out of New Orleans going to St. Louis at the outbreak of the Civil War and it was fully two decades that he was again able to travel along the same route, going backwards this time from St. Louis to New Orleans; he was a witness to all those changes and developments in this social arena. The Civil War and the Mississippi River The Mississippi River served as a natural geographic barrier that divided the states who wanted to secede from the Union and those states which opted to stay put and fight those slave traders in the South. Mark Twain tried to portray in his novel “Life on the Mississippi” the vast changes that occurred after the war, but many of these changes were not really good. He showed how some Northerners took advantage of the prostrate Southerners by taking the usual liberties with regards to their lands and material possessions. The river had also played a vital role, albeit passively, when the Confederate Army was split into two after their defeat in the Battle of Shiloh (April 1862) which greatly weakened their cause. Mark Twain went back to the region some five years after the Reconstruction Period had ended in 1877 to see what changes had taken place and whether the Civil War had achieved the desired goals. His book attempted to draw support and sympathy in favor of the freedmen (former slaves) who were still oppressed while the industrial North likewise neglected the South in terms of economic development and the practice of racial discrimination, often overt, became institutionalized. The novel attempts to heal the divisions by pointing out the beginnings of black enfranchisement and the Civil Rights Movement (Foner & Mahoney 73) as Twain himself had converted to become an abolitionist although he was born a Southerner (Lystra 113). The so-called Reconstruction Period refers not only to the physical changes brought about by federal government action to erase the effects of the war but also an attempt to really transform Southern society that is no longer dependent on slave labor and the elimination of a Southern aristocratic mentality. Mark Twain had depicted some of the opportunistic Yankees (Northerners who went South) known as “carpetbaggers” who exploited Southerners by their ulterior motives, such as buying up old plantations at very cheap prices. His novel tried at emancipation as he became convinced later in life that people are generally selfish and that he believed now (after the war) that slavery is evil; earlier he thought it was right and sacred. Works Cited Foner, Eric, and Olivia Mahoney. America's Reconstruction: People and Politics After the Civil War. New York, NY, USA: HarperCollins Publishers, 1995. Print. Gribben, Alan. “The American Novel: Mark Twain.” Mar. 2007. Web. 20 Sept. 2012. . Lystra, Karen. “The Reconstruction of Mark Twain: How a Confederate Bushwhacker Became the Lincoln of our Literature.” The Journal of the Civil War Era, 2.1 (2012 Mar): 113-115. Print. Twain, Mark. Life on the Mississippi. Sydney, Australia: Accessible Publishing Systems Limited, 2008. Print. Read More