美国文学论文.doc

英语08-1 黄彩梅 08164110107Mark Twain and his writing styles1. Mark Twain and his experience Mark Twain, pseudonym of Samuel langhone Clemens, was brought up in the town of Hannibal, Missouri, near the Mississippi River. He was twelve when his father died and he had to leave school. He was successively a printers apprentice, a tramp printer, a silver miner, a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi, and a frontier journalist in Nevada and California. This knocking gave him a wide knowledge of humanity. As one of Americas foremost realists and humorists, Mark Twain usually wrote about his own personal experiences and things he knew about from firsthand experience. His life spanned the two Americas, the frontier America and the emerging urban, industrial giant of the twenty-century. As a witness of the civil war, Twain saw clearly the great changes in nations economic development and political life. With the final victory over the South, the North once again enjoyed its wielding power in the nations administration. Now the acute conflict at home was undermined and the American people again focused their full attention on re-construction after the war. Because majority of the slaves were emancipated, the slave-based economy of the defeated South became rootless. In this case, clusters of groundless southern poor whites and the newly freed slaves headed directly of indirectly for the new-liberated cities to seek opportunities. It may be called the Gold Rush rejuvenated. Mark Twain also could not help rushing to the west. He once believed the idea of development and industrialization because it would modernize the young country and encourage the enterprising spirit of the American who had long been famous for it. He was firmly enthralled by such fever, so once again he held an optimistic attitude towards the post-westward expansion. He drew much inspiration from the unparalleled and magnificent event and spoke highly of its decision-makers and its people. 2. Brief introduction of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn The best work that Mark Twain ever produced is The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. It tells a story about the United States before the Civil War, around 1850, when the great Mississippi Valley was still being settled. Here lies an America, with its great national faults, full of violence and even cruelty, yet still retaining the virtues of some simplicity, some innocence, and some peace. The story takes place along the Mississippi River. There was unpopulated wilderness and a dense forest on both sides of the river. It relates the story of the escape of Jim from slavery and, more important, how Huck Finn floating along with him and helping him as best he could, and then changes his mind, his prejudice about black people, and finally accept Jim as a man and as a close friend as well.3. Usage of colloquial language and satire The book is written in a colloquial style, in the general standard speech of uneducated Americans. Moreover, the prose of Huckleberry Finn established the prose virtues of American colloquial speech. Most of all, it has to do with the structure of the sentence, which is simple, direct, and fluent, maintaining the rhythm of the words group of speech and the intonations of the speaking voice. Mark Twains colloquial style has influenced a large number of American writers. This novel demonstrates his ability to capture the enduring, archetypal, mythic images of America and to create the most memorable characters in all of American fiction. Satire is a way of criticizing people or ideas in a humorous way to show that they have faults or are wrong, or a piece of writing or play, which uses this style. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twain shows satire on southern culture before the civil war, when the Mississippi valley was still being settled. Twain blended two different subjects, the experience of westward expansion and the experience of southern slavery. His attitudes toward the south were much less pleasant than his attitudes toward the west, because he confronted the south problem of slave of mistreatment of humans by humans. Through the change of the white boy Hucks attitude toward Jim, a runaway black slave, Twain condemned racial discrimination. Twain made fun of typical American values, yet underneath he felt a brooding pessimism not only about American valuable but also about life itself. It was a dreadful thing to see Human beings be awful cruel to one another. Due to Twains own experience, satire is successfully used in this novel. Theres one significant scene which should be remembered, Huck Finn witnesses many instances of cruelty, brutality and hypocrisy in the township along the river Here are four points about his satire in this novel. 4. A combination of colloquial language and satire To sum up, fundamentally, Twain is a great American writer. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an outstanding novel; one of the most successful writing styles is a combination of colloquial language and satire. In fact, most of Twains works are the combination of both colloquial language and satire, but The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was a case in point. On the other hand, it is his masterpiece as a humorist while the novel also can be eyed as a satire on sentimentality and Romanticism on the other. We have ever seen colloquial language and satire in some works, but no ones writing is so appropriate like Twains. It displays American culture out of the ordinary and the attitude toward the entire society. In this book, the author use the first character to narrate, meanwhile colloquial language as the main writing language has come into the stage, in order to have the effect on vivid writing, satire is come out. In this situation, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn displays the major achievements of his art: writing in a rich and intricate style that supported his intense scrutiny of complex human experience. 5. The significance of Mark Twains writing styles Colloquial language and satire are so important in this novel. This image of the quintessential American writing is not really literary goes along with a vision of the great American novel, but as a sort of spontaneous telling of unmediated experience. The heart of Mark Twains achievement is his creation of Huck Finn, who embodies that mythic America. That was why Ernest Hemingway once said “all modern American literatures came from one book written by Mark Twain called The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” And it became Twains masterpiece. In short, neither enlightenment nor retrospection elevates the style or the philosophy of Huckleberry Finns narrator into the high culture that has placed the work itself at its top. 6. Conclusion As one of Americas first and foremost realists and humorists, Mark Twain usually wrote about his own personal experiences and things he knew about from firsthand experience. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is Twains best book because he brought together in it, with the highest degree of artistic balance, those most fundamental dualities running through his work and life from start to finish. Most of all it has to do with the structure of the sentence, which is simple, direct, and fluent, maintaining the rhythm of the words group of speech and the intonations of the speaking voice. Mark Twains colloquial style has influenced a large number of American writers. Mark Twain depicted mostly the lower class of society. Mark Twain shows satire on southern culture before the civil war, when the Mississippi valley was still being settled. Twain blended two different subjects, the experience of westward expansion and the experience of s