Mark Twain

Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), better known by
his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher,
and lecturer. He was also a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River before heading west to
join Orion in Nevada.
Twain began his career writing light, humorous verse, but he became a chronicler
of the vanities, hypocrisies, and murderous acts of mankind. At mid-career, he combined
rich humor, sturdy narrative, and social criticism in Huckleberry Finn. He was a master
of rendering colloquial speech and helped to create and popularize a distinctive American
literature built on American themes and language. Many of his works have been suppressed at
times for various reasons. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has been repeatedly
restricted in American high schools, not least for its frequent use of the word
"nigger",which was in common usage in the pre-Civil War period in which the novel was set.
Among his novels are The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, the Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn (1885) the latter often called "The Great American Novel".

Common Themes  alcohol and drug abuse

 irony race Common Styles

 rules and order  satire (sarcastic, write)
 deception  dialect
 religion  irony
 friendship  realism
 family man and the  romanticism
natural world

Works:
The Adventures of Hucklebery Finn
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Merry Tales
A Dog's Tale
Twain's next major publication was The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, which draws on his youth
in Hannibal. Tom Sawyer was modeled on Twain as a child, with traces of schoolmates John
Briggs and Will Bowen. The book also introduces Huckleberry Finn in a supporting role, based
on Twain's boyhood friend Tom Blankenship.
 The Adventures of Hucklebery Finn

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel by Mark Twain, first published in the
United Kingdom in December 1884 and in the United States in February 1885. Commonly
named among the Great American Novels, the work is among the first in major American
literature to be written throughout in vernacular English, characterized by local color
regionalism. It is told in the first person by Huckleberry "Huck" Finn, the narrator of two other
Twain novels (Tom Sawyer Abroad and Tom Sawyer, Detective) and a friend of Tom Sawyer. It
is a direct sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
The book is noted for its colorful description of people and places along the Mississippi
River and is an often scathing satire on entrenched attitudes, particularly racism.
The book has 43 chapters and 5 main location where the story is related.
Places:
1. In Missouri
2. In Illinois and on Jackson's Island
3. In Kentucky: the Grangerfords and Shepherdsons
4. In Arkansas: the duke and the king
5. On the Phelps' farm
Characters:
Huckleberry “Huck” Finn - The protagonist and narrator of the novel. Huck is the
thirteen-year-old son of the local drunk. Frequently forced to survive on his own wits and
always a bit of an outcast, Huck is thoughtful, intelligent (though formally uneducated), and
willing to come to his own conclusions about important matters, even if these conclusions
contradict society’s norms. Nevertheless, Huck is still a boy, and is influenced by others,
particularly by his imaginative friend, Tom.
Tom Sawyer - Huck’s friend, and the protagonist of Tom Sawyer, the novel to which
Huckleberry Finn is ostensibly the sequel. In Huckleberry Finn, Tom serves as a foil to Huck:
imaginative, dominating, and given to wild plans taken from the plots of adventure novels, Tom
is everything that Huck is not.
Widow Douglas and Miss Watson - Two wealthy sisters who live together in St.
Petersburg and who adopt Huck. The gaunt and severe Miss Watson is the most prominent
representative of the hypocritical religious and ethical values Twain criticizes in the novel.
Jim - One of Miss Watson’s household slaves. Jim is superstitious and occasionally
sentimental, but he is also intelligent, practical, and ultimately more of an adult than anyone
else in the novel. Jim’s frequent acts of selflessness, his friendship with both Huck and Tom
demonstrate to Huck that humanity has nothing to do with race. Because Jim is a black man
and a runaway slave, he is at the mercy of almost all the other characters in the novel and is
often forced into ridiculous and degrading situations.
Pap - Huck’s father
The duke and the dauphin - A pair of con men whom Huck and Jim rescue as they are
being run out of a river town.
Judge Thatcher - The local judge
The Grangerfords - A family that takes Huck in after a steamboat hits his raft,
separating him from Jim.
Silas and Sally Phelps, Aunt Polly - Tom Sawyer’s aunt and uncle
 Plot summary

