When Mark Twain 12 years old, his father died, so he had to stop studying and work as a worker in a factory. Later, he changed many professions and became a pilot, miner and journalist on the Mississippi River. He gradually began his writing career by writing some interesting sketches. He died on April 2 19 10 and was buried in Amara, new york.
Mark Twain created a large number of works in his life, involving novels, plays, essays, poems and so on. In content, his works criticize unreasonable phenomena or ugliness of human nature, and express the author's strong sense of justice and concern for ordinary people who used to be compositors and sailors. As far as style is concerned, both experts and ordinary readers think humor and satire are the characteristics of his writing. He experienced the development process from early capitalism to imperialism in the United States, and his thoughts and creations also experienced the development stage from cynicism to bitter satire to pessimism. In the early stage, it was famous for its pungent satire, and in the later stage, it was even more exposed.
Mark Twain is the founder of American critical realism literature. Most of his major works have been translated into Chinese. In 2006, the authoritative American magazine Atlantic Monthly listed Mark Twain as 16 out of 100 people who influenced the United States.
Personality experience
1835165438+1On October 30th, Mark Twain was born in a poor rural lawyer family in Florida, Missouri. He ranks sixth among seven children in his family. His father is a local lawyer with a small income and a poor family. Little Mark Twain had to work in a school. Father 1 1 died at the age of, and he started an independent working life. At first, he was an apprentice in a printing factory, worked as a newspaper delivery and typesetter, and later worked as a sailor and helmsman on the Mississippi River.
1839 In the autumn, Mark Twain's family moved to a port city on the Mississippi River in Hannibal, Missouri, which became the inspiration for his later works tom sawyer and Naughty and Wandering. At that time, Missouri was a federal slave-holding state, and young Twain began to understand slavery, which became the theme of his later adventure novels. Mark Twain is color blind, which leads to his humorous jokes in society.
1847 On March 24th, John Clemens, Mark Twain's father, died of pneumonia. From 65438 to 0847, Mark Twain, from a poor family, began to work as a printing apprentice, newsboy, compositor, sailor, gold digger and journalist.
185 1 year, Mark Twain became a compositor and made contributions. He began to draft Hannibal Daily, which was founded by his brother Olin.
On May 1852, he published his first book, Colonists Surprised Playboy, in the handbag of Boston Humor Weekly.
1858, Mark Twain returned to Missouri. On the journey from the lower Mississippi River to New Orleans, the navigator "bisbee" hoped that Twain would become a lifelong navigator.
186 1 year, President Lincoln sent Euler to the local government in western Nevada as a secretary. He worked with him and became rich through timber and mining. Without success, he turned to writing to make a living. From 65438 to 0862, he worked in a newspaper in Virginia, Nevada.
1863 began to use the pseudonym "Mark Twain".
1864 I met humorist Ward and novelist Hart in San Francisco. With their encouragement and help, I improved my writing skills.
1865, a magazine in new york published a humorous story named "The Famous Jumping Frog in Kara Velas County", which made him famous all over the country. Since then, he has often written humorous articles for newspapers. 1866, he went to Hawaii for an interview.
1867, a local newspaper offered a voyage to the Mediterranean region. During his travels in Europe and the Middle East, he wrote the famous travel series "Fool's Travel", which was collected in 1869. During this period, he met Charles Langdon and saw a photo of Langdon's sister Olivia Langdon. Twain fell in love at first sight.
1870, Mark Twain married Olivia Langdon, the daughter of a new york capitalist. Living in Buffalo after marriage, editing and publishing Express by myself can't sell much money in a year.
The book "Hard Years" published by 1872 reflects his life experience in the newly developed western regions and records some anecdotes, especially humorous stories with the characteristics of the western regions.
The Gilded Age, written by him and Richard Werner at 1873, is his first novel.
187 1 year, Mark Twain's family moved to Hartford, Connecticut, where he became a famous writer and humorous speaker. The next few years will be a bumper year for his creation.
1875, Mark Twain wrote an article for Atlantic Monthly at the invitation of william dean howells. In his early years, he wrote seven articles on the topic of being a helmsman on the Mississippi River, which was later compiled into a book called The Past of the Mississippi River. Eight years later, he returned to his hometown and expanded his book to On the Mississippi.
1876, the novel tom sawyer was published. Although this book is set in a small town on the Mississippi River, it is loved by readers of all ages. This book contains a lot of content.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is another important novel of Mark Twain, which was written in 1876 and published in 1884. This novel is highly praised by critics, welcomed by readers at home and abroad, and constantly banned.
1889, Mark Twain published King Arthur's Court. The American in Connecticut is a novel that satirizes feudalism and religion in the background of Britain.
1894, written by Mark Twain, created the struggling slave image of Roxey. Before and after this, his family suffered misfortune: two daughters died of illness and his wife's health deteriorated. He didn't invest in automatic typesetting machine, so he went bankrupt. In order to pay off his debts, he gave speeches in Hawaii, New Zealand, Australia, India and South America.
