A detailed introduction to Mark Twain?

（Mark Twain l835～1910）

Mark Twain was born Samuel Langhorne Clemens in 1835 in the village of Florida, Missouri. , moved with his family to Hannibal, a small town on the Mississippi River when he was young. Mark Twain's father had a low income and bad luck. He bought a field but saw no profit, and opened a store that lost money, "forcing his children to struggle for a long time in the world." Mark Twain did not receive much formal education in such a family. When his father died when he was 12 years old, he had to work as an apprentice in a printing house and lived a poor life.

Around the time he was about 20 years old, his life changed: he had the opportunity to work on a ship sailing on the Mississippi River, and he learned the art of piloting. This period of life is his most unforgettable. He came into contact with all kinds of people, from captains and sailors to gentlemen from southern states, immigrants, human traffickers, etc., which accumulated a lot of material for his future creations.

But the good times did not last long. After the outbreak of the Civil War (1861), the shipping industry on the Mississippi River stopped, and he had to go to the west to develop. He first went to gold mining, and then worked as a reporter in a newspaper. This was the starting point of his writing career. After he became famous for his humorous sketches and stories, he went to the East. In a few years, he published two works: "A Fool's Travels Abroad" (1869) and "Hard Life" (1872). The former was a report on his travels in Europe written for a newspaper. The so-called "fool" refers to naive people. Ignorant Americans. When they arrived in Europe, they made fun of European cultural monuments, while they themselves were rustic and vulgar in their behavior. These reports are funny and interesting, and are very popular among readers. "Living Hard Times" is a recollection of his life in the West, from when he followed his brother to Nevada to when he started giving humorous speeches.

In the early 1970s, he married O. Langdon, the daughter of a wealthy businessman, and settled in Hartford, Connecticut. In 1874, he co-wrote a novel "The Gilded Age", which satirized the atmosphere of speculation and wealth that pervaded the country at that time. After that, Mark Twain made a living from writing, with a good income and a stable life.

While settling in Hartford, Mark Twain wrote more than ten novels, which was his most prolific period. "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" (1876) is a vivid description of childhood life. The young protagonist Tom does not like the boring small town life and pursues novel and adventurous life experiences. "On the Mississippi River" (1883) recalls the author's sailing career that year, including apprenticeships and the scenery of the river. Some chapters are very poetic, revealing Mark Twain's deep nostalgia. During this period, his main work was "The Adventures of Huckleberry Green" (1884). The protagonist Huck is the son of a poor white man and has appeared in "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer". He was afraid of being beaten by his drunkard father, and could not stand the various disciplines of a formal family, so he and Jim, a black slave, drifted along the Mississippi River on a raft in search of a free state. A white boy and a runaway slave depended on each other and experienced various dangers, which reflected the social life of the United States before the Civil War. Huck was in a difficult situation at first, but after an inner struggle, he finally overcame his "abnormal consciousness" and did not betray Jim, the black slave. His "sound mind" won. This is Mark Twain's confession and the democratic ideal of equality. . This novel is written in vivid American colloquial language, and various characters speak different languages, creating a new style of American literature. All this makes this novel a classic of nineteenth-century American literature.

Beginning in the late 1980s, Mark Twain's creations entered the later stage. There was less humor and funny laughter, more satire and criticism, and the themes tended to be serious social issues. "A Connecticut American in the King of Arthur" (1889) is known as the pioneer of contemporary "black humor". This novel sends a nineteenth-century American to sixth-century England, using a unique humorous style to expose the authoritarian social system. "Fool Wilson" (1893) criticizes the racial discrimination in American society through the story of two infants. "Jean d'Arc" (1896) praises the French national hero and has a strong romantic atmosphere.

In the late 1980s, Mark Twain invested in the trial production project of the "Page typesetter" and ran a publishing company, both of which failed.

In order to save money and pay off debts, Mark Twain closed his Hartford apartment in 1891 and went on a lecture tour around the world. He returned to China in 1900. After leaving the United States, he discovered the crimes committed by European and American imperialism around the world. He wrote "A Journey Around the Equator" (1897) to condemn the colonial policies of imperialism and praise the anti-imperialist struggles of the colonial people.

After returning to China, he continued to write articles criticizing the aggressive behavior of European and American imperialism. What makes us particularly amiable is his praise of the Chinese people's anti-imperialist struggle. In 1900, the day before the Eight-Power Allied Forces invaded Beijing, he said, "My sympathy is with the Chinese people. The thieves in power in Europe have long bullied China barbarically." , I hope the Chinese will deport all foreigners and never allow them to come back," and predicted that "China will be free and save itself."

In his later years, Mark Twain's main work was "Autobiography", which was published after his death (1924). Some other works are pessimistic and reveal a sense of disappointment with "people". Some people attribute this change in his thinking to the failure of his business, the disillusionment of his dream of getting rich, the death of his beloved wife, and the early death of his beloved daughter. Others think that it is the degradation of social atmosphere that prevents him from seeing the light.

In 1835, the year Mark Twain was born, Halley's comet passed through the sky and returned in 1910. Mark Twain predicted that he would follow the comet. On April 19, 1910, Halley's comet flashed in the sky, and four days later, Mark Twain really passed away.

Mark Twain’s short stories began as humorous works. He calls it an "essay", a "short piece" or a "story", but it has characters, stories and the basic elements of a short story. His genre is relaxed, flexible and closely related to the humor tradition of the American West.

