Mark Twain Archives - HappyBirthday Author https://www.happybirthdayauthor.com Children's Book Blog Thu, 06 Jan 2022 14:35:40 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.8.2 https://www.happybirthdayauthor.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cropped-childrens-book-32x32.png Mark Twain Archives - HappyBirthday Author https://www.happybirthdayauthor.com 32 32 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain https://www.happybirthdayauthor.com/the-adventures-of-huckleberry-finn-by-mark-twain/ Mon, 29 Nov 2021 12:17:00 +0000 https://www.happybirthdayauthor.com/?p=17 Mark Twain's major work is the novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885). "It is our best book," wrote E. Hemingway, "all American literature has come out of it.

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Mark Twain’s major work is the novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885). “It is our best book,” wrote E. Hemingway, “all American literature has come out of it. He had in mind the broadest aspect of the work’s impact: its democratism and humanity, its universality, as well as a language new to literature, simple and as close to spoken language as possible. All these were the properties of American literature of the twentieth century.

The novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is adjacent to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer: it has the same characters and the same time of action. But this thing shows a more mature position of the author, richer covers all aspects of human experience and has a deeper generalizing meaning. The writer’s purely artistic evolution is equally evident. Twain’s style, already well established in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer as one of the best in American literature, light, sharp, and sensitive to dialectal nuances, has now moved to a new quality.

The writer returned here to his favorite and time-honored form of first-person narration and made the narrator hero not Tom, a boy from a bourgeois family, but Huck, a homeless vagabond, a child of the people. This had a double effect. First, masterfully reproduced, strong and colorful, truly folk language, which is written in the book, gives a picture of American life a special plastic expressiveness, creates the impression of speaking “without intermediary” – as if through his own voice spoke about himself America. Secondly, it enabled a fuller and deeper disclosure of the character, which was only briefly outlined in “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” to show the formation of his personality.

Huck’s mind is free of romantic clichés, and his character is shaped by reality. He has no outwardly ostentatious virtues, but he possesses all the essential virtues. Nature has given him a strong loyal heart, open to all who are humiliated and rejecting insolent power in whatever form it may take. Huck possesses a sense of inner independence that compels him to flee from the contentment and comfort that his widow Douglas offers him into the wide, formidable world. His free-spiritedness is a rejection of sanctimony, bourgeois welfare, and legalized lies.

Compared with The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, a new and very significant characteristic appears in Huck’s character: civic courage. From the very first chapters, Twain makes Huck an active participant in the social conflict. He is the protector and harborer of a runaway slave. Moreover, by rescuing Jim from the slave traders, he risks losing his own freedom. But Twain emphasizes that the need to fight for Jim’s freedom is as inherent in Huck as is the hatred of everything that constrains him. Though not fully realized, Huck’s struggle for social justice gives his rebellion a much deeper social meaning than in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

The character of Huck is given a development, and this development is convincingly motivated. Huck grew up in the South, where slavery stamped its mark on the thinking of every white man. He struggles long and hard to wade through the thicket of slave prejudice in his own mind, until the man finally overcomes the Southerner in him, until he finally decides to stay true to Jim. Twain does not for a moment detach the hero from the milieu that raised him, and at the same time shows him in a state of incessant struggle with the prejudices of that milieu. The dialectical contradiction underlying the image makes it particularly lively and dynamic, gives it a psychological authenticity.

It is symptomatic that in the novel Huck, the pariah of society, still stands in the eyes of those around him on a higher rung of the social ladder than the Negro. But just as Huck surpasses Tom in courage and mental qualities, Negro Jim surpasses Huck in loyalty and natural courage. To portray the black man as the noblest man in the novel, to paint a picture of a friendship between a white man and a Negro, a friendship that gave much to both, required great courage and audacity in 1880s America.

It took no less courage and boldness on the part of Twain the artist to break the accepted norms of literary language so defiantly for the sake of the truth of life. How innovative this work was, evidenced by the fierce controversy that developed around the novel after its publication. The zealots of fine literature, who demanded a flawlessly smooth syllable, a flawlessly virtuous hero, and necessarily “good manners,” branded the book “obscene, vulgar, and rude. In Concord, Massachusetts, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was removed from city libraries as “garbage fit only for landfill.

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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain https://www.happybirthdayauthor.com/the-adventures-of-tom-sawyer-by-mark-twain/ Mon, 12 Jul 2021 12:20:35 +0000 https://www.happybirthdayauthor.com/?p=20 "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" is one of American writer Mark Twain's most popular works. The story was first published in 1876.

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“The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” is one of American writer Mark Twain’s most popular works. The story was first published in 1876.

Twain originally believed that he was creating The Adventures of Tom Sawyer for adults. Friends of the writer, who heard the first chapters, immediately began to convince him that the book is for children. Now such talk in general seems pointless, because Twain’s story is enjoyed equally by adults and young readers. It never gets old, because there is nothing false, false, unnatural, but there is great humor and charming main characters. In the preface to the story, Twain noted that most of the adventures described in the book are taken from life, with one or two he experienced himself. Huckleberry Finn is “written from life.” The same is true of Tom Sawyer. True, in this character was embodied features not one boy, but three, with whom Mark Twain was familiar.

The main characters of the story

The main character of the story is a boy named Thomas Sawyer. He lives in a small American town called St. Petersburg, located in Missouri. After Tom’s mother died, he was taken in by her sister Polly. Tom Sawyer is a mischievous, yet brave and bright child. His best traits are his willingness to sacrifice himself for his friends and his sense of justice. Yes, he steals sugar from Aunt Polly, tricks the boys into painting a fence for him, skips school, and gets a beautiful Bible as a gift in a not entirely honest way. But Tom fearlessly endures a whipping in place of Becky, whom he is in love with, and defends the innocent Meff Potter in court.