In Missouri. The story begins in fictional St. Petersburg, Missouri. Huck Finn and his
friend, Tom Sawyer, have each come into a considerable sum of money as a result of their earlier
adventures. Huck explains how he is placed under the guardianship of the Widow Douglas,
who, together with her stringent sister, Miss Watson, are attempting to "sivilize" him and teach
him religion. Finding civilized life confining. When Tom Sawyer helps him to escape one night
past Miss Watson's slave Jim. Just as the gang's activities begin to bore Huck, he is suddenly
interrupted by the reappearance of his shiftless father, "Pap". Knowing that Pap would only
spend the money on alcohol, however, Pap kidnaps Huck and leaves town with him.
In Illinois and on Jackson's Island. Pap forcibly moves Huck to his isolated cabin in the
woods along the Illinois shoreline. Because of Pap's drunken violence, Huck, during one of his
father's absences, elaborately fakes his own death, escapes from the cabin, and sets off
downriver. Huck reunites with Jim, Miss Watson's slave. Jim has also run away after he
overheard Miss Watson planning to sell him "down the river. Jim plans to make his way to the
town of Cairo in Illinois, a free state, so that he can later buy the rest of his enslaved family's
freedom. At first, Huck is conflicted about the sin and crime of supporting a runaway slave,
but as the two talk in depth, Huck emotionally connects with Jim, who becomes Huck's close
friend. After heavy flooding on the river, the two find a raft (which they keep) as well as an
entire house floating on the river. Jim finds the naked body of a dead man lying on the floor,
shot in the back.
To find out the latest news in town, Huck dresses as a girl and enters the house of Judith
Loftus, a woman new to the area. Huck learns from her about the news of his own supposed
murder; Pap was initially blamed, but since Jim ran away he is also a suspect and a reward
for Jim's capture has initiated a manhunt. Mrs. Loftus becomes increasingly suspicious that
Huck is a boy, finally proving it by a series of tests. Once he is exposed, she let him to leave
her home without commotion, not realizing that he is the allegedly murdered boy they have just
been discussing. Huck returns to Jim to tell him the news and that a search party is coming to
Jackson's Island that very night. The two in a hurry load up the raft and leave.
After a while, searching it, they stumble upon two thieves discussing murdering, but they
flee before being noticed. They are later separated in a fog, making Jim intensely anxious,
and when they reunite, Huck tricks Jim into thinking he dreamed the entire incident. Jim is
deeply hurt that his friend should have teased him so mercilessly. Huck apologizes to Jim,
though his conscience troubles him about humbling himself to a black man.
In Kentucky: the Grangerfords and Shepherdsons. Traveling onward, Huck and Jim's
raft is struck by a passing ship, again separating the two. Huck is given shelter on the
Kentucky side of the river by the Grangerfords, an "aristocratic" family. The Grangerfords
and Shepherdsons are rivals, but they are going to the same church,. The vendetta finally
comes to a head when Buck's older sister run away with a member of the Shepherdson clan. In
the resulting conflict, all the Grangerford males from this branch of the family are shot and
killed, including Buck, whose horrific murder Huck witnesses. Huck reunited with Jim, who
has since recovered and repaired the raft.
In Arkansas: the duke and the king. Near the Arkansas-Missouri-Tennessee border, Jim
and Huck take two on-the-run aboard the raft. The younger man, introduces himself as the long-
lost son of an English duke (the Duke of Bridgewater). The older one, claim that he himself is
the Lost Dauphin, the son of Louis XVI and rightful King of France. They become permanent
passengers on Jim and Huck's raft. To divert suspicions from the public away from Jim, they
pose him as recaptured slave runaway, but later paint him up entirely blue and call him the
"Sick Arab" so that he can move about the raft without bindings.
They makes some triks for make some money, but the others becomupset on them.
People wants to revenge on the duke and king for their money-making scam, but the two cleverly
skip town together with Huck and Jim just before the performance begins.
In the next town, the two swindlers then impersonate brothers of Peter Wilks, a recently
deceased man of property. To match accounts of Wilks's brothers, they pretends to be a deaf-
mute and the other brother. The Wilkțs stole the money and in a desperate moment, Huck is
forced to hide the money in Wilks's coffin, which is abruptly buried the next morning. The
arrival of two new men who seem to be the real brothers throws everything into confusion, so
that the townspeople decide to dig up the coffin in order to determine which are the true brothers,
but, with everyone else distracted, Huck leaves for the raft, hoping to never see the duke and
king again. When Huck is finally able to get away a second time, he finds that Jim was sold
away to a family that intends to return him to his proper owner for the reward. Defying his
conscience and accepting the negative religious consequences he expects for his actions—"All
right, then, I'll go to hell!"—Huck resolves to free Jim once and for all.
On the Phelps' farm. Huck learns that Jim is being held at the plantation. The family's
nephew, Tom, is expected for a visit at the same time as Huck's arrival, so Huck is mistaken for
Tom and welcomed into their home. He plays along, hoping to find Jim's location and free him
(the expected nephew is, in fact, Tom Sawyer). When Huck intercepts the real Tom Sawyer on
the road and tells him everything, Tom decides to join Huck's scheme, pretending to be his own
younger half-brother.In the meantime, Jim has told the family about the two man and the new
plan and so the townspeople capture the duke and king. After that, Tom develops an elaborate
plan to free him, involving secret messages, a hidden tunnel, a rope ladder sent in Jim's food, and
other elements from adventure books he has reads, including an anonymous note. During the
actual escape and resulting pursuit, Tom is shot in the leg, while Jim remains by his side, risking
recapture rather than completing his escape alone. Although a local doctor admires Jim's
decency, he has Jim arrested in his sleep and returned to the Phelps. After this, Tom's Aunt Polly
arrives and reveals Huck and Tom's true identities to the Phelps family. Jim is revealed to be a
free man: Miss Watson died two months earlier and freed Jim in her will, but Tom (who already
knew this) chose not to reveal this information to Huck so that he could come up with an artful
rescue plan for Jim. Jim tells Huck that Huck's father (Pap Finn) has been dead for some time (he
was the dead man they found earlier in the floating house), and so Huck may now return safely
to St. Petersburg. Huck is rewarded six hundred dollars and gives most of it to Jim for his family.
Huck declares that he is quite glad to be done writing his story.

