A detailed introduction of Mark Twain?

Mark Twain, formerly known as Samuel Langhorne Clemens, was born in Florida, Missouri on 1835. When he was young, he moved to Hannibal, a small town on the Mississippi River. Mark Twain's father's income is not much, and his fate is not good. He bought a field but lost money, "forcing his children to struggle in the world for a long time." Mark Twain didn't get much formal education in such a family. /kloc-when his father died at the age of 0/2, he had to go to the printing factory as an apprentice and live a poor life.

When he 18 years old, his life changed: he had the opportunity to work on a boat on the Mississippi River, and he learned the skills of driving a port. This period of life is his most unforgettable. He met all kinds of people, from captains and sailors to gentlemen, immigrants and traffickers in southern States, and accumulated a lot of material for his later creation.

However, the good times did not last long. After the civil war broke out (186 1), the shipping industry of the Mississippi River stopped and he had to go to the west to develop. He first went to a gold mine, and then went to a newspaper as a reporter, which was the starting point of his writing career. After he became famous for writing humorous sketches and stories, he went to the East. In a few years, he published two works, A Fool Traveling Abroad (1869) and Living a Hard Life (1872). The former is a report about his trip to Europe written for the newspaper. The so-called "fool" refers to an innocent American. They went to Europe and mocked European cultural relics, but they were rustic and rude. These reports are funny and very popular with readers. Living a Hard Life is a memory of his life in the west, from following his brother to Nevada until he began to make humorous speeches.

In the early 1970s, he married O Langdon, the daughter of a wealthy businessman, and settled in Hartford, Connecticut. 1874, he co-authored a novel, The Gilded Age, which mocked the atmosphere of speculation and wealth that pervaded the country at that time. From then on, Mark Twain made a living by writing, made a lot of money and lived a stable life.

During his residence in Hartford, Mark Twain wrote more than a dozen novels, which was his most creative period. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) is a vivid description of childhood life. Tom, the little hero, doesn't like the dull town life, but pursues the novel and adventurous life experience. On the Mississippi River (1883) recalls the author's sailing career in that year, including learning from his teacher and watching the river. Some chapters are poetic and deeply missed by Mark Twain. During this period, his major work was The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884). Huck, the hero, is the son of a poor white man who appeared in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Afraid of being beaten by his drunken father, and unable to stand the various precepts of a formal family, he accompanied his slave Jim and drifted along the Mississippi River on a raft in search of a free state. A white boy and an escaped slave lived together and experienced various dangers, reflecting the social life before the American Civil War. Huck was in a difficult situation at first, but after inner struggle, he finally overcame his "deformed consciousness" and did not betray Jim. His "sound mind" won. This is exactly Mark Twain's democratic ideal of repentance and equality. This novel is written in lively American spoken language, and various characters have different languages, which creates a new style of American literature. All these make this novel a classic of American literature in the19th century.

Since the end of 1980s, Mark Twain's creation has entered a late stage, with less humorous laughter and more satire and criticism, and his theme tends to be serious social problems. Arthur Up (1889), a Connecticut American, is regarded as the pioneer of contemporary "black humor". This novel sent an American in the19th century to Britain in the 6th century, and revealed the autocratic social system with a unique humorous style. Fool Wilson (1893) criticized the racial discrimination in American society through the story of two babies exchanging. Jean Ducker (1896) eulogized the French national hero with a strong romantic atmosphere.

In the late 1980s, Mark Twain invested in the trial project of "Page Typesetter" and ran a publishing company, both of which ended in failure. In order to save money and pay off debts, Mark Twain closed his apartment in Hartford on 189 1, toured the world and returned to China on 1900. After leaving the United States, he discovered all kinds of crimes committed by European and American imperialism around the world. He wrote Travels on the Equator (1897), denouncing the imperialist colonial policy and praising the anti-imperialist struggle of the colonial people.

After returning home, he continued to write articles attacking the aggression of European and American imperialism. What makes us particularly amiable is that he praised the anti-imperialist struggle of the people of China. On the day before Eight-Nation Alliance invaded Beijing in 1900, he said, "My sympathy is with the people of China. The thieves in power in Europe have long brutally bullied China. I hope that the people of China will expel all foreigners and never allow them to come back "and predict that" China will be free and save itself ".

In his later years, Mark Twain wrote an autobiography and published it after his death (1924). Other works are pessimistic, revealing disappointment with "people". Some people attribute this change in his thoughts to the failure of his business operation, the disillusionment of his dream of getting rich, the death of his beloved wife and the early death of his beloved daughter, while others think that the degeneration of social atmosphere has made him unable to see the light.

1835, the year Mark Twain was born, Halley's Comet crossed the sky and returned in 19 10. Mark Twain predicted that he would walk with this comet. 1910 April19, Comet Halley flashed in the sky. Four days later, Mark Twain really left with him.

Mark Twain's short stories begin with humorous works. He called it "essays", "essays" or "stories", but there are characters and stories in it, which have the basic elements of short stories. His relaxed and flexible style is closely related to the humorous tradition in the western United States.

