Lesson 9 Mark Twain — Mirror of America

1. Lesson 9Mark Twain — Mirror of America Lecturer: Meng Fanyan

2. Teaching Aims • Background knowledge • Comprehension of the text and the mastery of the important language points • Paraphrase of certain complicated or difficult sentences • Enlargement of the students' vocabulary • Familiarization with the styles of composition and devices

3. Mirror of America • --- Metaphor. A mirror can reflect or reveal the truth of something or somebody. • Mirror here means a person who gives a true representation or description of the country.

4. Why? • All literary giants in human history are also great historians, thinkers, and philosophers in a sense. Their works often reveal more truth than many political essays put together, and their names usually live in people’s memory long after the names of all kings and queens that ruled the country are forgotten. • Mark Twain was one of these giants, and his life and works are a mirror of the America of his time.

5. Background knowledge • General introduction to Mark Twain • What do you know about Mark Twain? Have you ever read his works? Can you tell us sth. about his books? • the pseudonym (pen name) of Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910) • America’s most famous humorist and the author of popular and outstanding autobiographical works, travel books and novels.

6. General introduction to Mark Twain • The first 36 years of Clemens’ life: • as a boy in a little town in Missouri • as a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi • as a reporter on the far western frontier • as a travelerabroad • All kinds of life experience supplied him with copious (plentiful/abundant) material which he used later for his best and most successful writings.

7. General introduction to Mark Twain • He began life as Samuel L. Clemens and ended it as Mark Twain. He was America's foremost humorist, philosopher and man of letters (literature).

8. 1) Boyhood • Born in the small village of Florida, Missouri on Nov. 30, 1835, young Clemens was the third son and sixth child of a lawyer. As Father’s business failed, the family had to move to Hannibal (汉尼巴尔) when Samuel was 4, where he spent his boyhood, enchanted (intoxicated) by the romance and awed by the violence of river life — the steamboats, keelboats (龙骨式船), and giant lumber rafts and also the human flotsam (漂浮物) washed up by the river, professional gamblers and hustlers (prostitute/whore) — people quick with fist, knife or gun. Nevertheless, Hannibal was an ideal place for a boy to grow up.

9. 2) Early Life • Sam had relatively little schooling. After his father's death, he had to help the family by taking up odd jobs during summers or after school (as a delivery boy, grocery clerk and blacksmith's helper, etc.). He left school at 13, and became a full-time apprentice to a printer. At 18, he became a tramp printer (a person who goes around doing odd jobs of printing), and went to New York, then to Philadelphia and Washington, and finally to Iowa to set type (排版) for his brother's local paper. By then he had tried his hand at writing juvenile burlesque (comic imitation).

10. 3) Experiences on the Mississippi River • At 22( 1857), he set out again, with the intention of seeking his fortune in South America, along the Amazon. But on his way down the Mississippi toward New Orleans, he ran out of funds and was persuaded by a steamboat pilot (汽船领航员) to become his apprentice. About two years later, he was licensed as a pilot on his own right. He worked on the river till 1861. He found his life during this period both instructive and interesting.

11. 4) Journey West and the birth of "Mark Twain" • Owing to the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, river traffic halted. Twain joined the Militia(预备役部队, 民兵组织) on the Confederate side for two weeks; then "retired". He then joined his brother (who had been appointed territorial secretary) in a trip to Nevada. • The West was still an exciting new frontier and there were rumors about fortunes to be made in Nevada and California. He tried prospecting(勘探), mining(采矿) and speculating(投机), but failed.

12. And then he did reporting for local papers. It was in Virginia City on February 3, 1863, that “Mark Twain” was born when Clemens, then 27, signed a humorous travel account with that pseudonym.

13. The new name was appropriate, for it was a river man’s term for water that was just barely safe for navigation．(“Mark Twain” means "two fathoms deep”, employed in making soundings on the Mississippi river boats). • In 1865, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County《加拉维拉县有名的跳蛙》 was published and became an immediate success.

