The "American Dream" In The Novels Of Mark Twain

Mark Twain (Mark Twain,1835-1910), a famous writer of American critical realism in19th century, was called “Lincoln in the American literature”. As the first real American writer,he always pays close attention to the relation between realization of individual’s ideal andsocial development of the United States. Therefore, his novel fully covers the writer’s pursuitfor freedom, equality, and at the meantime, shows his deep concern of distorted human natureand alienation. This paper attempts to analyze the “dream” type of characters in his twoadventures,“The Gilded Age”,“The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg”. This paper vividlypresents the writer’s significance of “American Dream” which can be found universally in hisworks. Also, we attempt to dig up Twain’s thinking and insist towards American ideal underthe background of significant social transformation in the United States.This paper is composed of three parts: introduction, main body and conclusion. Theintroduction briefly introduces Mark Twain’s “American Dream” and the domestic andforeign research status of Mark Twain, and clarification of the research ideas and significance.The first chapter combs the “American Dream”, and reveals the two basis: the naturalfoundation of north American continent and “Declaration Of Independence”, as well as thethought foundation, and also discusses the four stages of development of the “AmericanDream”, which is, from the initial Puritan immigrants “wild dream”,“dream of free” to“dream of democracy” and “the dream of the strong”, until after the World War II,“thebursting of dream”. Meanwhile, this paper points out the relationship among the significanceof “American Dream” and his family’s environment, parents’ personalities and behaviors.Combined with his family background and personal experiences, the significance of“American Dream” in Twain’s work is closely related to this relation and which is also wellconnected to his path through life. The second chapter, from the perspective of the Twain’sworks, taking “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” and “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” asexamples, indicates the origin of his American ideal, that is, rebelling the shackles of secularsociety, pursuing freedom and equality. But at the same time, influenced by childhoodexperiences, his personality and the affection of his own marriage, the writer containscompromise to external rules inevitably, and the contradiction between two sides was formedwhen pursuing for his “American Dream”. The third chapter, through analyzing the “TheCelebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County”,“The Gilded Age” and “The Man thatCorrupted Hadleyburg”, expresses the writer’s irony and criticism of ideal dream, speculative,struggles and deceit for the society which is suffering a transition from free capitalism tomonopoly capitalism, reveals the degradation to desire and how to lose their personalitiesgradually. However, the writer not only keeps critical, but also reflects some sympathy andtolerance, which contains a hint of helpless in the hate, which establishes Twain’s unique type,that is a dilemma in his “American Dream”. From the perspective of the complexity ofTwain’s thought, the conclusion points out that Twain practiced American mission all alonghis life, and his works have shown his brave and hope although sometimes compromise. MarkTwain, together with his works, will flash the eternal torch light.