The Prince and the Poor Child was published in 1896, describing the life of Joan of Arc, a French national heroine in15th century.
1897 wrote Journey to the Equator, in which satire and condemnation of imperialism's oppression and opposition to colonial people became the central idea of his later creation.
Mark Twain paid off all his debts on 1898.
From 1900 to 10, after leaving the United States and living in Europe for nearly ten years, he and his family returned to the United States and were warmly welcomed by literary and art leaders.
1900 years later, many works published on time have not lost their edge.
1904, his wife died in Italy. Mark Twain entered the final stage of his career. His early works, such as Fool Wilson, all expressed pessimism about "man", which became the theme of some of his works. The novella Joan of Arc and the essay What is a man? The story of the mysterious visitor. The most important book in his later years is his autobiography dictated and recorded by his secretary.
1910 On April 2 1 day, Rimark Twain died of angina pectoris.
Creative characteristics
Theme of the work
Criticize American hypocritical politics
When Mark Twain wrote his travels in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, he hit the nail on the head and exposed the collusion between political parties and news media. Mark Twain mentioned: "At that time, the navigator was the only completely independent person in the world without any restrictions. A servant who is not free in the royal society. Congress met with a series of voters; The editor of this newspaper is connected with a political party. No preacher can speak freely and tell the truth if one doesn't care about the opinions of his followers. The author is just a slave to the reader. The writer writes frankly and fearlessly, but later, before going to press, he more or less lost the motivation to work. " It can be seen that Mark Twain saw through the authenticity of American political parties and elections and publicly criticized them. It is Mark Twain's comprehensive exposure and attack on American social democratic political system. This novel has a humorous style. It digs into the corruption and darkness of the American electoral system in just a few pages. His thoughts are extremely profound. Exposed the dark side of the so-called "democratic" electoral system in the United States and the hypocrisy of the capitalist electoral system.
Criticize the abnormal moral values of the United States
In Mark Twain's novel The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg, Mark Twain revealed the fact that money can control people to lie, blackmail and even kill people. Money is paramount. In the novel On the Mississippi, the speculation and wealth psychology of the whole United States at that time were summarized around the plot of building railways, boiling water to build roads and opening universities. When portraying a typical figure like Colonel Cyrus, this work expresses Colonel Cyrus' enthusiasm in a unique language: "If you want to be rich, you must be rich anyway, and the air is full of wealth. Colonel Cyrus was misled by such lies as "everyone has equal opportunities" and "anyone who polishes shoes can become a millionaire". He is always intoxicated with those risky plans and illusory enterprises, which makes him lose the most basic human feelings. Because of his illusory waiting, his family lives in near abject poverty. However, in the novel Running for Governor, a poor man with a million pounds got satisfied consumption and decent service in fear, but he didn't have to pay any bills. The human nature of capitalist money worship is extremely fragile and contemptible in the face of millions of dollars.
Criticize the false religion in America
Mark Twain wrote sarcastically in his article The Man Who Destroyed Hardberg: "These priests forgot to mention that their God is the slowest man in the universe. His eyes that never sleep are as dull as those he waited for a century to see, while others only need a week to see. " In all history, there is no example of noble behavior that God first thought of. He is always one step slower than others think and one step slower than others. Then he came, appeared and enjoyed the benefits of credit. If God really has foresight, why does he always appear afterwards? In the short story The Gilded Age, Mark Twain described the happiness of heaven with grotesque irony. Captain Domfield has always believed that an honest life will be rewarded in heaven. He believed and prayed like this. "God's Plenipotentiary on Earth" promised him happiness in heaven, but he felt extremely angry after his death. He understands that this "contract" is just a scam, and the happiness in heaven is a scam. In the novel One Million Pounds, Mark Twain criticized American missionaries in China by taking Father Amante as an example. He criticized amante and others for cruelly exploiting China farmers, their women and innocent children and starving them to death. He used his hard-earned money to spread the gospel, which affirmed China people's suspicion and growing awakening to missionaries.
Artistic feature
Mark Twain's works have three characteristics:
First of all, on the basis of western humor tradition, he exerted his extremely exaggerated artistic imagination.
Secondly, works often take the first person "I" as the protagonist, and this "I" is like the protagonist in China's cross talk, playing various funny roles. Most of them are naive, honest, ignorant, simple-minded, and wishful thinking in everything, and the result is often counterproductive. Mark Twain realized that innocent people should be regarded as heroes. The hero always has some ideals or some pure ideas, but in fact he runs into a wall everywhere, which shows that his ideals are unrealistic and infeasible. The less he understands this, the greater the gap between ideal and reality.
Third, humor contains irony. In his autobiography, he summed up his experience in writing humorous stories and said, "Humor for humor's sake won't last long. Humor is just a fragrance and trifle. I always warn others, which is why I can persist for 30 years. " "Thirty years" refers to the period 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.