14. 5) Career as a journalist • In 1864 Twain went to San Francisco to work as a reporter. • He took the trip to Honolulu as a correspondent for the Sacramento Union in 1866; the following year he boarded for a voyage to Europe and the Holy Land; • In 1869, the book version of his travel sketches was published under the title The Innocents Abroad《傻子出国记》,which brought him wide popularity, and made fun at both American and European prejudices and manners.

15. 6) His most productive years • He married Olivia Langdon in 1870. A year later together they relocated to Hartford,Connecticut, where he lived his most productive years (till 1891). The move was a turning-point in his life. Up till now, he had been mainly accumulating material. Meanwhile, Twain continued to lecture in the United States and England.

16. Between 1876 and 1884 he published several masterpieces, including • Tom Sawyer • The Prince and the Pauper • Life on the Mississippi • Huckleberry Finn

17. 7) Financial difficulties and personal misfortunes • He started his own printing shop, invested largely on a new typesetting (排版) machine and became bankrupt. • Heavily in debt, he made a lecturing tour abroad and succeeded in paying all his debts, but ruined his own health. • During this period occurred the deaths of his son, daughters and wife.

18. 8) Last years • He wrote What Is Man?《 什么是人？》，The Mysterious Stranger《神秘的陌生人》and dictated his autobiography. • Some of his other major works are: • Roughing It 《艰苦岁月》(1872), • The Gilded Age《镀金时代》(1873), • The Prince and the Pauper《王子与贫儿》(1882), • The 1, 000, 000 Bank-note《百万英镑》 (1893), • The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg《败坏哈德雷堡的人》and Other Stories and Sketches (1899).

19. In the 1890s Twain lost most of his earnings in financial speculations and in the downhill of his own publishing firm. The death of his wife and his second daughter brought a sense of gloom in the author's later years, which is seen in writings and his autobiography. Twain died on April 21, 1910.

20. 9) Comment on his works • Mark Twain has been called a realist and a romantic, a humorist and a satirist. • The popularity of his works has been met with an equal portion of controversy, with “Huckleberry Finn” as one of the most banned and debated books in American literature. • His life was remarkable in its triumph and tragedies. His works are remarkable in their depth and perception of human experience.

21. 10) Mark Twain’s famous remarks • 1. It is better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt. • 2. Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life. • 3. One learns people through the heart, not the eyes or the intellect. • 认识人不能用眼睛或智慧，要用心。 • 4. If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything. • 永远说实话，这样的话你就不用去记你曾经说过些什么。

22. 5. All you need is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure. • 只要具备了无知和自信，你就必然能成功。 • 6. When your friends begin to flatter you on how young you look, it's a sure sign you're getting old. • 7. Man is the only animal that blushes. • 8. My books are water; those of the great geniuses are wine — everybody drinks water.

23. 9. The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them. • 那些有好书却不读的人不比无法读到这些书的人拥有任何优势。 • 10. Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live. • 不要放弃你的幻想。当幻想没有了以后，你还可以生存，但是你虽生犹死。 • 11. You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.

24. 12. Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can read. • 13. Rather shut up, don’t talk, don’t be eager to express oneself, either. • 宁愿闭口不说话，也不要急于表现自己. • 14. Have no emotion to kiss, be like to die pork in person. • 没有情感的吻，就像在亲死猪肉一样。

31. Background information • Gold Rush • The California Gold Rush (1848 to 1859) The Gold Rush was one of the most significant events in California history. It brought people from all over the United States and the world in search for gold.

32. Most Americans remember… freedom and adventure: • Question: Identify and explain the rhetorical devices in the first sentence. • father: Metaphor • eternal & endless: Hyperbole • The whole sentence: Parallelism

33. father: (Metaphor) here the author or the man who created these two unforgettable characters • idyllic: adj. of a simple and happy period of life, often in the countryside; simple and happy/pleasant 田园诗的,简朴且无忧无虑的 • idyll ['aidl]: (n.) short piece of poetry or prose that describes a happy and peaceful scene or event, esp. of country life 田园诗

34. cruise: sailing/voyage /journey/travel by ship on the sea for pleasure 航行，漫游 • A cruise is a holiday during which you travel on a ship and visit lots of places.

