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Social Commentary In Whitewashing The Fence

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Mark Twain's incredibly unique writing style consisted of several stylistic elements. One of these elements is social commentary. Social commentary is the act of commenting on problems you find in society, usually in a humorous way. We can see an example of social commentary in "Whitewashing the Fence". In "Whitewashing the Fence", Tom Sawyer is forced to whitewash his Aunt Polly's fence as a punishment, but he soon finds a way around his retribution by tricking the other boys in the neighborhood to finish his chore for him. Through this act Tom discovers a great law that is seen in the story when it is stated, "He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it -- namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, …show more content…

The most symbolic piece of evidence is the different songs mentioned in this novel. We can see an example of symbolism when Kino, a poor pearl diver, finds the Pearl of the World, and tries to sell the pearl so him and his wife and young son, Juana and Coyotito, can have a better life. For example, the first song mentioned is the "Song of the Family," and it appeared when Kino wakes up to a normal morning and in this part of the story Steinbeck wrote, "In Kino's head there was a song now, clear and soft, and if he had been able to speak of it, he would have called it the Song of the Family." This song is symbolic in the story because it describes the "goodness" and "friendliness" of the family and the morning and when things are about to go his way in the part of the story. This song can also be symbolic because it describes the togetherness of the houses and how everyone gets along well. The Song of the Family can also be used to represent a setting without problems or when something good is about to happen. Another song mentioned in the text, is the "Song of Evil," and this was mentioned for the first time when the scorpion comes and is about to sting Coyotito. The book stated, "In his mind a new song has come, the Song of Evil, the music of the enemy, of any foe of the family, a savage, secret, dangerous melody, and underneath, the Song of the Family cried plaintively." This quote proves that the Song of Evil is symbolic to the text because it appeared when the setting is about to be "bad" or "evil" or something "dangerous" was about to happen. The Song of Evil usually shows up when someone the family dislikes is about to enter the setting or the family is about to be cheated, stolen from, or attacked. John Steinbeck's life impacted this book because he experienced many tragic event during his lifetime (some, at first, he thought was good) that

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Another instance of symbolism would be in lines 41-43, “Within the dream of myself perhaps I’d meet my son or my other child, as yet unconceived.” This quote symbolizes the future of the speaker

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In “When the Emperor Was Divine” by Julie Otsuka, imagery, symbolism, and emotional content are used to show how much the narrator loves his father, what he is thinking about the situation, and the things that they’ve lost and how people should be treated with respect. Symbolism is see in the very beginning of the story. It is used to foreshadow what is to come for the family. There is talk about darkness in the first passage. His father’s shoes are black Oxfords.

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Twain: In “The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras Country” the tone of the narrator’s relationship began on the very first page. The narrator says that he has a “lurking suspicion” that Leonidas W. Smiley is made up and that Wheeler would “bore me to death with some exasperating reminiscence of him as long and as tedious as it should be useless to me” (Twain 1285). The narrator says that Simon Wheeler’s story telling is a “monotonous narrative” with no expressions (Twain 1285). Wheeler tells a Story about a man named Jim Smiley and uses figurative language to portray imagery throughout.

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Morals create stories and stories create novels, but can a novel be written without morals? Mark Twain states within his notice that no morals or motives prevail in the scripture of the novel. However, support for reasons towards believing otherwise, once having read, verbatim, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, succeeds. Mark Twain’s original viewers may have been scared due to the repercussions at stake, but followers now can collectively discuss whether or not discovered morals exist, disregarding his drastic warning against the pondering of these scenarios. Although Twain’s “Notice” explicitly states the absence of moral expression within the making of Huck Finn, morals intertwine themselves within the ignorance of the population and the wrongfulness of racism.

