Mark Twain, or Samuel Clemens, is regarded as one of the best writers of American Literature. Twain, renowned for his novels, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, had a very difficult childhood, having rose from the means of poverty to a national figure. Having dealt with grief and everyday crisis, Twain adopted a comical approach on society. Twain and his works were part of the 1800s literary period in Realism. Twain grew up with early values of romanticism instilled within him, overshadowing the cruel times he faced as a child. However, Twain began to see the world realistically as his childhood came to an end, and he developed only one goal: to help his family (“Mark Twain”). Mark Twain’s misfortunes as a child …show more content…
Twain was born with poor health that lasted until he was ten years old. During this time, he lost his father, who instilled a romantic sense in him. Twain's father had bought land in Tennessee, hoping that it would one day turn out to be a great profit. This hope carried onto his sons, and Twain reflects on this time with the following statement, “It put our energies to sleep and made visionaries of us—dreamers and indolent.…It is good to begin life poor; it is good to begin life rich—these are wholesome; but to begin it prospectively rich! The man who has not experienced it cannot imagine the curse of it,” (“Mark Twain”). At this time in his life, Twain alters from his childhood, and becomes more realistic. Twain then ventures out to the West in search of jobs in order to become his family's anchor, and it is through this journey that he becomes aware of the society and people living around him (“Mark Twain …show more content…
Mark Twain had a unique narrative voice, characterized as, “funny, irreverent, often satirical…,” (“Mark Twain Biography”), which described his personality. Twain developed this character in a small town in Missouri called, Hannibal. This town is where Twain spent the majority of his childhood, and is also the place where he refers to the most in his later works. Hannibal played a key part in Twain’s maturity: dealing with deaths, including that of his father and siblings; seeing crime very commonly; and living in the slave state that is Missouri. Such devastations piled on top of Twain, whose childhood came to an end so soon. He then goes on to refer to these hardships in his later works, more specifically in his novel, Huckleberry Finn. After certain depressions, like the death of his brother whom he associated with himself for sometime, Twain gathered a certain charisma about him, linked to his humour, “Human is mankind’s greatest blessing,” (Citation - Twain himself). He was then able to better enhance his literary techniques through satirical views on the society around