Mark Twain: An Influential Writer

A great novelist once said, “The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.” As a well-known and influential writer, Mark Twain’s work was popular all around the world, but what many people did not know was that along with literature, Twain also had a passion for his views in the South and with immigration issues regard gin the Chinese. His work had been influenced from his birth place, Missouri, which accounts for his strong objection on South’s pretensions. Many of his novels were influenced by his thoughts about this topic, and were even life stories. Along with an incredible literature inference, Mark Twain has also contributed to multicultural views. Born in 1910 as Samuel Langhorne Clemens,

Twain and his family had moved to Hannibal at the age of 4, and he resided there until he was 17. The town, arranged on the Mississippi River, was from numerous points of view an awesome spot to grow up. Steamboats landed there three times each day, tooting their shrieks; bazaars, minstrel shows, and Pentecostals paid visits. When he was 9 years of age he saw a nearby man kill a steers farmer, and at 10 he viewed a slave bite the dust after a white administrator hit him with a bit of iron. His experiences from living in Hannibal influenced many of his literature works. As a young kid, Twain had seen and been through more than the average. His father passed away when Twain was only 12 years old. He realized at the time, he had more responsibilities to handle-the reason why he left school to work. “Twain left school to learn the trade of printing, which his brother had entered before him” (Kellman 2512). Later Twain was taken by a friend to be trained as a

All this was also happening around the same time as the Civil War, which hyped up all the tension even more. Another factor that influenced his work as well. Eventually Twain found his way back to journalism, and that is where he began to use his pen name Mark Twain. A few years later he was in San Fransisco, writing for newspapers. He began to sketch short stories, and think of what else he could do with his life now. Despite not being able to live a peaceful life as a childhood, Twain worked hard and knew he had to become something for himself. He later on published his first work, a short story in the newspaper and eventually published his first novel, The Innocents Abroad. Being apart of a huge world now changed Twain. He was now a well-known juvenile and comic literature author. But, along with the future came the memories of the past. Twain felt a lot guilt in childhood, may have been from living in the South in such a bad time. He grew up having a strong view for African Americans in the South, and how unfairly they were treated. “[He] tried to assuage in his personal life though acts of charity” (Camfield). He asserted a lot of his money to different charities, and at the