Influence on mark twain works

Great writers are always influenced either by legendary authors or by the events on their life. Edgar Allan Poe’s writing style was greatly influenced by his tragic life events, and this was what distinguished his works and what launched him to fame. On the other hand, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was considerably influenced by Poe. In fact, his world-famous character, Sherlock Holmes was inspired onDupin, iconic Poe character. Mark Twain has been inspiration for many other writers throughout time, but his own inspiration came from somewhere. The truth is that Twain’s unique writing style was mostly influenced by the events he lived during his childhood. During this essay, I will present arguments to demonstrate my thesis statement, and to obviously, convince you, dear reader, that the earlyyears of Samuel Langhorne Clemens left their mark on his life.
Being born and raised in Missouri established the path Twain’s life would follow. He was born on the small county of Hannibal, which lately was the inspiration for the fictional town of Saint Petersburg, hometown for Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Also, it is important to point that Twain uses a lot of idioms and expressions of theHannibal people, which is an important factor that characterizes his unique writing style. On those times, Missouri was a slave state; black people were mistreated and considered inferior, facts that support Mark’s critiques and satires about slavery. Twain lived near his uncle’s farm, where he possessed (I know the term sound rude, but in that times African Americans were considered possessions)more than twenty slaves, which supports the famous author knowledge about slaves life, sufferings and worries. This is demonstrated on his book, “The Adventures of Tom Saywer” where we meet Jim, a black slave that claims for his freedom. Jim was probably inspired by all the slaves Twain’s uncle kept working on his lands. Other detail that supports the statement on the beginning of thisparagraph is that Hannibal was a river port and Twain lived practically by the Mississippi River, which explains the important role this body of water plays in most of his stories. The Mississippi is crucial on “The Adventures of Tom Saywer”, “Huckleberry Finn”, and “Perplexing Lessons” to mention some examples. In fact, I may venture to say that any of these three great works wouldn’t exist if Twainwould have been raised on any other place other than the side of the Mississippi River.

It would be a sin to leave apart the Mississippi river as an influence for Mark Twain. Living at the side of the Mississippi was the aspect that left the greatest print on this author’s life. First of all, his pen name. it is well-known that he was born as Samuel Langhorne Clemens, but not everybody knows why hechose the “Mark Twain” as a pen name. Well, the reason in pretty simple, and, although I am sure you already know it, I cannot leave it apart. “Mark Twain” comes from the expression “mark the twain”, which is a navigational warning used when measuring the depth of the river to ensure a boat’s safe passage. It is quite silly right? But if he had not been born and raised in a river port, maybetoday I would be writing about Samuel Langhorne Clemens and how he liked to describe cows on his stories about milk. We can also support the main idea of this paragraph with Twain’s famous memoir “Life on the Mississippi”. The book begins with a historical retrospect of the times in which Hernando de Soto became the first European to discover the river at 1542 and about French explorers JacquesMarquette and Rene and Robert Cavelier of La Salle in the seventeenth century, jumping afterwards to the first permanent European settlement. From the time of the timber (transport of logs floating down the river) and the beginnings of steamship travel, the action is increasingly marked by autobiographical elements. Although most of the anecdotes told on this work happened when Twain was on his...