Twain's 'Tramp Abroad': Fact Or Fiction?

A lot of stories that Mark Twain wrote had fictional plots and settings. After Reading A Tramp Abroad it can be concluded that some parts of the book are made up. This is useful, because it shows how many stories within Mark Twain's books can be untrue or exaggerated, and should not be trusted as fact. It is also interesting to be able to analyse and cross reference the events that take place in A Tramp Abroad with history, to determine how accurate the events actually are. Some of the stories are realistic, and coincide with the Mark Twain’s life and history as well. Mark Twain wrote A Tramp Abroad based on his actual travels through europe with his friend, Joseph Twichell. Mark Twain exaggerates his travel litterature with “fluff” and extra information, to make the stories more impressive and readable. Mark Twain has written many different books throughout his life. Some fictional books include: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, and The Prince And The Pauper. These fictional books were usually based around a kernel of truth. …show more content…
The idea that german students fought each other on campus ground, turned out to be true. The student would not actually fight to the death. They would only fight till one opponent surrendered or was hurt too badly to continue fighting. The way that Mark Twain described the scenario, however, made it seem unlikely that he was actually there. Mark Twain wrote that “the surgeon stopped it(the third fight) when he saw that one of the men had received such bad wounds that he could no fight longer without endangering his life”(A Tramp Abroad). The interesting thing about this quote is that Mark Twain only writes about one surgeon. Normally during these types of duels there were multiple surgeons and doctors nearby. This was due to the fact that the dueling was extremely dangerous, despite being