What is the story of Mark Twain's novel Asceticism? An analysis of asceticism plot and creative background

Abstinence is Mark Twain's semi-autobiographical travel notes. Written in 187 1 spring and completed in 1872 February. Behind the black humor in this work is the revelation of the nature of social deception, from which we can see the ugly phenomenon of deception and struggle in American society at that time. Mark Twain exposed the hypocrisy and absurdity behind humor with his unique black humor style.

abstract

It's Mark Twain's semi-autobiographical travel notes, with complicated content, loose connection and great leap. The author exaggerated his adventures in the western United States, from 186 1 to 1865. Most of the stories told in the book are the author's own personal experiences and what he saw and heard.

"I" crossed the vast deserts and plains in the remote western mountainous areas, saw bison, Indians, prairie dogs and antelopes, experienced various adventures and lived an unprecedented happy life. I could be hanged or scalped.

This place is rich in gold, silver, copper, iron, mercury, marble, granite, gypsum, thieves, murderers, outlaws, women, children, lawyers, Christians, Indians, China people, Spaniards, gamblers, liars, villains, poets, missionaries, fools, fools, cowards and cowards.

High Indians are inferior people, even worse than the Katz people in Africa in some respects. Those uncivilized, savage, shameful, weak and skinny animals are covered with dirt. They are "Momo, despicable and treacherous people" and "despicable people"

In the Indian tragedy, Yellow China never escaped from the abyss of racism. According to the classification of western racism, the yellow race is in the middle of the racial class, higher than Indians and blacks.

/kloc-in the 9th century, with the rise of the gold rush, a large number of China people poured into the western United States. They have contributed to the industrialization process of the United States, especially the development of the western region, but they have written their miserable lives with countless bitter tears.

10 pm is the proudest time for China people. In every low, narrow and dirty hut, there is a faint smell of burning Buddha lanterns. The flickering butter candle reflected some black shadows. Two tramps with turmeric skin and long pigtails curled up in a low bed and smoked a big cigarette without moving. China's discrimination and abuse of whites. Sometimes, China people need to be punished by white people for petty theft, imprisoned for robbery and killed for murder planned by white people. "Any white man can swear to testify in court and kill China people"; China people "live in poverty, but are blackmailed by the government".

Six people were killed in a cemetery in Virginia. At that time, so many people were killed because hooligans and villains were rampant in the newly opened mining area, and only those who "killed" would be respected. That's what I said at the time.

If a stranger comes, people will not ask him if he is capable, honest and diligent, but "Has he killed anyone?" If a person comes with the blood debts of six or seven people, his value will be recognized immediately, and people will come to curry favor with him. A man is respected because he is a murderer. This is really a complete legal game. However, the frontier is a wild land that is being developed, and survival has become the top priority for people who come to the western United States.

Creation background

/kloc-the westward movement from the end of 0/8 to the beginning of the 20th century is a legend in American history and a history of Indian blood and tears. The rampant American colonialism set foot on Indian tribal villages and carried out a series of inhuman acts of genocide. Indians, the earliest aborigines on American soil, became the first victims of white racism.

1882, the American government promulgated "asceticism", which is the only law in the world that discriminates against immigrants from China. Completely exclude Chinese from society.

/kloc-in the 9th century, with the rise of the gold rush, a large number of China people poured into the western United States. They have made great contributions to the industrialization of the United States, especially to the development of the western region, but they have written their miserable lives with countless bitter tears.

Mark Twain's Journey to the West began at 186 1. For this young man in his twenties in the southern United States, the west is "a dreamy world, fast, wild and dangerous". This is a border area rich in resources.

Mark Twain is a realistic writer who is full of sympathy for the people of China. He praised the simplicity and hard work of China people, and laughed at the ease, weakness, concession or insensitivity of China people.

The story of asceticism took place during the westward movement, and was created by Mark Twain when he was exploring the western United States in 186 1 to 1865.

works appreciation

theme

The theme of asceticism: exposing the essence of American deception in the19th century.

In the American west in the19th century, people regarded infidelity as a funny joke, and used humorous laughter to cover up and alleviate the ugliness of infidelity, which was closely related to the cruel social conditions and living environment in the west. As Mark Twain said, "You must understand that a person living in the frontier must be smart, otherwise he will return to the East early or even reach Europe. He can live in those places. "

Abstinence works are full of reflections on civilization and barbarism. The survival of the West depends not on culture but on strength and violence. On the other hand, "Slade" ignores human life, but it can maintain local public order, win public recognition and maintain the civil servant status of the system. The identity of the robber who destroyed the system is in harmony with him, and even leaves the narrator with the impression of a gentleman. This work shows readers a chaotic westworld: Native Indians can hijack bus stops and kill drivers at will. Foreigners also gather here. Large gold prospectors migrated westward. They all have the passion to get rich and explore the wilderness. Barbarism and civilization have reached an understanding here: the fanatical pursuit of wealth is only the desire of wild animals.