Themes
Racism and Slavery, Intellectual and Moral Education, The Hypocrisy of
“Civilized” Society,
Motifs
Childhood, Lies and Conspirations, Superstitions and Folk Beliefs,
Analysis
The Notice and Explanatory set the tone for The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn through
their mixing of humor and seriousness. In its declaration that anyone looking for motive, plot, or
moral will be prosecuted, banished, or shot, the Notice establishes a sense of blustery comedy
that pervades the rest of the novel. The Explanatory takes on a slightly different tone, still full of
a general good-naturedness but also brimming with authority.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain is a novel about a young boy growing up along
the Mississippi River. It is set in the fictional town of St. Petersburg, inspired by Hannibal,
Missouri, where Twain lived as a boy.
Places:
St. Petersbourg, Mississippi, Jackson's Island, McDougal's Cave
Characters:
Tom Sawyer - The novel’s protagonist. Tom is a mischievous boy with an active imagination
who spends most of the novel getting himself, and often his friends, into and out of trouble.
Aunt Polly - Tom’s aunt and guardian. Aunt Polly is a simple, kindhearted woman who struggles
to balance her love for her nephew with her duty to discipline him. She generally fails in her
attempts to keep Tom under control.Aunt Polly wants to be appreciated and loved.
Huckleberry Finn - The son of the town drunk. Huck is a juvenile outcast who is shunned by
respectable society and adored by the local boys, who envy his freedom.
Becky Thatcher - Judge Thatcher’s pretty, yellow-haired daughter. From almost the minute she
moves to town, Becky stirs Tom’s lively romantic sensibility.
Joe Harper - Tom’s “bosom friend” and frequent playmate. Joe is a typical best friend, a
convention Twain parodies.
Sid - Tom’s half-brother. Sid is a goody-goody who enjoys getting Tom into trouble.
Mary - Tom’s sweet, almost saintly cousin. Mary holds a soft spot for Tom.
Injun Joe - A violent, villainous man who commits murder, becomes a robber, and plans to
mutilate the Widow Douglas.
Muff Potter - A hapless drunk and friend of Injun Joe. Potter is kind and grateful toward Tom
and Huck, who bring him presents after he is wrongly jailed for Dr. Robinson’s murder.
Dr. Robinson - A respected local physician.
Mr. Sprague - The minister of the town church.
The Widow Douglas - A kindhearted, pious resident of St. Petersburg whom the children
recognize as a friend
Jim - Aunt Polly’s young slave.
Judge Thatcher - Becky’s father, the county judge
Mr. Jones, Amy Lawrence, Ben Rogers, Alfred Temple, Mr. Walters, Mr. Dobbins

