Cannibalism In The Car Tone

Cannibalism in the car speaks of a story about Mark Twain’s encounter with a man whom is familiar with politics and congressional affairs, which begins with the stranger’s conversing about his experience of being stranded with other senators. Although the story is quite ridiculous and unrealistic, considering how the men handled their near-death experience, Mark Twain greatly emphasizes the stranger’s predicament with his diction and descriptive tone which not only transitions from a dramatic to a humorous atmosphere, but also indirectly satirizes the politics of our world. Twain imposes a vivid tone in the beginning of the story to portray the stranger’s stranded situation to the audience, which he describes the scenery in a detailed manner.

Here, the train “almost came to a dead halt sometimes, in the midst of great drifts that piled themselves like colossal graves across the track”, where the adjectives in this quote addresses the occurring dilemma. The word “dead” enhances the passage fearful tone as it employs an alarmed connotation, which emphasizes the dismay of the men from the train halting at certain times, which is further justified by the simile “like colossal graves across the track”-which is used as an allusive term for death. This highlights the possibility that the train will eventually stop which furthermore interferes with the reader’s heartstrings as the congressmen could only watch and wait. Twain further extends this predicament with an asyndeton-“it was a cheerless indeed!-not a living thing visible anywhere, not a human habitation, nothing but a vast white desert, uplifted sheets of snow…” - to employ the despair of the congressmen as they are overwhelmed by the immensity of the storm. The anaphora-constant usage of “not” and “nothing”- in this quote conveys a clear message: there lacks any possibility for the men to survive in these conditions. By pointing out this matter, Twain allows the reader to grasp the quandary of the men as the train transportation now has became a serious issue, and in addition, he then expresses the stranger’s constant days without food, which allows the reader to foreshadow their solution of the predicament- an answer that’s fixated in the title: cannibalism. By expanding upon the dreadful views of the men,Twain conveys a fearful tone which enhances the stories flow of the story as there presents no possibility for them to survival, which later ‘worsens’ as they are forced to feed off each