Nevada full of deception

The protagonist's life in Nevada is actually a scam. On the Nevada Stock Exchange, speculators, swindlers and tyrants can easily make money here. In this kind of communication, all kinds of cheating are endless, but the deceived people still enjoy it. As everyone knows, all they can get from their current madness is worthless stocks. The world they are facing now looks beautiful, but the essence is like a seemingly hard but fragile shell, only one inch thick. Crazy people either succeed or gloat over their hard-earned wealth. Otherwise, the hard shell will crack and suffer bankruptcy and collapse. Here, the stock of the silver mine will suddenly become worthless because of the decline, and a person can kill as many people as he wants for the gold mine. Nevada is like a condensed American society, full of creditor's rights, debts and hypocrisy, while ignorant people live happily and eagerly in such a gloomy society.

A wonderful game in Nevada

Strange mutations often occur in Nevada's unique environment. Some people are extremely excited about the sudden wealth, while others are deeply saddened by the loss of wealth. In Nevada, no matter what kind of people, they all have the same dream, that is to find gold. At the same time, there is no exception, and everyone's grades are poor. In Nevada, a tempting environment, the so-called wealth is extremely unstable. For heroes, everything here is like a game. Endless patterns can be changed by imagination, but the final result seems to be a nightmare. Children who play games are like evil and cruel puppet manipulators, and all social creatures are just their toys. This is a world that lives on imaginary wealth, constantly plagued by economic collapse, sometimes funny, sometimes painful. Wandering between economic prosperity and depression, life fluctuates between hope and disappointment. Investment, speculation and stock trading are full of deception, fraud and boasting.

Artistic feature

Revealing the essence of deception with humor

Mark Twain expressed serious and profound creative themes in a relaxed and humorous way, which brought a strong shock to people's hearts and inspired more people on this basis. Mark Twain thinks it is best to describe the fraud and absurdity hidden in society in a humorous way. Through this seemingly relaxed and implicit language, the theme of the work is included, thus making the expression of the theme more in-depth and specific.

This work depicts a carnival world in which religion and law lose their sanctity. The power and indulgence of life have become the theme here, and there are shouts of freedom and carnival voices everywhere to get rich. In terms of artistic techniques, it also shows the indulgence of carnival. The narrator gave full play to his art of ridicule and exaggeration, and showed a carnival of language. The carnival of this language is also reflected in the unique narrative mode chosen by the novel. Like a storyteller, the narrator is addicted to telling stories, making up and exaggerating the facts themselves, constantly changing the subject to tell other interesting stories, or giving full play to his exaggeration, ridicule and satire in order to describe an interesting thing. The language of the work is also very vivid. His descriptions of interesting stories often have exaggerated comic effects. What impressed readers deeply was the audio-visual feast of interesting western stories.

Humor function

A story and countless narrators: Chapter 20, according to the hero's memory, in six years, "he heard 48 1 or 82 immortal stories. The doorman said that the landlord said that the driver would say, the passengers would occasionally say, and the local China people and wandering Indians would say "I" in detail. I saw it published in nine languages. " The following is the complete story:

"If you like, I will tell you a very interesting thing. Once, when Hollis grilli crossed this road and left Carson City, he told the driver Hank Monk that he had an appointment to give a speech at Hedong University, and he was in a hurry. Hank Monk's whip rattled and drove at an alarming speed. The carriage was so bumpy that the buttons on Hollis's coat were shaken off. Later, when he hit his head on the roof, he called out to Hank Monk, saying that he was not in such a hurry. But Hank Monk replied, Please sit down. Hello. I will send you there on time. " Of course, he arrived in time, but did he have anything else to do? "

Finally, a dying tramp died in the hero's arms because he insisted on telling stories and exhausted his last breath. This story is so vulgar and boring that it seems not worth repeating. Everyone in Carson City is drunk, but not drunk. The storyteller doesn't care about identity differences or the content of the story. They only care about participating in the narrative behavior itself, which is to achieve the purpose of carnival. In fact, even the writer took part in the carnival: he recorded the story word for word four times before and after. However, the climax of the carnival has not yet arrived. After the story was repeated several times by the author, Mark Twain pointed out in a footnote, "This ancient anecdote is more interesting because the adventure it praises never happened." Facts have proved that this story is pure fiction.

