Twain
Texts for Classroom Discussion
Textual
Excerpts from Twain's texts (PDF file)
More Teaching Resources
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Topics |
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Texts |
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Summary |
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The
Human Experience:
The Individual between Conformity and Rebellion
Education
Slavery and the Civil War
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"Huck and the Widow
Douglas" (ch. 1 from Adventures of Huckleberry Finn)
e-text
from Project Gutenberg |
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Humorous episode in which Huck describes
how his view of what is pleasant and comfortable differs from widow
Douglas's ideas. |
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"Huck's Moral Dilemma"
(ch. 31 from Adventures of Huckleberry Finn)
e-text
from Project Gutenberg |
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Huck Finn reflects on whether he should
write a letter to Miss Watson telling her where to find Jim, her escaped
slave. |
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"The
Private History of a Campaign that Failed" (1885)
etext
from twaintimes.net |
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Embellished account of Mark Twain's
military service as a Confederate irregular.* |
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"The Man That Corrupted
Hadleyburg" (1898)
e-text
from Project Gutenberg |
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Novella about a stranger who repays
an arrogant pious town for mistreating him by drawing all its leading
cicizens into a hoax that destroys the town's reputation for honesty.* |
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American Values and Beliefs
Animals
Nature |
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The Cayote (from Roughing It,
1872)
e-text
from Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library |
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An episode presenting
an encounter between a "sorry-looking skeleton" of a cayote
and "swift-footed dog . . . that has a good opinion of itself." |
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The Laborious Ant (from A Tramp Abroad,
1880)
e-text
from Project Gutenberg |
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A Dog's Tale (1903)
e-text
(Project Gutenberg) |
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The dog narrating this story is struggling
to understand the ways of her human masters. Trained by her mother
to help others in danger, she saves her master's baby only to see
her own puppy cruelly sacrificed in a scientific experiment.* |
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| Aspects
of American History
Overcoming Prejudices in Society
Ethnic Diversity |
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"Disgraceful Persecution of a Boy"
e-text
from Barbara Schmidt's website |
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A satirical defense of a boy who had been thrown into
prison for having stoned a Chinese laborer in San Francisco. |
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Mark Twain in Rome (ch. 26 from The Innocents
Abroad 1869)
e-text
from Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library |
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Twain, the narrator, compares the customs of the old
Romans with the behavior of Christian Church. His satirical remarks
suggest that barbarity and civilization are relative terms. |
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The Awful German Language" (from A Tramp
Abroad, 1880)
e-text
(Project Gutenberg) |
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Twain's well-known essay in which he provides a humorous
but insightful comparison between English and German. |
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Violence in American Society
Imperialism and War
Media Matters
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"The War Prayer" (written
in 1905, published posthumously in 1916)
e-text |
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An outgrowth of Mark Twain's increasing opposition
to war and imperialism,"The War Prayer" expresses the horrible
implications of war by spelling out the whole meaning of military
victory.* |
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"King Leopold's Soliloquy" (1905)
e-book
at archive.org
e-text
from online sourcebook |
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The polemic tract was written to support the Congo
reform Association. It is a satirical attack on Leopold who condemns
himself with hypocritically pious responses to the charges brought
against him.* |
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"How I Edited an Agricultural Newspaper Once"
(1870)
e-text
(Project Gutenberg) |
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The sketch parodies the notion that newspaper editors
must know anything.* |
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"Journalism in Tennessee" (1871)
e-text
(Project Gutenberg) |
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Parodies journalism in the South which is characterized
as a dangerous endeavor. |
* R. Kent Rasmussen. Mark Twain:
A to Z. The Essential Reference Guide to His Life and Writings.
New York: Facts on File, 1995.
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