Amercan Realism/Mark Twain

American Realism is the work of many talented writers that write about the real issues that people face each day. Mark Twain is one of these very talented writers. His writings deal with the problems people face, the solutions people chose, and their outcomes. The works of Twain and all of these other writers differ a lot from American Romantics, which are writings that deal with nature and their affect on humans.
The writings of Mark Twain differ from those of the American Romantics that we have read about. The American Romantics discussed more universally symbolic issues. They talked about how nature and pure love were the solutions to problems. They also showed how the roles of us as humans were affected by the nature and love in our world. Mark Twain wrote about different things however. He talked about the actual problems and issues that people of this time, and the past have to deal with. In Twains story’s “The Story of the Good Little Boy”, and “The Story of the Bad Little Boy”, Twain talks about how our lives are affected by the way we lead them. This is a real life issue and not just based on nature and love like the American Romantics.
Mark Twain often writes about real life issues. His theme in the stories “The Story of the Good Little Boy” and “They Story of the Bad Little Boy” was that we shouldn’t always try to be good and live good lives because that’s not always how good things happen to us. In “The Story of the Good Little Boy” Twain shows a model little boy who aspires to be in a Sunday school book because of his good doings. The ironic outcome of this story is that the good little boy ends up having unfortunate luck and dies in the end always trying to help people. What I believe Twain is trying to convey in this story is that you shouldn’t only do good deeds to be recognized for them. In contrast to this story Twain backs up this theme in “The Story of the Bad Little Boy”. This story was about a bad boy who actually leads a very full and lucky life. Good things happened to this boy all the time, and he was always doing bad things. The truth about the bad little boy was that even though he was being bad all the time, he did everything he did because it was what he believed in and did not see wrong in it. What this shows is that you shouldn’t focus so much on dong good of others and let it happen. All you can hope in life is to have good judgment and be a good person.
Mark Twain wrote these stories to any individual out there. I believe that any person can relate to the issue of “The Good Little Boy” and “The Bad Little Boy”. The reason why anyone can relate is because of the vast variety of life problems that Twain writes about. H writes about real issues that can reach out to people of any age or culture. He writes about real topics that help you learn life morals.
When I read the writings of Mark Twain I was able to relate to it as a person. No, my life is not all about walking around looking for bad boys and trying to help them, or their victims to be in a Sunday school book; And no, my life is also not all about being careless and living a life that may hurt others just because I do not see wrong in doing so. However, I try to live my life to its fullest and to set a fulfilling future for myself. Twain’s writings; “The Story of the Good Little Boy” and “They Story of the Bad Little Boy” helped show me that I should not try so hard to be good like the good little boy, but I need to try a little bit so I won’t become careless like the bad little boy.
Mark Twain caught my attention above other writers at first because I heard of him. His name is popular among works of Literature, but I never read any of his works. I am happy I did because his stories taught me valuable lessons that deal with the everyday life of any individual. “Nothing could hurt him. He even gave the elephant in the menagerie a plug of tobacco and the elephant didn’t knock the top of his head off with his trunk.” This is a small portion of Twain’s “The Story of the Bad Little Boy.” I chose to quote Twain here because it shows a perfect example of Twain’s theme. His lesson that he displays here is that this bad little boy did everything wrong and broke all the rules, but still ended up better than the good little boy in the previous story. This means that you shouldn’t try so hard to be good or bad but do what you feel is right and see what happens. This lesson along with the rest of Twain’s writings is a prime example of American Realism.