Mark Twain Influences

"There are basically two types of people. People who accomplish things, and people who claim to have accomplished things. The first group is less crowded." This quote was first ever given by Mr. Mark Twain, an interesting man, and author, whom I believe, was definitely in the first group of people. Mr. Twain, whose original name was Samuel Langhorne Clemens, was born on November, 30 1835; in Florida, Missouri. As a child, he moved to Hannibal, Missouri; a town on the bank of the Mississippi river. When he was young, Twain lived in a time when slavery was still legal, we see influence of this in many of his novels. Another primary influence in Twain's novels were his ambition as a boy to become a steamboat captain. In 1857, he became an apprentice to a licensed steamboat captain, where he discovered the phrase,"mark twain", which he later took as his pen name. We know all these things and more about Mr. Twain. How he spoke, how he wrote, these things are all recorded. However, who really was Mark Twain?
Comparing two separate pieces of literature Twain wrote gives us
Twain was a complex being and, just like anyone else, he had many facets to his personality. Mark Twain was something of an eccentric. He was very eager to be published, and kind of considered himself a clever and unique man. He was hot-headed at times, and had no problems resorting to wild plots and interesting threats to reach his goals. He seemed to have a deeper, and at times, hot-tempered side to him that I feel he concealed with his sharp sense of humor; trying to make light of distressing, and even ordinary situations. Twain himself said of humor, "The secret source of humor is not joy but sorrow; there is no humor in Heaven," leading us to believe that Twain practiced humor simply to cover or cope with his own hardships and sorrows. He may even have been dark at times, feeling that he lacked joy, and sought to find humor in his situation, thus prompting his quote of where humor stems