Seminar 8

MARK TWAIN’S HUMOR AND ORIGINAL STYLE

IN “THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER”,
“THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN”

Oleksandra Shulha
MARK TWAIN
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30,
1835 – April 21, 1910),known by the pen name
Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist,
essayist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer.
He was praised as the "greatest humorist the
United States has produced", and William
Faulkner called him "the father of American
literature".
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, which
draws on his youth in Hannibal. Tom
Sawyer was modeled on Twain as a child,
with traces of schoolmates John Briggs
TOM
SAWYER
and Will Bowen. The book also introduces
Huckleberry Finn in a supporting role,
based on Twain's boyhood friend Tom
Blankenship.
His novel about Tom Sawyer relies heavily
on satire and humor to make observations
about human nature. Twain does indeed
use exaggeration and different types of
TOM
SAWYER
irony, verbal and dramatic, parody to poke
fun at the people and culture of St.
Petersburg, the town where Tom Sawyer
lives.
Twain uses a lot of satire, for example on WHAT IS AN
EXAMPLE OF
One page ninety -seven, Huckleberry says
such things as "T'aint thunder... they done

SATIRE IN
that last summer!" At the same time, Tom
responds with "somebody's drownded!"

TOM
This dialect shows the characters lack of
education and sophistication

SAWYER?
 WHAT IS Mark Twain's The Adventures of

MARK TWAIN Huckleberry Finn is a classic American

MAKING FUN
novel which uses satire to target

OF IN
hypocrisy, slavery, racism, and human
stupidity.
HUCKLEBERRY
FINN?
 WHAT IS Though there are many examples of satire

MARK TWAIN in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, it

MAKING FUN
is important to understand that Twain's

OF IN
goal in writing this story was to expose
and criticize some of the flaws that existed
HUCKLEBERRY in his world, including slavery and racism,

FINN? the hypocrisy of those who call

themselves 'civilized’
THANK YOU