35. Huck Finn’s idyllic cruise through eternal boyhood: • Explanation:Huck Finn’s simple and pleasant journey through his boyhood which seems eternal. • Huck Finn, fleeing his terrifying father who was a drunkard, and Jim, an escaped slave, as they travel down the Mississippi in search of freedom, encountered no end of colorful characters along the way.

36. Tom Sawyer's endless summer of freedom and adventure: • “Endless” is also a hyperbole; It parallels the word “eternal”. • Summer, because all the adventures of Tom Sawyer described in the book are supposed to have taken place in one particular summer. • An imaginative and mischievous boy named Tom Sawyer lives with his Aunt Polly in the Mississippi River town of St. Petersburg, Missouri.

37. Explanation: Mark Twain is famous to most Americans as the creator of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer. Huck's sailing/voyage /journey/travel on the river was so pleasant, lighthearted, carefree, simple and peaceful that it made his boyhood seem to be infinite, while Tom's independent mind and his exciting and dangerous activities made the summer seem everlasting. • (Mark Twain is known to most Americans as the author of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and its sequel Huckleberry Finn, which are generally acknowledged to be his greatest works.)

38. What is the implication of the two adjectives "eternal" and "endless" ? • ---The two characters are immortalized and live forever in readers’ memory.

41. Indeed, this nation's best-loved author was every bit as adventurous, patriotic, romantic, and humorous as anyone has ever imagined. • every bit: altogether; entirely • every bit as: (infml.) just as, quite as • e.g.: He is every bit as clever as you are.

42. adventurous: Mark Twain was adventurous in every sense of the word. He was always trying new things, and always going to new places. Even in his literary career, he was never satisfied with what he had achieved. • patriotic: It refers to Mark Twain's profound love for his country with its robust people, beautiful scenery and its lofty ideals. It may also refer to his pride in the American traditions and the American language.

43. romantic: (in art, literature and music) marked by feeling rather than by intellect; preferring grandeur, passion and informal beauty • humorous: His works are so full of humor that he is considered America's greatest humorist.

44. I found another Twain as well: • --- I found another aspect of Twain. • cynical: sarcastic, sneering: seeing little or no good in anything (a cynical remark/attitude) • A cynical person believes that all men are selfish. He sees little or no good in anything and shows this by making unkind and unfair remarks about people and things. • cynic: (n.) person who believes that people do not do things for good, sincere or noble reasons, but only for their own advantage

45. deal (dealt): give; give out; distribute 分派，施以，给予 • (sentence structure of this part: Saddened by the profound personal tragedies life dealt him, he grew cynical, bitter.) • profound personal tragedies: See Paragraph 20, "Personal tragedy haunted his entire life,..."

46. …a man who became obsessed with the frailties of the human race, who saw clearly ahead a black wall of night: (metaphor)

47. obsess: preoccupy with sth. on one’s mind; fill the mind continuously; worry continuously and unnecessarily • 使分心;困绕 • If sth. obsesses you or if you are obsessed with it, you keep thinking about it over a long period of time, and find it difficult to think about anything else, esp. to an abnormal degree.

48. be obsessed with/by: be distressed by 萦绕，困扰，着迷 • e.g.: He was obsessed with a craving for materialistic gratification. • （他一心追求物质享受。） • He was obsessed by money. (他财迷心窍。) • She is obsessed by the desire to become a film star.

49. frailty: a weakness of character or behavior • e.g.: One of the frailties of human nature is laziness. • There is only a frail chance that he will pass the examination.

50. obsessed with the frailties of the human race: continually distressed by the moral weaknesses of the human race • a black wall of night: • (metaphor) hopelessness and despair