马克_吐温_从幽默到讽刺_英文2

Mark Twain:from humor to satireAbstract:Mark Twain, a mastermind of humor and realism, is seen as a giant in world literature. His humor had great impact on the following men of letters; critics also attached significant importance to it and put forward various interpretations. However,humor could no more be found in Twain's later works. On the contrary, it was replaced by bitter satire. Why did Twain change his writing style as well his attitude towards life?What was the cause of this sharp conversion? Focusing on these questions, the paper tries to analyze the basic elements which affected Twain from social influence and personal encounters respectively, aiming at offering rational analysis of this shift as well as making Twain's works readily understood.I IntroductionMark Twain, the pseudonym of SamuelLanghorne Clemens, is the foreruner andReputed realist in the arena of Americanliterature. Because of his remarkable contribution to thenation, literary critics spoke highly of his achievements.For instance, these venerable titles‖the Lincoln ofAmerican literarure‖,‖the true father of our nationalliterature ,‖‖Mark Twain –mirror of America‖ areused to highlight his pinnacles in literature. His faithfuldisciple, Ernest Heming way, more over, onve put it,―all modern literature comes from one book by MarkTwain ,called Huck lebury Finn..‖As far as a literatry giant is concerned, Twain wasremembered by men of letters firstly as a mastermindof hunmor and then as bitter satiric writer. In otherwords, Twain in his writing career experienced achange from being cheerful and optimistic to despairingand pessimistic But what cause his shift from humorto satir? Personally, both social influence andpersonal encounters play critical roles in changing hiswriting from humor to satire and his attitude towardlife as wellⅡSocial influencesBoth the American Civil war( happened in 1861and lasted till1865) and the re-construction after thewar greatly affected Twain‘s writing style. MarkTwain was born in Florida, Missouri, on30 NovemberIn 1835,into a lawyer family.With the advent ofthe civil war, young Twain in 1856 became a steam- boat pilot, a profession about which he wrote thirty years later in the book Life on the Mississippi. Generally speeking, the American people enjoy regardingwar experience as their cherished and valuable forture, and Twain was also no exception. As a pilot he actively participated in the civil war in 1857.The cast of characters set before hin in his profession was rich and varied—a cosmos. He took abundantly part in this life, listening to pilothouse talk of feuds, piracies, lynchings,medicine shows, and savage waterside slums, namely, he made himself very much familiar with all walks of life and each coner of the society.Twain, atthe very begainning,was actually optimistic about what he saw and what he did .However,he had to leavethe river country in the wake of the end of the civilwar after four and a half years in the steamboat.In other words, the end of civil war put an end to his life as a pilot. Then he tried soldiering once again for two weeks with motley band of confederate guerrillas who diligently avoided contact with the enemy.Twain quit after deciding,‖I knew more about retreating thanthe man that invented retreating‖.After that, he made his mind to estabilish his fame by writing. It was proved that his pen was really mightier than his pickax . In 1861 he became a joumalist and adopted―Mark Twain‖ as his pen name. Four years later,The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras Coutrywas published ―Coleman with his jumping frog-bet stranger$50—stranger had no frog, and C got him one—in the meantime, stranger filled C‘s frog fullof shot and he couldn‘t jump.The stranger‘s frog won.‖This sucessful story firmly established his reputation as a humorist and storyteller.In fact, the civil war was a turning-point inTwain‘s literary career, and it was also a watershed between his hunmor and satire.Thus, the war experience For him was an epoch-making event and it hadfar-reaching influence upon his writing .We know, Twain fully and diligently embraced into the steamboat pilot on the eve of the civil war . Presumably his orginal pursuit was fight for peace, freedom,and reunification of the nation and happiness of American people.At that time, Twain‘s eyes were filled with hops and opportunities as well as conflicts and fights. He firmly upheld that he could be self-made and made a fortuneby immersing in the war . However ,only the opposite was in fact true. It turned out to be that he took everything for granted at first . Shortly after the war came to an end, it left nothing but cherished remembrances, which made him extremely upset and disheartened fortunately, this four and a half years in the steamboat made himself educated and acquainted with every possible type of human nature , and most of which made him ulimately recognized that his pen would mightier than his weapons.Without hesitation any more, he began digging his way to regional fame as a corrspondent and humorist with rich war experience. Dueto his phonographic memories and dsecriptive geniushe made all happened in the war vividly resurfaced. Scores of successful works gradually set him apart from the commom men of letters and it eventually made him a reputed spokesperson for the realism and aworld-wide remarkable humorist in particular.As a witness of the civil war, Twain saw clearlythe great changes in nation‘s economic developmentand political life .With the final victory over the South the North once again enjoyed its wielding power inthe nation‘s administration. Now the acute confilt 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 defeatedSouth had its prosperity became rootless.in this case, clusters of groundless southern poor whites and the newly freed slaves headed directly or indirectely for the newly-liberated cities to seek opportunities.It may be called the ―Gold Rush‖ rejuvenated, or rather,it wasso-called the ―American Dream‖ by some critics.Twain also could not help rushing to the west to willhis American dream.He once believed the idea of development and industrialization since it would modernize the young country and encourage the enterprising spirit of American who had long been famous for it. He was firmly enthralled by such fever,so once again he held an optimistic attitude towardsthe post-westward expansion. He drew much inspiration from the unparalleled and magnificent event and spoke highly of its decision-makers and its people.Social consciousness roots in social being. As a kind of social consciouness literature should reflectthe then social reality in which it firmly roots. Being a realistic literati, Twain gradually noticed the darkness and he finally found the difference between what he saw superficially and what they really were in-depth;he also found the difference between what people claimed to