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Samuel Langhorne Clemensknown as Mark Twain
UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL MAYOR DE SAN MARCOSFACULTAD DE EDUCACIÓN
AMERICAN LITERATURE
Teacher: Yony Cárdenas CornelioStudent: Gabriela Paredes Baquerizo
One of the greatest American writers: humorist, essayist,
novelist and adventurer
Early Years Along the RiverBorn November 30, 1835 in Florida, MissouriParents John M. and Jane L. Clemens
The sixth of seven children.
Only two survived childhood.
At four, his family moved to Hannibal.
At eleven, his father died of pneumonia
Dropped out of school and became a typesetter.
Worked for his brother Orion as his assistant at a newspaper.
Pictures from www.pbs.org
1857, at the age of 21, moved to New Orleans in search of adventure and became a steamboat pilot assistant.
Traveling
1859 earned his steamboat pilot’s license and worked steadily as a river pilot between New Orleans and St. Louis.
Map of the Mississippi River
Civil War 1861-1865
1861 Mississippi River closed due to the Civil War.Sam’s piloting career ends.
1863 Began writing for the Territorial Enterprise in Nevada.
Published “Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog” -- a retelling of a tall tale he picked up from the miners.
“Mark Twain”
In 1863, Sam adopted his pen name “Mark Twain”
An important part of being a riverboat pilot is knowing the waters -- depths, snags, mud, reefs. To “mark twain” is to sound the depths and deem them safe to passage.
Means two fathoms, or twelve feet -- safe water for the steamship.
Marriage and Family
Sam married Olivia (Livy) Langdon in 1870. They settled in Buffalo, NY where he worked as a partner and writer for the Buffalo Express.
Olivia Clemens 1845-1904Olivia was the daughter of an affluent New York family.
She had poor health, suffering from tuberculosis of the spine between the ages of 14-20, and affecting her life.
Her inheritance, along with Sam’s earnings from his writing and lectures, allowed them somewhat of a lavish lifestyle.
Marriage and Family
Their first child, Langdon Clemens was born in Buffalo 1870.
Sam moved his family back to Connecticut to be closer to his publisher (1871).
1873 Langdon died of diphtheria.
Marriage and Family1873 daughter Suzy was born.1874 daughter Clara was born.1880 daughter Jean was born.
Europe and Tragedy
1891 Sam and Livy moved their family to Europe in 1891 in order to economize and pay back debt
1894 Publishing company failed and Sam embarked on a European Lecture Tour to earn money
1896 Suzy (24 years old) died of meningitis while on a visit to Hartford
Back to America and More Tragedy
Daughter Suzy died of meningitis 1896
Livy, who was an invalid in the last years of her life, died in 1904
Jean, his youngest daughter, and many say “favorite” daugther, died in an epileptic seizure in 1909
Her daughter Clara was the only one of his children who survived.
“I came in with Halley's Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year (1910), and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don't go out with Halley's Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: "Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together."
Mark Twain died in 1910, the year Halley’s Comet appeared. Pictures from www.pbs.org
More than anything, Mark Twain loved the river.
Map of the Mississippi River
Mark Twain’s Masterpieces
LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER
It is not a commonplace river, but on the contrary is in all ways remarkable. Considering the Missouri its main branch, it is the longest river in the world--four thousand three hundred miles.
CHAPTER I. THE RIVER AND ITS HISTORY.
It was first saw in1542.
CHAPTER I. THE RIVER AND ITS HISTORY.
WHEN I was a boy, there was but one permanent ambition among my comrades in our village on the west bank of the Mississippi River. That was, to be a steamboatman.
CHAPTER IV. THE BOYS' AMBITION
Once a day a cheap, gaudy packet arrived upward from St. Louis, and another downward from Keokuk. Before these events, the day was glorious with expectancy; after them, the day was a dead and empty thing. Not only the boys, but the whole village, felt this.
CHAPTER IV. THE BOYS' AMBITION
When a negro drayman, famous for his quick eye and prodigious voice, lifts up the cry, "S-t-e-a-m-boat a-comin'!" and the scene changes!
CHAPTER IV. THE BOYS' AMBITION
After ten minutes the town is dead again,and the town drunkard asleep by the skids once more.
CHAPTER IV. THE BOYS' AMBITION
Years later, Twain felt his bouhood ambitio to surface again, and he signed on as an apprentice to the pilot of the Paul Jones, Mr. Bixby.
CHAPTER VI. A CUB-PILOT'S EXPERIENCE
CHAPTER VI. A CUB-PILOT'S EXPERIENCE
CHAPTER VI. A CUB-PILOT'S EXPERIENCE
Mr. Bixby called my attention to certain things, he said, "This is Nine-Mile Point." Later he said, "This is Twelve-Mile Point." They were all about level with the water's edge; they all looked about alike to me; they were monotonously unpicturesque. I hoped Mr. Bixby would change the subject
CHAPTER VI. A CUB-PILOT'S EXPERIENCE
"Come! turn out!“ - And then he left. I could not understand this extraordinary procedure; so I presently gave up trying to, and dozed off to sleep. Pretty soon the watchman was back again, and this time he was gruff. I was annoyed.
About this time Mr. Bixby appeared on the scene. Something like a minute later I was climbing the pilot-house steps with some of my clothes on and the rest in my arms. Mr. Bixby was close behind
CHAPTER VI. A CUB-PILOT'S EXPERIENCE
"My boy, you must get a little memorandum-book, and every time I tell you a thing, put it down right away. There's only one way to be a pilot, and that is to get this entire river by heart. You have to know it just like A B C."
CHAPTER VI. A CUB-PILOT'S EXPERIENCE
Writing Characteristics of Mark Twain
Literature is an art of language. Mark Twain’s language is artistic and like a sharp weapon without doubt. Mark Twain is famous for his humor and satire. Mark Twain’s humor is based on the humor of the Western in America. He used a lot of colloquial idioms and colloquial syntax. He often described persons who were innocent, simple, naive, and ignorant as his heroes or heroines.He used the artistic style of hyperbole on the basis of the western traditional humor and made his writing full of allegories that lay behind the humor.
Thank you!