Petersburg, stressing the love Twain had for his hometown by basing his two biggest novels settings on his own hometown. He loved his hometown of Hannibal so much, he named it St. Petersburg in order to imply Heaven, or “St. Peter’s city” (Ensor 33). Twain views his hometown as the best of all places, à la Heaven. This concept of St. Petersburg as Heaven also implies how he yearns to return there at the end of his life and spend the rest of his days there. Twain also implies irony with the phase “shabby St. Petersburg” (Ensor 33). Twain, a master satirist, here applies verbal irony to portray St. Petersburg, as a poor man’s Heaven, or a Heaven on earth. To Twain, Hannibal was his Heaven on earth and he considered the time he spent there the greatest years of his life. Twain forever tried to recapture the youthful bliss of his time in Hannibal, and he echoes out tales of his youth through the plot of his works. Twain reflects the events of his early life on the Mississippi in the plots of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Twain had said that the character three boys he grew up with inspired the character of Tom Sawyer (“Adventures”). The character …show more content…
For example, Huck’s journey on the raft much resembles Twain’s 1882 steamboat journey down the Mississippi (Jackson 58). Like Huck, Twain started at the north of the Mississippi River and traveled south down to Louisiana. Jim serves as a comfort at night for Huck, as Twain had experienced nightmares during his 1882 voyage down the Mississippi (Jackson 59). Twain uses Jim as the comfort he wishes he had on his journey for Huck’s journey. The comforter being an African-American man watching a young white boy at the time went against the normal social structure of society of that time, slaves cared for him in his youth, and he yearned for their company and sought their protection against his nightmares. The fog Huck and Jim encounter on their journey represents the writer’s block Twain had when writing Huckleberry Finn (Jackson 62). The fog represents how Twain did not know which direction to go with the novel at that point, as he originally wanted to finish the novel at Huck and Jim’s reunion outside of the fog. He felt the novel, however, must continue, and with that sentiment, he delivered a classic. Having written two classics, Twain made a fortune, before going bankrupt due to a series of bad investments. Once he went bankrupt, he published more novels with the beloved characters about his later travels to the West, Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn Among the Indians, and his travels to