Every aspect of our lives is driven by rules and regulations that society has developed. Society is authoritative and maintains control over our lives, pushing man to conform to what it declares to be valuable and necessary. Mark Twain, notably one of the most famous satirists in history, criticizes his overbearing perspective as he finds man is unjustly conformed to ‘do right and be good.’ His constant use of satire and irony in his works sheds light on prevalent problems in society within organized religion, freedom, and equality. Twain guides his audience to a new understanding of and perspective on American society. In his time, Twain was considered one of the funniest men in literature and is listed as one of the greatest American authors
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As a young boy growing up in the small industrializing town of Hannibal Missouri, Twain lived with his financially struggling family. Twain viewed his home as “a boy’s paradise” and while living there, he reputation with the community for being quite mischievous and constantly getting into trouble ("Biography"). His childhood innocence, coupled with his nostalgic memories of his small town, had a major impact on his writing. In fact, it inspired his popular novel, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, as it serves as the setting where the main character Tom Sawyer attempts to enjoy his summer while fleeing from parental authority (PBS). In this novel, Twain addresses the lack of freedom in society while society refuses to acknowledge it as a prevalent problem. Twain grew widely popular as a writer after publishing The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and received high praise for demonstrating such “delicate taste” and displaying “overtones which most juvenile fiction entirely lacks and which continue to delight those adults” (Doren). This later led to the publication of Twain’s most famous novel, Huckleberry Finn, which captures that same setting of his small industrializing town and comments on the prominent forces of racism and slavery in society (“Mark”). Although Twain received much praise for his work, he also was critiqued as some found “a number of flaws in Huckleberry Finn, some of them attributed to
As a young boy growing up in the small industrializing town of Hannibal Missouri, Twain lived with his financially struggling family. Twain viewed his home as “a boy’s paradise” and while living there, he reputation with the community for being quite mischievous and constantly getting into trouble ("Biography"). His childhood innocence, coupled with his nostalgic memories of his small town, had a major impact on his writing. In fact, it inspired his popular novel, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, as it serves as the setting where the main character Tom Sawyer attempts to enjoy his summer while fleeing from parental authority (PBS). In this novel, Twain addresses the lack of freedom in society while society refuses to acknowledge it as a prevalent problem. Twain grew widely popular as a writer after publishing The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and received high praise for demonstrating such “delicate taste” and displaying “overtones which most juvenile fiction entirely lacks and which continue to delight those adults” (Doren). This later led to the publication of Twain’s most famous novel, Huckleberry Finn, which captures that same setting of his small industrializing town and comments on the prominent forces of racism and slavery in society (“Mark”). Although Twain received much praise for his work, he also was critiqued as some found “a number of flaws in Huckleberry Finn, some of them attributed to