Mark Twain (1835-1910), formerly known as Samuel Langhorne Clemens, was the most outstanding realist writer in the United States in the 19th century. He was born in a family of rural lawyers. His father died when he was 12 years old. From then on, he began to make a living on his own and worked as an apprentice, newsboy, typesetter and sailor. The experience of sailing on the Mississippi River was particularly important to him. His pen name "Mark Twain" came from the sailor's lingo meaning "water two fathoms deep" ("safe water"), and many of his novels are also set in this setting. Related to a big river.
Since the end of 1862, Mark Twain has worked as a reporter for several newspapers. During this period, he began to publish humorous sketches. At that time, such short stories based on folk customs and interesting anecdotes were very popular among the general public. His first short story, "The Famous Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," was born. The novel is witty and entertaining, but has no profound meaning. Mark Twain realized: "You can't just be amused, you must have higher ideals." In his subsequent creations, he increased the intensity of social criticism and enhanced the instructive function of literary works as much as possible. In 1869, he compiled some of the correspondence reports he wrote during his overseas travels into a travel diary, titled "A Fool's Travels Overseas". In a humorous and ridiculing style, he greatly ridiculed the feudal rulers and church groups in various European countries in the form of what he saw along the way. reactionary conservatism and bourgeois self-righteousness. This work made Mark Twain famous and entered the literary world. In 1870, he published several high-quality short stories one after another. Among them, "Running for Governor" mocked the truth of "democratic elections" in the United States as spreading rumors, slandering and deceiving the people, and doing everything possible for partisan interests; Smith's Friends Go Abroad Again", in the name of Chinese worker Ai Songxi, accuses the so-called "paradise" of the United States, which is actually a country with extremely serious racism. Ethnic minorities are not only economically exploited, but also do not have basic human rights protections. Being thrown into jail unceremoniously.
In the early 1970s, Mark Twain's life became relatively stable after his marriage, allowing him to concentrate on long-form creation. His first novel was The Gilded Age (1873), co-written with Charles Warner. The work exposes the collusion of government officials with entrepreneurs for private fraud and the speculative trend sweeping the country, and points out that the so-called "golden age" of the development of American capitalism was actually the "Gilded Age." "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" published in 1876 is his first novel with a child as the protagonist. Tom is a child in a small town in the south of the United States. He is smart and lively by nature, but is not used to the unreasonable control of his parents and the outdated and rigid education of the school. He often made mischief in class, and after school he gathered the children many times for outings and adventures, and eventually solved a murder case. The novel focuses on depicting the conflict between children's authenticity and the rules and regulations of the adult world, reflecting the subtleties of children's psychology very vividly. Although this novel is not as deep as its sister "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" in terms of social criticism, it is full of childlike innocence and fun, and can still be regarded as a masterpiece in the world's children's literature.
In the 1980s, Mark Twain wrote two more fairy-tale and allegorical novels, "The Prince and the Pauper" (1881) and "Connecticut in the Court of Arthur." Man" (1889). Both works are based on ancient British society, using the past to satirize the present, and are full of wit and humor. The former uses the bizarre experience of a prince and a poor boy to exchange their identities to illustrate that only when rulers have personally experienced the sufferings of the people can they truly understand the people's wishes and implement "benevolent government." The latter uses the fantasy story of a 19th-century American craftsman "reincarnated" in the Arthurian era of England, revealing the irreconcilable conflicts between democracy and autocracy, science and superstition, humanity and atrocities. The plot in the novel in which the Americans annihilate the army of knights and the failure of the reform plan not only expresses the pride of the American working class in resisting social oppression, but also reveals the writer's worries about the future of society.
After entering the 1990s, Mark Twain's personal life suffered many changes. First he was financially bankrupt, and then his wife and daughter died one after another. However, he overcame all kinds of troubles and still wrote many excellent works.
"Idiot Wilson" (1893) refutes the popular "white superiority theory" in the United States through a story of "subcontracting". "The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg" (1900) revolves around a farce about a person who pretends to receive "gold coins", exposing the hypocritical and greedy nature of the bourgeoisie, especially the accurate description of those seemingly honest hypocrites who justly get money. , the entire psychological process from self-deception to deception gives an exaggerated comedy a very solid basis in reality.
In his later years, Mark Twain opposed the aggression and oppression of weak nations and countries by imperialist powers, sympathized with and supported the resistance struggles of colonial and semi-colonial people, and wrote "A Journey Around the Equator" (1897), Works such as "For the Man Sitting in Darkness" (1901) showed his democratic and humanitarian stance.