Why Is Jack London San Francisco Earthquake

There are many different ways to see a natural disaster. This is easily seen in the writings of Jack London and Mark Twain on San Francisco earthquakes. In tone, focus, and the personal or impersonal nature of the writing they differ greatly. An earthquake like many things is a disaster and in his writing Jack london attempts to encapsulate the destruction of said disaster in his tone. He attempts to put it into perspective not simply writing on the buildings which crumbled in the wake of quake but the “hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of walls and chimneys” He doesn 't simply say that there was no way to stop it, he regretfully tells on how “All the cunning adjustments of the twentieth century city had been smashed by the earthquake.” He illustrates the unstoppable and huge destruction of the disaster. He obviously doesn 't have any sort of positive emotion tied to the event, in fact it’s solely negative.

Besides a passing mention of his presence as an outside force looking in he never mentions even himself. His focus is solely on the destruction of San Francisco. And in his writing he “saw the destruction of the very heart of the city.” San Francisco wasn’t destroyed, San Francisco died, “San Francisco is gone”. Meanwhile Mark Twain almost completely ignores the event of the earthquake itself and focuses on the people and how they react. Like many of his writings Mark Twain comes off as comedic and satirical in his summary of the people experiencing the earthquake around him. The destruction of the city is a backdrop to how the values of people when put under stress are tested and often betrayed if not misplaced. As is the case for the preacher who goes against his own word and runs from the church or the man being told to get dressed after he rushes almost nude from his home. The people and how they react and what that means is the focus of Mark Twain’s