Mark Twain PWPT
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Transcript Mark Twain PWPT
America's Greatest Storyteller
Biographical
Information
Hannibal, Missouri
Population of 1, 000
80 miles north of St. Louis
On the Mississippi River
This place helps older Twain create his setting for Tom
Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn
Learning to understand the life of
Mark Twain
Missouri was a slave state by constitution
The famous Missouri Compromise in 1820
Introduced young Clemens to two dark things about the
reality of human existence
Slavery
Death
Careers
Newspaper writer
New York
Philadelphia
St. Louis
Keokuk, Iowa
River Boating
1857: Cub pilot on the
river boat “Paul Jones”
He work for four years as
a pilot. Earned his
license in 1859
Biographical Information
Twain had a deep passion for the Mississippi River. The
Mississippi River is used as the setting for his book, The
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
Twain writes:
“When I was a boy there was but one permanent
ambition among my comrades on the west bank of the
Mississippi River, that was to be a river boat pilot.”
As a child, what did you have a passion for: do you still
have that passion?
Write your answer on your note paper on the back. Write
4-6 sentences.
Understanding Mark Twain
In 1870, at age 35, marries Olivia Langdon.
Olivia was part of a prominent abolitionist
family.
Her family helped to influence his writings
and views.
He later made an acquaintance with
Frederick Douglass.
As time goes on and life happens…
As Twain got older, his works got darker, mirroring the
reversal of fortunes in his own life.
Bad health
Bankruptcy
Olivia’s bad health
Children's health issues
The death of his daughter, Susie
Realism:
Style and Voice
Realism
Period of American Literature 1865-1900
A literary style that is faithful to representing actuality.
Opposes Romanticism which wanted to transcend the
real and find the ideal
Realists focus on the immediate, the here and now
Real descriptions of the common, the average, the every day.
Realists authors believe that plot and form should be avoided.
Fiction truthfully representing life should be concerned with
ethical issues more that plot or form.
Characterization is central to the novel.
Tone is often comic, frequently satiric and seldom grim.