This subversion of language function, even the exertion of language and literature function, is common in asceticism books. In the following story, Mark Twain subverts the function of language as a literary carrier from another angle.

The goat story forever: In chapter 53, this is a story in which the protagonist will be absent forever, that is, the story of the miner Jim Bryan and his grandfather's old goat. Brian tells such a story every time he gets drunk: "I don't think I will come back in those years." I can't find an old goat louder than it. "My grandfather brought it from Illinois. The problem is that although the title of the story is "The Story of the Old Goat", in nearly five pages of the story, Brian's imagination went crazy and never returned to the old goat.

Brian tells a series of humorous stories, including coffin dealer Jacobs and customer Robbins. Roast missionaries to eat. Their bodies actually influenced the barbarians. As a result, they converted to religion and so on.

Among them, the funniest is the game between Jacobs and Robbins. In fact, this story belongs to situational humor embedded in the framework of verbal humor. Jacobs, the coffin dealer, is eager to get rich. Whenever someone gets sick, he waits for them to die. After Robbins fell ill, Jacobs waited at home for three weeks. After Robbins recovered from his illness, Jacobs turned a blind eye to him: the old man let him down. Later, Robbins became ill again, and Jacob drew a coffin and sold it. During the funeral, Robbins suddenly opened the lid, sat up from the shroud and told the priest to stop the funeral because he couldn't stand such a coffin. It turns out that Robbins suffered from narcolepsy when he was young, and he did it again this time. He sued Jacobs in court and won. He put the coffin in the back hall and said he would pay for it this time. Jacobs is not sad.

Finally, drunk Brian fell asleep, and the local people who listened to the story held back their laughter and shed tears. Only then did the hero wake up. It turned out that the villagers fooled him as an outsider: what happened to Grandpa Brian's old goat has always been a mystery, because even the villagers didn't find it.

The above-mentioned way of subverting language function is just a way of language expression in asceticism books. In the west, it is a way of life for people to talk to each other and exchange all kinds of exaggerated and absurd rumors.

Narrative language

The style of writing is natural and fluent, and a large number of narrative techniques such as exaggeration, absurdity, irony and contrast are used, which is intriguing.

Humor shows Mark Twain's unique talent. In the text, Mark Twain often exaggerates the appearance and quantity of humorous objects in order to highlight their essence more comprehensively and make the humorous effect stronger and more powerful.

For example, in chapter 15, the author made up a story about a man who married 72 wives to satirize polygamy. "I sold the animals and built a bed 7 feet long and 96 feet wide. But I can't sleep. I found 72 women snoring together. The roar was deafening. Life is in danger. I think so too. They breathe together. You can see that the walls of the house are really flat, and then we exhale together. You can see that the wall was blown up again. "

In asceticism, Mark Twain also inherited the absurdity of American western folk literature. This extreme exaggeration leads to absurd, grotesque and unreasonable results, which is even more absurd. In the third chapter, the author wrote that a hungry camel ate the author's clothes and swallowed a news article into his pocket. "But this time, it encountered something difficult to deal with and began to encounter solid wisdom that was quite heavy for its stomach." In paragraph 48, Zhang described the thugs who ruled the west at that time, saying that the more they killed, the more respected they became. Its absurdity is the originator of black humor. Mark Twain's clever use of contrast has also achieved considerable success. Abstinence is a portrayal of the miraculous prosperity of the western United States during the gold rush in the19th century. Fight poverty, hope and disillusionment, fight bravely, make continuous progress, and so on. Show a sharp contrast between people and the environment. The rich man who made a fortune cares nothing and leads a dissolute life. For them, the problem is not how to get money, but how to spend it, how to squander it, how to get rid of it and how to abuse it.

In contrast to the rich, the poor and the penniless in the mining area. In chapter 59, the author vividly and humorously describes a poor man. He hasn't touched any food for 48 hours, but he found a silver coin in the street: "In the middle of the street, he saw a small bright spot. Look again. No, turn around and wipe your eyes. This is not an illusion of hunger. This is a silver horn. He grabbed it, stared at it greedily, took a bite and found it was true. -Swallowing the heart, it jumped into the throat and held back the cheers.

Mark Twain also used irony in many places in his asceticism, that is, he used a narrative tone completely different or even completely opposite to the author's own beliefs and norms, and achieved humorous effects through irony or deliberate deception. In short, what a writer seems to want to deny is exactly what he wants to affirm and praise, and vice versa. In chapter 34, the author reported a lawsuit caused by landslide disaster with seemingly objective, calm and fair attitude and beautiful words, but what was actually presented to the readers was a chaotic lawsuit broken by some pretentious and incompetent government officials.