Humorous stories have a long tradition in the western United States. Ever since someone began to explore the west, there have been anecdotes about exploration among pioneers. These interesting stories are spread through bonfires, sailboats and cabins in the Woods in the wilderness. People tell these stories to relieve the fatigue of the day and have some fun in places where there is no cultural entertainment. These anecdotes are characterized by being funny, humorous, exaggerated and bizarre. They are all oral, polished, polished and changed by different storytellers, so they are very infectious and become valuable assets of American oral literature.

Long before the birth of Mark Twain, this humorous literature had developed from oral circulation to written printing. Most of the authors are cultural people from the East: journalists, teachers or officials. They love these rough, exaggerated and funny stories, and arrange and adapt them according to their own tastes and publish them in newspapers. Mark Twain first worked as a reporter in Nevada, and then interviewed in San Francisco and other places. This period is the prosperous period of western humor creation. Mark Twain's pen name (meaning "mark and find", that is, 12 feet, the water level is safe and the ship can pass) was taken when he was a reporter in Nevada. His masterpiece, The Famous Jumping Frog in Las County, was written in San Francisco when Karaoui was 30 years old. Later, he wrote a large number of humorous short stories based on his own experience, the most productive of which was in the 1960s and 1970s.

Judging from these stories, Mark Twain has three characteristics.

First of all, on the basis of western humor tradition, he played an extremely exaggerated artistic imagination. For example, the press in Tennessee wrote about the foul atmosphere of the press, the nonsense of running a newspaper, the unreasonable reading of the newspaper, and even fighting. The "main pen" and "colonel" shot at each other, but the guns were all aimed at the little editor "I", like a farce.

Our familiar "running for governor" also has this funny remark:

A newspaper published a new sensational case, maliciously slandered me again, and severely accused me of burning a madhouse and burning all the patients inside, because it made my family unable to see the scenery.

This is a very exaggerated way of writing. Mark Twain burned all the patients in the madhouse. Isn't that murder? Why don't you run for office in court? In this novel, careful readers will find that some "charges" do not match "charges". For example, how does "occupying a small piece of banana land" constitute "perjury"? How did you become a "corpse thief" and slandered the other grandfather for "robbing and hanging"? This is Mark Twain's intention to use dislocation to create an extremely exaggerated comedy effect.

Mark Twain's second characteristic is that his works often take the first person "I" as the protagonist, and this "I" plays various comedy roles like the protagonist in China's cross talk. Most of them are naive, honest, ignorant, simple-minded, and wishful thinking about everything, which often backfires.

There are many such examples. The hero of "Mysterious Visit" was played smart and showed off his wealth. Ai Songxi of China, the hero of Goldsmith's Friends Go Abroad Again, left the "oppressed and disastrous motherland" and came to the United States with "freedom for all and equality for all", thinking that he had entered heaven, but what was waiting for him was the punching and kicking of the police, the confiscation of luggage, walking in the street, being bitten by dogs and being teased. As a result, he was imprisoned for "disturbing social order".

Mark Twain consciously played the leading role with innocent and honest people. He said that the hero's "simplicity, innocence, sincerity and selflessness" must be very similar, "in order to receive wonderful and moving effects." The little secretary in the fact that I recently resigned can't understand why he cares so much about state affairs, but he is hated. Ai Jinxi was finally puzzled: why did he go to prison? Here we can see that the simpler and more naive the protagonist is, the stronger the contrast effect will be. The hero always harbors some ideal or some simple idea, but he runs into a wall everywhere in reality, which shows that his ideal is unrealistic and unworkable. The less he understands this, the more he shows the gap between ideal and reality.

The third feature is that humor contains irony. In his autobiography, he summed up his experience in writing humorous stories, and said, "Humor for humor's sake cannot last. Humor is just a smell and tidbits. I always warn others, which is why I can persist for 30 years. " "30 years" refers to the time from when he started writing to when he wrote his autobiography. His so-called "admonishing others" means that his novels contain serious creative goals of restraining evil and promoting good.

Mark Twain's fable gradually strengthened. His early works are full of funny elements. Some works that make fun of the press, such as Tennessee Press and How I Edit Agricultural News, are sometimes as funny as farce. But in the middle period, his subjects became serious, such as Goldsmith's friend went abroad again and A True Story, which wrote about the social problems of racial discrimination in the United States. Although he smiled on the surface, the victim's experience made the reader laugh with tears.

The theme of money's temptation and corrosion can best explain Mark Twain's development from humor to satire. "One Million Pounds" is funny and full of joy. The Heritage of 30,000 Yuan contains fables. We see how money distorts people's thoughts and feelings, so that the protagonist is dizzy and finally "immersed in a vague dream of regret and sadness." Before his death, the hero and heroine realized that "explosive and unjustly huge wealth is a trap." In The Man Who Ruined Fort hedley, Mark Twain put away his smiling face, stripped the hypocrisy of those "honest and proud" gentlemen with bitter irony, and exposed their greedy faces of "being a bitch and building a memorial arch". This can also be called "laughing", but it is a cold smile.

Generally speaking, Mark Twain's "laughter" is a kind of love for ordinary people and little people. Even ridicule is often well-meaning and sympathetic. He said: "I never want to educate those educated classes. Whether born or trained, I don't have that skill. " And I never had that ambition. I always want to hunt a bigger prey-the masses. "