At first glance, Tom appears to be an ordinary boy. In fact, he is very different from the other boys of St. Petersburg. Tom is a leader by nature. The beginning of the story says that when the kids played war, divided into two armies, Tom acted as commander of one of them. He did not fight himself, giving orders through his aides. Moreover – the army under Sawyer’s leadership won the battle. But most importantly, no one but Tom is able to turn the dullest moments into true celebrations. Remember at least the scene in church, when all the parishioners were bored with the preaching of the priest. Tom Sawyer managed to cheer them up by letting the biting beetle out of the box. The insect’s battle with a poodle that had run into the church brought, as Tom himself put it, “a little variety” to the church service.

Huckleberry Finn is the son of a drunkard and friend of Tom Sawyer. Huck is dressed “in the old man’s shoulder socks,” recognizes “no compulsory rules,” sleeps on someone else’s porch steps or in empty barrels, smokes a pipe, and knows how to swear ingeniously. All the mothers in St. Petersburg hate him and forbid their children to communicate with him. But the kids don’t envy him and want to imitate him. Despite the fact that Huck actually grew up on the street, he managed not to fall to the bottom, not to become bitter, to remain a good man. The boy lacks education. But Huckleberry has a practical wit. In addition, the child is naturally resourceful.

Becky Thatcher is the judge’s daughter with whom Tom Sawyer is in love. At the beginning of the book, she is described as “a lovely blue-eyed creature with golden hair braided into two long plaits, wearing a white summer dress and embroidered pantaloons. The character of Becky is not as well written as the characters of Tom and Huck, but something can be said about her: she is not distinguished by courage, foresight, the ability to behave properly in extreme situations. Becky’s behavior in the cave is telling. While Tom is trying to find a way out of the situation, Becky is mostly crying and talking about near death. She immediately eats her share of the pie. It doesn’t even occur to her that she should save at least some for the future, because there is no telling when she will get to eat next time. It turns out that Becky was totally unprepared for the extreme situation. If she had gotten lost in the caves alone, she probably wouldn’t have been able to get out. However, it was not Becky’s fault, but rather her upbringing.

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The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain https://www.happybirthdayauthor.com/the-prince-and-the-pauper-by-mark-twain/ Fri, 12 Mar 2021 13:53:00 +0000 https://www.happybirthdayauthor.com/?p=38 "The Prince and the Pauper is the fascinating story of how the crown prince of the British throne traded places with a pauper boy, and what came of it.

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“The Prince and the Pauper is the fascinating story of how the crown prince of the British throne traded places with a pauper boy, and what came of it.

The novel is set in London in 1547, shortly before the death of King Henry VIII and the coronation of his son, Prince Edward of Wales.

The main characters are

Tom Kentie is a beggarly boy, kind, open, and honest.
Tom’s father is a thief, a drunkard and debauchee, a cruel, ignorant man.
King Henry VIII is an overbearing, cruel king, but a loving and caring father.
Prince Edward of Wales – a kind, fair, noble boy.
Miles Gendon – impoverished nobleman, Prince Edward’s only friend and protector.
Lord St. John is the courtier who helped Tom “remember” all the rules of palace etiquette.

The plot of .

In the middle of the 16th century, two boys were born on the same day in London: one of them was destined to lead the British throne, while the other was destined to an unenviable lot of pauper. Tom Kentie’s life was from the outset full of hardship and adversity. The son of a thief and a beggar, he lived with his parents, his mad old grandmother, and his two twin sisters in a gloomy den, where he slept on the floor on straw. Tom’s surroundings in the Yard of Waste were vagrants, thieves, and beggars. The boy’s only outlet was the companionship of an old priest who taught him to read and write and told him fascinating stories about kings and wizards.
One day, hungry and badly beaten by his father, he went to the royal palace to see the brilliant young Prince of Wales. Tom was rudely pushed away by a sentry, but the prince interceded for the boy and invited him to his chambers. Enthusiastic about the little beggar’s free life, Prince Edward invited Tom to exchange clothes with him. Forgetting that he was dressed in rags, he decided to punish the sentry, but ended up banished from his own palace. Edward had a difficult time in his new surroundings: he was constantly bullied by boys from the Scum Court, starved, and bullied by dogs.

Tom, too, had a hard time at first in his new role. His behavior was so strange that the royal family and courtiers thought the child had been struck by insanity. However, no one even suspected a switch. Gradually Tom settled in the palace and thanks to the participation of Lord St. John has mastered the noble manners and etiquette.
Nor did anyone in the Kentys believe that it was not Tom but the prince. Edward was so fed up with the perpetually drunken Kentie Senior that he ran away. The boy was saved from the attacks of tramps and beggars by the noble but impoverished warrior Miles Gendon, who became a true friend to him.
Meanwhile, news hit the country: the king is dead, and the crown prince must ascend the throne. After going through many trials, Edward managed to get into the palace. It happened just at the solemn moment of Tom’s coronation. Edward succeeded in proving his royal origins by reminding himself of the location of the missing state seal. Justice prevailed and Prince Edward was crowned. Lord St. John and Miles Gendon were generously rewarded for their kind participation in the lives of both boys. King Edward VI, remembering his ordeal in the slums, proved to be an uncommonly gracious ruler. Tom Canty lived a long life, enjoying special honor and respect.

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