Mark Twain: Life On The Mississippi AND Autobiography Literature Review Sample

[Complete Name of the Student]
Mark Twain’s life has been a journey from minority to majority – a case that is often described in many literary texts. His life in the Mississippi River is not something taken as a hobby or a wanting considering that the steamboat pilot position is so esteemed at the time and it offers one of the highest salaries. Twain is a son of a lawyer from Missouri who succumbed to pneumonia when Twain was only eleven years old. After the incident, Twain’s move from minority to majority seemingly changes in definition, at least, in a slightest sense: coming from a relatively well-off family, Twain finds himself in the Mississippi River as a steamboat pilot. However, prior to landing on this job, he was even working as a typesetter, a printer and a contributor of newspaper articles of his brother, Orion Clemens. In The Life on the Mississippi, Twain describes his experiences as a steamboat pilot and he would be envied by colleagues for holding such a lofty position. Also, because he is a steamboat pilot, he gets to meet and acquaint with rich and elite people belonging to the minority. Viewing from this angle, the line that separates Twain as an object of minority or majority is incredibly thin considering that he came from a well-off family, but after his father died, he landed on a job that is praised by many for its loftiness.
Mark Twain’s autobiography is a witness to how thin the line that declares him a minority or majority. In fact, textual analysis of his character in the Life on the Mississippi does not even manifest any description of belonging to the majority group because he is a son of a lawyer and attends a prestigious school. The indication of Twain having the description of a part of the majority is linked to the fact that he stopped school, worked as a typesetter, printer and contributor all because his father died when he was still very young.
The concept of majority and minority is not clearly defined in the contexts of his story though. There is no hint of ordinary categorization because both being a steamboat pilot and a son of a lawyer are descriptions belonging to someone from the minority. Nevertheless, the context in which the minority and majority issues play a part in Mark Twain’s life is the way people interpret “minority” and “majority” in societal applications.

The Minority Issue

The Life on the Mississippi largely depicts a picture of a person belonging to the minority regardless of the circumstances that may have changed Twain’s economic standards – from a son of a lawyer to a steamboat pilot – all boils down to prestige and financial stability. The concept for being a steamboat man is very different before as compared today. Today, steamboat pilots are considered blue collar jobs and pay so less that people working in this industry belong to a lower class category. However, during the time of Twain, being a steamboat pilot is one kind of honor. In fact, he describes in Life on the Mississippi that he has no other ambitions in life aside from becoming a steamboat man. In this sense, the issue of minority is clearly defined by the prestige of the job and the background of Twain. He even mentions that steamboat pilot is the “grandest position of all” (Clemens, 1917; Twain, 1883) that it even surpasses the position of the captain.

Another case for the issue of minority is how steamboat is being described as an “indigenous, glorious and prosperous” occupation.

Indigenous
Steam is regarded as indigenous because it is not present everywhere except in the Mississippi River. As a matter of fact, the great author and writer Charles Dickens was blown away that he could not describe the feeling he felt being on a steamboat in 1811 (Carkeet, 2014). The great author even describes his experience in the following words: “foreign to all the ideas we are accustomed to entertain of boats. I hardly know what to liken them to or how to describe them” (Carkeet, 2014). The unfamiliarity of this mode of transportation renders it a job that is only worked on by people belonging to the minority.
The concept of steamboat as a job does not necessarily mean this type of operation is more of native and aboriginal just because it can only be found in the Mississippi River but it is a case of being distinct, providing hints of avant-gardism (Cox, 1966). The comparative context of minority issue in The Life of Mississippi and the autobiography of Mark Twain is that they both manifest the quality belonging to the elite group or as often described by social science as a “social group.” The argument inferring that Twain cannot belong anymore to the minority after his father’s death is a case that cannot be validated because Twain obtained a job that is well-respected and well-compensated. Mark Twain describes it as a job with a “princely wages” (Clemens, 1917).