be and what they really were. He realized that people became amoral and the ruling classbecame impotent in the course of material prosperity. Althogh both the civil war and the re-construction afterthe war (aftermath of the westward expasion) enable him to familiar with people from all walks oflife,to be rich in writing materials which led him to become American ambassadoralt large, and to acquire an international reputation ashumoristcum-frontier-philosopher; on the otherhand ,it also tallked him into observing deliberately the side-effect of industrialization and the darkness of the ly, the material fulfilment only brought about spirit vacancy. Because his deep sorry and increasing dissatisfactiontoward these phenomena,Twain could not be humorous and opptimistic any more. On the contrary,Twain in his later works shifted from anoptimist to a misanthrope,from humor to satire.For instance,in his later works, The Glided Aged andPudd‘ndiead Wilson, he intensely and fiercely satirized the rampant evills and darkness of the society. Unlike the experiences of war and the westward expasionthat made him became quite optimistic, the corruption and in justice made him became extremely pessimistic He failed to find ways to eradicate the exacerbated Social disease; he held a helpless ande elusive attitude towards life.Thus, Twain became doubtfull about the idea of development and skeptical of the goodness of human nature. In Following the Equator and To the person Sitting in Darkness ,he severely condemned the nation‘s imperia and aggressive behavior to other countries, especially the Spanish-American War.sincethe publication of The Mysterious Stranger in 1916until his death in 1910,he maintained a bitter satire and Skepticism to large degree. The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg and What is the Man are representativesof this sort.ⅢPersonal encountersAs I mentioned foregoing,social influence assered predominat significance over Twain‘s coversationfrom humor to satire. It is no exaggeration that social influence of his day,dominantly affected his attitude towards life, his outlook of society, his writing styleand so on and so forth .However, there is another element, his personal tragedies which also can‘t be ignored when we tried to analyze his writing style. Regarded as a giant in both American literatureand world literature, Twain encounted countless personal hardships and sufferings.It is likely that Twain is more famous for his personal tragedies than as a humorist and a representative of realism. It is no wander that he had to change his humor into satire after ex- periencing unexpected personal sufferings and tragedies . In the firstly place, his father died when he was only twelve and which directly brought about the end of his found education. However ,Twain wekown was born in a period that the two sides were fighting at throat and when the confilt ended the west was still wide open. The nationwide aftermath ofwestward movement once again full of chances and opportunites and he therefore was utterly delightedwith the fresh land and invigorated by the poineering spirit.Chances are that his father‘s death did not make difference upon hin emotion.Life was bright for hin, filled with its mysteries alarmed by its terrors,and amused by its contrast. Thus he was able to laugh with lightness as great humorist in the Pacific slope. However,when the aged Twain ultimately realizedthat the material wealth only resulted in corruption and injustice instead of man‘s morallity improvement,his humor and laugh were replaced by bitter sneer and satire .In the second place,When he bacame sophisticated he was once again haunted in the consistent deaths of his loved ones;his borther Henry was killed bya steamboat explosin; his eldest daughter Susy died of spinal meningitis; Mrs Clenments succumbed to a heat attack in Florence; and youngest daughter Jean an epileptio drawned in an upstairs bathtub.Such trgic encounters Twain experienced is really like the de-cription in Mark Twain Mirror of A merican ―Bit-terness fed on the man who had made the worldlaugh .The moralizing of his eariler writing had beenwell padded with humor .Now the gloves came offwith bitter satire‖ .The last but not the least reasonwhy Twain turned humor into satire in his later worksis that the total failure of his type-setting and pub-lishing company in 1894 .The failure in bussiness andthe deaths of loved ones made Twain maintained abitter skepticism in his later part life .Twain felt so de- spaired and frustrated that he was deeply invovled in skepticism and predestination .Just as he put in hisown autobiogrph;‖…they vanish from a worldwhere they were of no consequences;where theyachieved nothing ;where they were a mistake and afailure and foolishness,where they have left no signthat they have existed-a world which will lamentthem a day and forget them forever.‖In the word ,Mark Twain ‗s later years was full oftotal failure in frequent fiinancial speculation-the speculation both in type-setting and publishing companiesand his personal bereavement-the beloved ones diedone after anther.Unlike Shakespeare still could writeout some comedies after his forur greatestworld-known trgedies Twain changed his writingstyle into bitter satire after making the worle laugh byhis humor .his last years were filled with acute pessimicm,strong skepticism and bitter staire.Twain diedon April 21,1910, at age of sevety-five.ⅣConclusionTo sum up , fundamentally ,Twain is a greathumist.He once said ―there are several kinds of stories‖But only one difficult-the humorous,. So to behumorous in his writing I venture to say is his lifelong pursuit .it is also undeniable that Twain is the onlygiant who had brought both local colorism and humorto world fame. Meanwhile he once claimed that hewas a serious writer and was actively concerned withmoral ideas in many ways. On this point, Twain wasby no means shallow or frivolous and we can‘t simplycall him a humorist or an ironic writer .in fact, mostof Twain‘s works are the combination of both humorand satrie and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finnwas a case in point.On the one hand ,it is his master-piece as a humorist while the novel also can be eyed asa satire on sentimentality and Romanticism on theother.Roughly speaking Twain‘humor deeply rootedin social changes and his personal sufferings .Whenhe thought life was bright for him and full of chancesand if everything went smoothly , he was quite optimistic and hunmorous . However ,when he found thedarkness corruption, injustice and personal tragic encounters he had to withstand in paticular , he becamefirstly serious and the bitter ironic.It followstherefore that we should take these elements into considerations when analyzing Twain‘s writing characteristics reality and the unpredictable personal tragedies directlyand eventually resulted in his change from humor to satire。