Analysis
A third person narrator describes the experiences of the boys, interspersed with occasional social
commentary. In its sequel, Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain changes to a first person narrative
which takes moral conflicts more personally and thus makes greater social criticism possible.
Sometimes the book is described as racist because black people are called "niggers" in the text.
This was common practice at the time and does not necessarily indicate racism. A cleansed
version, which no longer contained the word, aroused indignation among some literary critics.

Summary:
Tom Sawyer lives with his Aunt Polly and his half-brother Sid. He skips school to swim
and is made to whitewash the fence the next day as punishment. He cleverly persuades his
friends to trade him small treasures for the privilege of doing his work.
Tom falls in love with Becky Thatcher, a new girl in town, and persuades her to get
"engaged" by kissing him. But their romance collapses when she learns Tom has been "engaged"
previously to Amy Lawrence. Shortly after Becky shuns him, he accompanies Huckleberry Finn
to the graveyard at night, where they witness a trio of body snatchers, Dr. Robinson, Muff
Potter, and Injun Joe, getting into a fight in which Robinson is murdered by Injun Joe.
Joe pins the murder on Muff Potter, but the boys know he is innocent. At Potter's trial,
Tom speaks out and Joe escapes through a window before he can be apprehended. Henceforth
the boys live in constant fear of Joe's revenge on them for incriminating him.
Bored by school, Tom, his best friend Joe Harper, and Huck run away to an island in
the Mississippi called Jackson's Island. While enjoying their new-found freedom, they become
aware that the community is sounding the river for their bodies. Tom sneaks back home one
night to observe the commotion. The trio later carry out this scheme by making a sensational
sudden appearance in the church in the middle of their joint funeral service.
Back in school, Tom gets himself back in Becky's favor after he nobly accepts the blame
and punishment for a book she has ripped.
Summer arrives, and Tom and Huck go hunting for buried treasure in a haunted house.
After venturing upstairs they hear a noise below. Peering through holes in the floor, they see
Injun Joe disguised as a deaf-mute Spaniard; Injun Joe and his companion plan to bury some
stolen treasure of their own. From their hiding spot, Tom and Huck wriggle with delight at the
prospect of digging it up. By chance the villains discover an even greater gold hoard buried in
the hearth and carry it all off to a better secret hiding place. The boys are determined to find
where it has gone. One night Huck spots them and follows them. He overhears their plans to
attack the wealthy Widow Douglas. By running to fetch help, Huck prevents the crime and
becomes an anonymous hero.
In the meantime, Tom goes on a picnic to McDougal's Cave with Becky and their
classmates. Tom and Becky get separated from the others and wander lost in the cave
complex for the next few days. He accidentally encounters Injun Joe in the caves one day, but
he is not seen by his nemesis. He finds a way out, and they are joyfully welcomed back by their
community. As a preventive measure, Becky's father, has McDougal's Cave sealed off with an
iron door. When Tom hears of the sealing several days later he directs a posse to the cave, they
find Injun Joe's corpse just inside the sealed entrance, starved to death.
A week later, having deduced from Injun Joe's presence at McDougal's Cave that the
villain must have hidden the stolen gold inside, Tom takes Huck to the cave and they find the
box of gold, the proceeds of which are invested for them. The Widow Douglas adopts Huck,
but he finds the restrictions of a civilized home life painful. He attempts to escape back to his
vagrant life. Tom tricks him into thinking that he can later join Tom's new scheme of starting a
robber band if he returns to the widow. Reluctantly, Huck agrees and goes back to her.

Themes: Moral and Social Maturation, Society’s Hypocrisy, Freedom through Social
Exclusion
Motifs: Crime, Trading, The Circus, Showing Off,
Symbols: The Cave, The Storm, The Treasure, The Village