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Biography:

Samuel Langhorne Clemens also known as “Mark Twain” was born in Florida, Missouri, on November 30 1835. He is one of the greatest writers ever. A proud American he once said “I am not an American, i’m the American”. He was in his later life one of Americas best-loved citizens.

Samuel Clemens came from a good background; his father was lawyer and a merchant. Samuel Clemens father also known as judge Clemens moved his family from James town Tennessee to Florida Missouri were five months later young Samuel Clemens was born. Florida was a small town but Sam’s father believed that it would some day turn into a metropolis so he set up a small business their. However, his belief was a failure, packing up and moving his family to Hannibal, which was right along the Mississippi river. Many of Samuel Clemens’s stories a reflected from his life such as Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Fin witch came primarily from his life and experiences in Hannibal. Sadly, Samuel Clemens father died in Hannibal. To make money Samuel Clemens started as an apprentice for printer were he received clothing and board.

Samuel Clemens remained an apprentice until his brother started a printing shop were him and his two brothers worked. From time to time, he would write articles in his brothers newspaper. Growing tired of restriction and limitations put on him by his brother Samuel Clemens decided to go to St. Louis but moved past toward New York and the World Fair. In New York, he found work in his trade. From there, he traveled here and there in the North, finding work here and there as well. Until he moved to Keokuk to reunite and work once again with his brothers. Until leaving to become a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi river which inspired much of his book “life on the Mississippi river”? Once the civil war broke out, he lost his job and volunteered for the Calvary in the confederate army but quite after two weeks. Later that year him and his brother moved to Nevada territory to try his hand in silver mining. In 1862 he became a reporter on the Territorial Enterprise in Virginia City, Nevada were he picked up his pen name Mark Twain. After moving to San Francisco, California, in 1864, Twain met American writers Artemus Ward and Bret Harte who encouraged him in writing. In 1865 he wrote a story he had heard in the Californian Gold hills which he called “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” In a couple of months him and his story had become a sensation.

From there Samuel went to New York were he lectured. In the same year, he went to Europe and Palestine and wrote about his travels. Much of Twain’s best work was written in the 1870s and 1880s in Hartford or during the summers at Quarry Farm, near Elmira, New York. (These are some of them listed below)

Roughing It (1872) recounts his early adventures as a miner and journalist; The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) celebrates boyhood in a town on the Mississippi River; A Tramp Abroad (1880) describes a walking trip through the Black Forest of Germany and the Swiss Alps; The Prince and the Pauper (1882), a children’s book, focuses on switched identities in Tudor England; Life on the Mississippi (1883) combines an autobiographical account of his experiences as a river pilot with a visit to the Mississippi nearly two decades after he left it; A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889) satirizes oppression in feudal England (see Feudalism).

Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia 2002. © 1993-2001 Microsoft Corporation

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), the sequel to Tom Sawyer, is considered Twain’s masterpiece. It is the story Huck a kid who runs away from his father by rafting down the Mississippi River with a runaway slave named Jim. A theme through out the book is how cruel people are capable of being. Another theme Huck and Jim reveal is how Huck is breaking the laws of the time by helping Jim escape verses his friendship with him, who is one of the few people he can trust. The story is noted for its being almost entirely narrated from Huck’s point of view, and for its strong feelings for freedom. This story gives us a view of life along the Mississippi river was Sam grew up as a child. This book is said to be one of the great masterpieces of American literature.

In the later years of his life, Twain began to speak out more on public issues and write less. Because of his great accomplishments, the University of Oxford gave Twain an honorary doctorate. Three years later, he died at the age of seventy-five.

Analysis:

“Only a Nigger” By Mark Twain

{A dispatch from Memphis mentions that, of two negroes lately sentenced to death for murder in that vicinity, one named Woods has just confessed to having ravished a young lady during the war, for which deed another negro was hung at the time by an avenging mob, the evidence that doomed the guiltless wretch being a hat which Woods now relates that he stole from its owner and left behind, for the purpose of misleading. Ah, well! Too bad, to be sure! A little blunder in the administration of justice by Southern mob-law; but nothing to speak of. Only “a nigger” killed by mistake — that is all. Of course, every high toned gentleman whose chivalric impulses were so unfortunately misled in this affair, by the cunning of the miscreant Woods, is as sorry about it as a high toned gentleman can be expected to be sorry about the unlucky fate of “a nigger.” But mistakes will happen, even in the conduct of the best regulated and most high toned mobs, and surely there is no good reason why Southern gentlemen should worry themselves with useless regrets, so long as only an innocent “nigger” is hanged, or roasted or knouted to death, now and then. What if the blunder of lynching the wrong man does happen once in four or five cases! Is that any fair argument against the cultivation and indulgence of those fine chivalric passions and that noble Southern spirit which will not brook the slow and cold formalities of regular law, when outraged white womanhood appeals for vengeance? Perish the thought so unworthy of a Southern soul! Leave it to the sentimentalism and humanitarianism of a cold-blooded Yankee civilization! What are the lives of a few “niggers” in comparison with the preservation of the impetuous instincts of a proud and fiery race? Keep ready the halter, therefore, oh chivalry of Memphis! Keep the lash knotted; keep the brand and the faggots in waiting, for prompt work with the next “nigger” who may be suspected of any damnable crime! Wreak a swift vengeance upon him, for the satisfaction of the noble impulses that animate knightly hearts, and then leave time and accident to discover, if they will, whether he was guilty or no.}

This short satirical essay was published in the Buffalo Express while Mark Twain was co-owner and editor of the newspaper. This essay is a great way to show how Mark Twain felt about blacks and the way whites treated them. It points out how people will so easily kill an innocent person when they think that it is a black person. He shows how ignorant the southern mob mentality is. He points out that they will do anything it takes to preserve their southern pride even if it means killing the wrong person and when they do they just say oh he was black it does not matter, the truth is all they want is the satisfaction of killing a person for sweat revenge. Twain talks out against how blacks do not receive a fair trial. Many of the issues in this essay are relevant n his other writings such as Huckleberry Fin were blacks are predigest against.

Writing Style:

Both Ernest Hemingway(”For Whom the Bell Tolls”) and William Faulkner(”To Have and Have Not “) are quoted to saying that they looked to Samuel as a source of inspiration. Many of Sam’s themes, settings and language dealt with life in America which many other writers did not. Nearly all of his great works dealt with his life, he would recount past stories of his life and turn them into tall tales which caused much of his popularity. Sam was looked at by writers of his time as nothing more than a humorist, but generations of today can truly see his role in shaping American Literature. Many of his writing’s dealt with political issues mainly slavery and freedom which he combines with adventure which make his writings lasting and memorable. Twain although known for his adventure writings was not limited to them he wrote poetry and speeches. He was very well known for his speeches in his later years.