What Is Mark Twain's Role In His Work?

When and where Mark Twain lived played a major role in how he wrote. Before he started a career in writing, Twain had several very different jobs. Many of Twain’s literary works were inspired by his wide variety of experiences. One of Twain’s books, Huckleberry Finn, is one of the most controversial books to date. According to “Mark Twain Biography,” Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by his pen name, Mark Twain, was born on November 30, 1835, in the tiny village of Florida, Missouri. He was born the sixth of seven children to a slave-owning family. When he was four years old, his family moved to Hannibal, Missouri, where he lived until he was seventeen. Twain had many jobs throughout his lifetime. After his father’s death, when he was twelve years old, Twain became an apprentice at the Hannibal Courier, where he worked for food and housing. When he was fifteen, Twain started working at the Hannibal Western Union, where he was a jack of all trades as a writer, editor, and printer. Then, in 1859, at the age of twenty-three, Twain became a steamboat captain on the Mississippi River, but with the outbreak of the Civil War, this career path was short-lived. History.com states, “Twain joined the Confederate Army, but their unit …show more content…
The Banned Books Week website says that a few short months after it was published, Huckleberry Finn was banned for the first time in a Concord, Massachusetts, library. The library called it, “trash and only suitable for the slums”. This is most likely because for the first time in American Literature the perspective of “uneducated” common folk was represented. Being released one hundred thirty-two years ago, Huckleberry Finn is still making the news by being banned in schools around the country for being “racially insensitive,” “oppressive,” and “perpetuating racism.”