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What Is The Mood Of The San Francisco Earthquake

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Earthquake Essay
In his excerpt “The San Francisco Earthquake,” Mark Twain outlines his personal experience of the San Francisco earthquake of 1865. Twain recounts every detail as he watches the events of both earthquake and panicked citizens unfold. In identifying the disastrous earthquake, Twain equates the urgency of all people, manipulates dark and unsettling diction, and provides the earthquake with more meaning through his characterization and personification of its effects.
Twain implements parallelism in order to equate the citizens to one another due to the devastating effects of the earthquake. In an attempt to create a sense of equality resulting from the earthquake, Twain continuously uses references of people running out of their homes with increasingly less clothing. This emphasized aspect of this excerpt highlights the intensity of the earthquake and the fact that it put all people in an extreme sense of urgency. …show more content…

He established first the damage of a specific building that came crumbling down and articulating that the bricks fell “sprawling” along the road. Twain’s deliberate use of the word “sprawling” not only provides a visual for the collapse, but also provides the audience with the idea that the building was humanlike. This creates a menacing tone of the earthquake. Twain continues with this portrayal of the earthquake when it refers to the “tricks it did” and how he only saw a few. This statement implies that the “tricks” Twain saw were only minor effects in comparison to the havoc wreaked by this menacing earthquake. His consistent use of unsettling diction demonizes the earthquake and its

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