More than a Black Comedy

First of all ,I will never regard this book as a reminder of urging people to spend time wisely or make life decision wisely.

For anyone hold this kind of view ,you should really check the date when Twain take his last breathe. This tale was written in 1902,8 years before Twain's long past. Although he was first known for his heavy use of colloquial dialogue and folksy descriptions which reflects the rich and humorous character, his writing style became more and more cynical and dark. Actually besides The Five Boons of Life, Twain wrote several other stories as dark as this one such as the Mysterious Stranger. It’s hard for us to believe that this story written in Twain’s dark period is only a pure reminder of cherishing time ,

If we take a little bit time digging in the history ,we can easily find the transition of Twain’s writing style began when his daughter unfortunately dropped dead .At first ,his work become increasingly cynical and then went into mere mocking of real life .His pessimistic attitude continued to grow after the death of his wife and another daughter which also is reflected by his writing, Therefore, we have enough evidence to claim that this story is more a black comedy that mocking the harsh reality than a tale aiming to teach people to become wise. The man in the story is more or less the reflection of the writer himself, a unfortunate man drown in sorrow and desperation in the old age.

Although I make it clear that I don’t believe Twain is trying to reach something positive for the reader, I do admit that it remind me of how fragile life can be and sometimes what we see as indispensible maybe vanish in one second and we still need to live with it .Carpe Diem ,my friend.

Apart from the meaning of the story, the structure and technique used by Twain is extremely mature and rational. For each gift ,Twain give a poetic description and command . The whole story looks like an extract from some sort of Revelation. It’s typical structure used by Twain in his later work which aimed at a universal, timeless quality. As for the writing itself , Twain seldom use complicated sentence. Instead he use powerful short sentences to construct an emotional and disturbing description of the man’s desperation ,anxiety and regret. But when it comes to the description of death, Twain use more positive and light word to indicate the value of death.

Taking all in to consideration, I prefer to regard this book as a dark tale. Even the Twain’s Humor is muted here making the story less an exercise in very dark comedy and more the reflections of a deeply depressed author.

2015-04-20

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