There is a long tradition of humorous stories from the American West. Ever since people began to explore westward, anecdotes of exploration have circulated among pioneers. Around campfires in the wilderness, on sailing ships, and in cabins in the woods, these are all places where these funny stories are spread. People tell these experiences and stories originally to relieve the fatigue of the day and to have fun in a place where there is no culture and entertainment. The characteristics of these anecdotes are funny, humorous, exaggerated and bizarre. They are all oral, and have been rendered by different storytellers, adding details and changing angles, making them full of appeal and becoming a valuable asset of American oral literature.

Long before Mark Twain was born, this humorous literature had developed from oral circulation to written printing. Most of the authors are cultural figures from the east: journalists, teachers or officials. They loved these rough, exaggerated, and funny stories, and adapted them according to their own tastes and published them in newspapers. Mark Twain first worked as a reporter in Nevada, and then conducted interviews in San Francisco and other places. This period was a prosperous period for Western humor creation. The pen name Mark Twain (meaning "two fathoms", which is 12 feet, the water level is safe and the boat can pass) was given to him when he was a reporter in Nevada. His famous work "The Famous Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" was written in San Francisco when he was 30 years old. Later, he wrote a large number of humorous short stories based on his own knowledge, with the most production around the 1860s and 1870s.

From these stories, Mark Twain has three characteristics.

First, he used extremely exaggerated artistic imagination based on the tradition of Western humor. For example, "Tennessee Press" writes about the chaos in the press, with those who run newspapers talking nonsense, those who read newspapers being unreasonable, and even fighting. The "chief writer" and the "colonel" shot at each other, but the shots were all aimed at "me", the little editor. It was like a farce.

The familiar "Running for Governor" also has this kind of funny text:

A newspaper published a new sensational case, once again maliciously slandering me, and severely accusing me of a family. If the lunatic asylum hinders my family from enjoying the view, I will burn the lunatic asylum and burn all the patients inside it to death.

This is a very exaggerated way of writing. "Mark Twain" burned "all the patients to death" in the lunatic asylum. Wasn't this a murder? Why don't you go to court and come to campaign? In this novel, careful readers will find that some "crimes" do not match the "charges".

For example, how could "occupying a small piece of banana land" constitute "perjury"? How did he become a "corpse robber" by slandering his grandfather for "robbery and being hanged"? This is Mark Twain's deliberate use of dislocation to create an extremely exaggerated comic effect.

The second characteristic of Mark Twain is that his works often use the first person "I" as the protagonist. This "I" plays various comedic characters like the protagonist in Chinese cross talk. Most of them are naive, honest, ignorant, simple-minded, and wishful thinking in everything, and the results often backfire.

There are many such examples. The protagonist of "The Mysterious Visit" falls into a trap because he is smart and flaunts his wealth. The protagonist of "Goldsmith's Friends Go Abroad Again", the Chinese Ai Songxi, left his "oppressed and disaster-ridden motherland" and came to the United States where "everyone is free and equal", thinking that he had entered heaven. But what awaited him was kicking and beating by the police, his luggage was confiscated, he was bitten by dogs while walking on the street, he was laughed at, and ended up in jail for "disturbing public order."

Mark Twain consciously used innocent and honest people as his protagonists. He said that the protagonist's "simpleness, innocence, sincerity and ignorance must be very similar" to "receive wonderful and moving effects". The little secretary in "The Facts About My Recent Resignation" didn't understand why he was so concerned about national affairs, but he was hated by others? Ai Jinxi was still confused at the end: Why did he go to jail? Here, we see that the simpler and more innocent the protagonist is, the stronger the contrast effect is. The protagonist always harbors some kind of ideal or some kind of simple idea, but he encounters obstacles everywhere in reality, which shows that his ideal is unrealistic and unworkable. The less he understands this, the more the contradiction between ideal and reality appears. the gap between.

The third characteristic is that humor contains irony. He summarized his experience in writing humorous novels in his "Autobiography" and said, "Humor for the sake of humor cannot last long. Humor is just a fragrance and tidbits. I always admonish others, which is why I have been able to persist for 30 years." "30 years" refers to the time from when he started writing to when he wrote his autobiography. What he means by "admonishing others" is that his novels contain the serious creative goal of suppressing evil and promoting good.

Mark Twain’s allegorical elements are gradually strengthened. His early works are often comical. Works that joke about journalism, such as "The Press in Tennessee" and "How I Edited the Agricultural Newspaper," are sometimes as funny as farce. But in the middle period, the themes of his creations became serious, such as "Goldsmith's Friend Goes Abroad Again" and "A True Story", which wrote about the social problem of racial discrimination in the United States. Although he was joking on the surface, the victims' Encounters that make readers laugh with tears in their eyes.

The theme of the temptation and corruption of money on people best illustrates Mark Twain's development from humor to satire. "Millions of Pounds" is written in a funny and interesting way, with joy overflowing from the page. "The Inheritance of 30,000 Dollars" contains satire. We see how money distorts people's thoughts and feelings, causing the protagonist to become dizzy, and finally "immersed in a blur" "In a dream of regret and sorrow", before dying, the hero and heroine realize that "the sudden and improper wealth is a trap." In "The Man Who Corrupted Hedleyburg", Mark Twain put away. Smiling faces, full of bitter sarcasm, peel off the hypocrisy of those "honest, proud" gentlemen, exposing their greedy face of "both wanting to be bitches and building memorials". This can also be called "laughing", but it is a cold smile.

In general, Mark Twain's "laughter" is a kind of love for ordinary people and little people. Even the ridicule is often kind and sympathetic. He said: "I never wanted to civilize the educated classes. I was neither born nor trained to have that ability. And I never had that kind of ambition. I always wanted to hunt. The bigger prey - the masses."