Mark Twain: Master of Technique - A study of Twain's literary elements

Essay by AKAaronHigh School, 12th gradeA+, April 2004

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Literary analysis, the very mention of those words makes anyone shudder and shudder I did. I had no clue which author I would choose; the fact was I hated non-fiction. I had been forced to read non-fiction since the 5th grade. It was boring, unimaginative, and rather rigid. I searched through my bookshelf and chanced upon a book of short stories by Mark Twain, perfect! Someone from the list, Mark Twain would be better then any because I knew about and had regrettably read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I was not expecting too much from this project, which was now focused on Mark Twain, because I knew that he was a strong non-fiction writer. As I read through his stories, however, I was soon proven wrong as I learned his "shorts" had a more satirical note to them. I didn't know anything about Twain and that was another reason I chose his stories.

As I opened the book I found on my shelves I started reading the titles, titles such as The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calveras County and the Diary of Adam and Eve, I soon became interested. The stories that most intrigued me were the ones that, I felt, had the most interesting titles. The tales I ended up commenting on for this project were the "Diary of Adam and Eve," "The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calveras County," "The £1,000,000 Bank Note," and "The Man Who Put Up at Gadsby's." Knowing I was not a fast reader, I chose some of these stories based on their length but others simply attracted me with their titles.

The first story I read was "The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calveras County." This story is about a man in Calveras County who was known for betting, and losing. He even raised...