Mark Twain 1

Mark Twain is one of the best rationalist writers of the time. His stories are very important to our past and to our culture. Twain was raised in Hannibal, Missouri and he had the name Samuel Clemens (Meet). Hannibal is located near the Mississippi River. He stories are about life in Missouri (Meet). His father died when he was eleven and he was forced to go into schooling and be an apprentice to help out with his family (Meet). When he was twenty one, Clemens finally completed his life goal to become a river boat captain (Meet). He got his name Mark Twain while he was on the boat (Meet). The word twain means two. When the boat was loading and unloading cargo, the boat would rise and fall with the weight of the cargo. When the boat would be at level of two, the crew would yell Mark Twain. Twain loved the sound of it and he changed his name to it. During the Civil War, the Mississippi was closed off for commercial traffic (Meet). Twain moved out to Nevada to find money from gold (Meet). He settled in San Francisco (Meet). Here he started writing. He wrote his story "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" and he helped his name to get out in the literature world and made him famous (Meet). He also wrote about his travels (Meet). Twain's later life had many tragedies in it (Meet). He lost a lot of money and important people in his life died on him (Meet). Those hardships led him to become a bitter man.
Twain used the places he has been in his writings. The story "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" is about the gold rush in California (Twain). Twain left his hometown and moved out to California to look for gold also (Meet). Regionalism is a type of literature that depicts the factors of a specific region and the characteristics of that region (Campbell). For example, for the dialect of the region, Twain said "cal'klated" for the work calculated (Twain). The was the dielect of the region and the time period and Mark Twain uses it in his writings. The dialect of the time is where people shorten their words and use an accent. The accent that Twain grew up with was very redneck and hard to understand. I think it is cool when an author writes like that. It is very unique and shows that the author knows the true characteristics of the region. There is regionalism in Twain's writings when he talks abbout the land. He describes the land of California as if he knows all about it. He does know about it because he has lived there. I enjoy reading Twain's work because he uses good detail and he understands what he is talking about because he has lived it. He uses a nice anaolgy of the frog wanting to become smart is an example of a person wanting to become educated also. Twain's writing has always been about the area he has lived in.

Campbell, Donna M. "Regionalism and Local Color Fiction." Washington State University - Pullman, Washington. 20 Jan. 2011. Web. 08 Feb. 2011.

"Meet Mark Twain." Glencoe Literature. Comp. Jeffery D. Wilhelm. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw Hill, 2009. 496. Print.

Twain, Mark "The Celebrated Jumping Frogs of Calaveras County." Glencoe Literature. Comp. Jeffery D. Wilhelm. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw Hill, 2009. 368. Print.