Glorious

The advent of the steamboat transportation in the Mississippi river came about after it was invented by Nicholas Roosevelt, who introduced it to the Mississippi River. It is initially described as “floating palaceas beautiful as a wedding cake but without the complications” (Carkeet, 2014). Mark Twain describes how he feels about the development in the Mississippi: The Mississippi is well worth reading about. It is not a commonplace river, but on the contrary is in all ways remarkable. Considering the Missouri its main branch, it is the longest river in the world--four thousand three hundred miles. It seems safe to say that it is also the crookedest river in the world, since in one part of its journey it uses up one thousand three hundred miles to cover the same ground that the crow would fly over in six hundred and seventy-five” (Twain, 1883).
The introduction of steamboats in the Mississippi River changed the way goods and services are transported and distributed to different places connected to the river. Before, there were only flatboats and keelboats but were deemed risky because they are easily destroyed by the current of the river. In this sense, the steamboat becomes a huge contributing factor to the economic surge in Mississippi and its surrounding regions and in turn pays the favor to their concerned people including steamboat men and pilots of which Mark Twain is part.
The way steamboats are described to put a glorious effect connects to the stint of Twain as a steamboat man. It is all there is that Twain and his job that infer a notion of belonging to a minority.

The Majority Issue

As initially argued, there is a very thin line that separates Mark Twain from the minority to the majority because the implication of the majority issue cannot be described and proven by a mere death of a father and a halt from education. The Life on the Mississippi chronicles a life that is filled with exaltations and envying qualities. There is no single mentioning of an event or incident that declares Twain as dealing with a serious financial, political, or social struggle. Only that there is a slight change in the manner in which Mark Twain has to respond to the death incident in order to survive.
Another point that can describe the majority issue in both the Life of Mississippi and the autobiography of Mark Twain is the era or time that the majority issue can become significant or applicable. First, the majority issue cannot be richly applied to Twain’s life during his time because steamboats are objects of innovation – changing the way goods and services are being transported and served to people. As Dickens mused about it, steamboats rock that it transformed the political economy of Mississippi considering that it is not common everywhere but can only be found in Mississippi. Mark Twain’s involvement in this innovative development in transportation cannot be considered a majority issue because there are no solid reasons to back it up.
Meanwhile, the issue of time is what can place a chance on this as a majority issue. As time passes, steamboats in Mississippi have become ubiquitous and ordinary that it has already lost its distinctiveness from other forms of water transportation. Owing to the fact that steamboats are already boarded by masses of different socio-economic backgrounds, they can no longer be categorized as befitting to a social group but a majority group. After it has proliferated throughout the Mississippi River, the notion of steamboats has transformed into something that is used by the majority.
Nevertheless, the connotation of steamboats becoming majority issue cannot be connected to Mark Twain anymore because the increase in the accessibility of steamboats is not induced by Mark Twain’s participation or if has ever participated at all considering that Mark Twain has lived in a different time. While it is possible to render this as a majority issue, it is only possible in so far as the Mississippi River and steamboats are concerned; beyond that, it is all involving minority issues.
The contrasts can be delineated by focusing on the accessibility of steamboats with respect to time. Because it was initially distinct in nature, steamboats are only boarded by special people making it a transportation means for the social group but as time passed by, the functionality of steamboats and its significance to the Mississippi River has lost its flare because it is used by the common people. Also, as aforementioned, there is a very thin line that could categorize Mark Twain into either minority or majority because the real change only happens when time is taken into consideration: for instance, Mark Twain is all into minority at the time of stint even if his father died and he started working as a printer and contributing writer. But if there were ever changes in the status of his living, that could only be seen in a horizontal direction.

Reference List

Carkeet, D. “How the Mississippi River Made Mark Twain.” Smithsonianmag. Smithsonian
Magazine, 2014. Retrieved from the Smithsonian Magazine Website: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/how-mississippi-river-made-mark-twain-and-vice-versa-180950193/?no-ist
Clemens, S. (1917). Life on the Mississippi. New York, NY: Harper & Brothers Publishers.
Cox, J. (1966). Mark Twain: The fate of humor. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Twain, M. (1883). Life on the Mississippi. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.