Life on the Mississippi
where is the anecdote here?
"i said I would never come home again till I was a pilot and could come in glory"
What is a hyperbole?
An extreme exaggeration,A way to exaggerate in your writing.
What job was obtained by the first boy to get on the river?
Cub Engineer
Where was Mark Twain born?
Hannibal, MO
How was the boy able to "cut out" every boy in the village?
He could get any girl.
Why did Twain talk about the boy as having an "ignorant" watch?
He was jealous
Based on the selection from Life on the Mississippi, choose the sentence that best expresses Twain's point of view on life in a small town along the Mississippi River.
It is dull and unexciting compared to working on a steamboat.
What was Hannibal like before the steamboats arrived?
It was dull and dead.
What job did Twain feel was the best job?
Pilot
What is the main effect of the humorous details in this sentence from Life on the Mississippi? And whenever his boat was laid up he would come home and swell around the town in his blackest and greasiest clothes, so that nobody could help remembering that he was a steamboatman; and he used all sorts of steamboat technicalities in his talk, as if he were so used to them that he forgot common people could not understand them.
The details emphasize the engineer's eagerness to show off his new profession.
What comment about the society of Hannibal does the author make in this sentence from Life on the Mississippi? Assembled there, the people fasten their eyes upon the coming boat as upon a wonder they are seeing for the first time.
The people are simple and unsophisticated.
What is the most likely effect created by the following passage from Life on the Mississippi? [T]he great Mississippi, the majestic, the magnificent Mississippi, rolling its mile-wide tide along, shining in the sun; the dense forest away on the other side; the point above the town, and the point below, bounding the river-glimpse and turning it into a sort of sea, and withal a very still and brilliant and lonely one.
The reader is moved to learn that the river is beautiful but forsaken. proof: majestic magnificent still lonely brilliant
What did Twain say was every boys' ambition in Hannibal, MO?
To be a steamboatman
What did the Mississippi river represent to twain as a boy?
a pathway to adventures
What is an anecdote?
a short and amusing or interesting story about a real incident or person
Which of the following sights is most likely to be described as having grandeur?
a snow capped mountain range
In the selection from Life on the Mississippi, what is the main impression created by Twain's depiction of the steamboat?
an impression of splendor and boldness
how does twain entertain readers?
by using anecdotes and humerous descriptions
what are two jobs that he wanted to be and why?
cabin boy and deck hand because they are visible to everyone
what main flaw does twain reveal about himself as a little boy?
envy
how does the town change?
goes from sleepy to busy
what happens when the boy who survived an explosion aboard a steamboat returns to town?
he becomes a town hero
under what condition does young twain say he would return to hannibal?
he will return when he becomes a pilot
What makes the steamboat such a source of fascination for the boys?
its a connection to the world outside hannibal
"assembled there"
simple people assemble for nothing
what is the effect of these descriptive details
they relate to the central idea
What does Twain say is the one permanent ambition he and his boyhood friends shared?
to be a steamboat man
what was one of twains purposes for writing life on the mississipi?
to entertain readers
He would always manage to have a rusty bolt to scrub while his boat tarried at our town, and he would sit on the inside guard and scrub it, where we could all see him and envy him and loathe him. In this passage, what is most likely to be Twain's purpose, both for his readers and the literary matter at hand?
to entertain—to amusingly portray a character while revealing universal human traits
why does the author create the steam boat scene in this way?
twain is contrasting the quiet life in the town to the excitment that occurs when a steam boat comes in
How do people of Hannibal respond to the arrival of the steamboat?
with great excitement, they hurry to the boat as it arrives and watch the boats operations with fascinationwhat proof: "before these events the day was glorious with expectancy after them the day was dead"