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Twain’s portrayal of slaveholding also brings into question society’s moral value and hypocrisy. Basically, the book is about Huckleberry Finn’s growing character and insights about race/slavery/society while on a adventure. Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer are described as opposites of each other in every way such as Tom’s romanticism and Huck’s skepticism but also have some things in common like rambunctious boyishness. Another novel that is referred is Don Quixote to acknowledge the parallel in they way it was written. From the beginning of the book

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For example the rabbits. Lennie and George always wanted to own a ranch with rabbits and live on the fatta of the land so they wouldn’t have to be told what to do. Lennie once told George, “George, how long’s it gonna be till we get that little place an’ live on the fatta the lan’- an’ rabbits?”(Steinbeck, page 56). This states symbolism because this land and these rabbits mean a lot to George and Lennie. This shows how these two men were always together and always had this one dream of being free and actually being able to own something that they will be able to call their

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Essay The novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain is a story about a young boy who is trying to find who he is during the civil war. In this novel by Mark Twain it speaks about this young boy, named Huck, and how his original morals are beginning to change while he helps free his friend Jim, who is a slave. Though People have argued that this book uses many racial slurs that demoralize the African American race. Though there is solid reasoning why those are not Mark Twain's true intentions.

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Twain does his best to deal with the conflict between society and the individual. Huck does not want to abide by society’s laws and does not want to conform in Mark Twain’s, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Huck is forced to be civilized in the beginning, so he leaves society for freedom and lives by his own rules but even that does not make Huck’s life easy. Huck has trouble obeying society’s rules from the start of the book. The Widow Douglas takes Huck in to try to sivilize him says Huck in the quote, “The Widow Douglas she took me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize me”(Twain 2).

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In Mark Twain’s novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Jim teaches Huck about civilization, family, and racial inequality. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Jim teaches Huck about civilization. He shows how the world around them is not as civilized as it should be. Twain shows an example of an uncivilized society through

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Mark Twain uses satire to portray different issues that were going on during the time period. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, author Mark Twain uses Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer to represent romanticism and realism. Doing so formed the characters into two drastically different persons. Mark Twain uses satirical elements to contrast the two main characters in their personalities and views. Tom Sawyer is a child who is blinded with fictional literature and the worlds view on slaves.

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Hypocricy and Blind Faith Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn took place in the eighteen hundreds when religion and reputation were dominant in peoples everyday lives. It was very rare for someone to believe something different than everyone else. In Twain 's novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Tom Sawyer and Huck appear to be very different, but their actions, descriptions, and dialogue bring them together to symbolize society in order to show the blind conformity and hypocrisy that humans often display.

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Mark Twain's Use of Satire in Huckleberry Finn Throughout his pieces of literature, the famous American author Mark Twain portrays his personal views of society using satire and irony in his stories. He makes fun of broken parts in the American society relentlessly and makes sure the readers understand how outrageous some acts were during the early-to-mid 1800s. Twain seems to target specific aspects in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn such as how young people could be conflicted between morality and legality, the loss of self-respect for money, and the effects of herd mentality. He has an interesting approach at giving the reader insight, but his main ideas for the theme shine through and are clearly depicted.

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This quote shows what Twain later describes as a 'great law of human action.' This is Twain commenting on the fact that in order to make a man want something, you must simply make it difficult to obtain. Altogether, this evidence shows how social commentary is a large part of Twain's unique writing style. It is, in fact, one of the main reasons he started writing: to instill lessons of morality and astuteness into his readers. O. Henry has a very unique writing style.

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The symbolic item that I think has a deeper meaning from others is fire. Fire can mean so many different meanings but in the book fire symbolizes chaos, fear and destruction. First, of all like I have mentioned in the beginning fire can stand for an infinite amount of reasons. But one of the meanings of fire is fear, which in the story when Jeanette Walls was three years old that

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However, despite Twain’s Confederate influences, his opinion on slavery was not impacted, showing that regardless of the fact that he had seen the South’s opinion on slavery he knew that someone was responsible to address the cultural tensions that the nation faced. Nevertheless, there are people who greet this novel with unjust disapproval. Stephen Carter says “Once upon a time, people hated the book because it struck them as coarse. Twain himself wrote that the book’s banners considered the novel ‘trash and suitable only for the slums.’”. The idea that this novel faced such a negative response at release is almost a social commentary that speaks for itself, and unquestionably confirms the fact that this was one of the first real attempts in American literature on social reformation that was met with such

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