The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Mark Twain's famous novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer won the hearts of millions of readers, both young and old. Mark Twain wrote about his book as follows: "Most of the adventures in this book are real. One or two were my own experiences, the rest of boys' who were my schoolfriends. Becky Thatcher is Laura Hawkins, Tom Sawyer is largely a self-portrait but Tom Blankenship, who lived just

Doctorate ['doktsnt] of Letters — степень доктора литературы

over the back fence, is the immortal Huckleberry Finn who slept on doorsteps in fine weather and in empty hogsheads in wet. John Biggs was the real, flesh-and-blood version of Joe Harper, the Terror of the Seas. My book is mainly for boys and girls to enjoy, but I hope, men and women will also be glad to read it to see what they once were like".

The plot is full of adventures of smart youngsters and is full of sparkling humour. With Tom's adventures we learn about the life on the Mississippi and that of the provincial town of the USA in the 19th century.

Tom Sawyer, a plain American boy, lives with his younger brother Sid and aunt Polly in St Petersburg, a remote town on the banks of the Mississippi river. Sid is an obedient boy, and he is satisfied with his school and the life of the little town. Tom is quite the opposite of his brother. His close friend is Huck Finn, a boy left by his drunkard of a father. Tom does not like school because of the teachers who beat the pupils. He misses lessons, plays tricks on his teachers, fights his brother Sid. Tom is tired of aunt Polly who wants to make a decent boy of him. From books about Robin Hood, robbers and hidden treasure Tom Sawyer has created an imagi­nary world which differs from the one he lives in. The novel com­bines the elements of realism and romanticism. The realistic pic­ture of the small town with its stagnant life is compared with the romantic world of Tom and his friends. The author praises human­ism, friendship, courage and condemns injustice, narrowminded-ness and money worship.

Vocabulary

obedient [a'bMjsnt] а послушный plain [plem] а простой remote [n'msut] о отдаленный self-portrait ['self'point] n автопортрет smart [smart] а умный sparkling ['spa:klirj] а блестящий stagnant ['staegnant] а инертный worship ['\V3:Jip] n поклонение youngster ['JAnsta] n подросток

condemn [кэп'ёет] v осуждать decent ['di:snt] а хороший drunkard ['drAnkad] n пьяница fence ['fens] n забор hogshead ['Irngzhed] n бочка immortal [i'mo:tl] а бессмертный largely [ 'lard^i] adv в значительной

степени narrowmindedness ['naereu'mamdidnis]

n ограниченность

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a story of a little tramp. His father is a drunkard. When he becomes so violent that Huckleberry fears him, the boy runs away from him. Huck finds a canoe and gets into it and paddles to an island on the other side of the river. He thinks he is alone on the island, but he meets there a young Negro slave Jim. Huck is glad to see him there because he always considers him to be his friend. But when he learns that Jim has run away from his owner, he is very sad because it is a sin to help a runaway slave. But Huck promises not to tell anybody about him.

Huckleberry and Jim are the main characters of the book. They sail down the Mississippi, passing big and small towns, numerous villages and farms. The author and his heroes critically view everything they see. They seldom meet good people. Most of all they come across are robbers, murderers, rogues. They do not wish to earn their living honestly.

The white boy and young Negro become very good friends. They help each other in all the troubles. Huck finds Jim to be a kind, brave and good man.

Mark Twain compares the friendly relations between Huck and Jim with the corruption they see in the towns and villages on the shores.

The raft on the Mississippi

It is to Twain's credit that he has depicted Jim as an honest, kind, sincere and selfless man at the time when the Negroes were

considered inferior to the white people. From the time Jim enters the story in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn the book becomes a social novel. It is a judgement of a certain epoch in America.

In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain used his wit and humour to show the social evils of his day. The novel marked the growth of Mark Twain's realism.

Mark Twain began writing as a humorist, but later became a bitter satirist. Towards the end of his life he grew more dissatisfied with American mode of life. In his later works his satire becomes very sharp.

Vocabulary

credit ['kredit] n заслуга rogue ['гэид] п мошенник

inferior [in'frarra] а низший (по положе- sin [sin] n грех

нию) violent fvaistant] а жестокий
judgement ['djufemant] n мнение, взгляд

The Prince and the Pauper and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.

Both books showed contemporary American problems against the historical background.

The Prince and the Pauper is a beautiful fairy-tale about justice and injustice. According to Mark Twain the contrast between poverty and luxury is unjust; the idea that the people from the lowest strata of society are inferior is wrong. He showed that they have as much common sense and wit as their social superiors. The second theme Mark Twain deals with is the corruptive influence of money and flattery on good people.

"Tom Canty liked clothes and ordered more of them. 400 servants he found not enough and made them thrice as many. The flattery of courtiers sounded music to him".

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is a fantastic novel, a parody on the medieval romance.

Placing a Yankee from the 19th century America into the England of the 6th century the author could compare the Middle Ages and the

contemporary bourgeois system and appreciate the progress made, but he leads us to the conclusion that the main laws are the same — the same power of church, ignorance, the same contrast between the oppressed masses of people and the ruling classes.

Mark Twain proves that there is as little or even less freedom and respect for the rights of man in his own days than there was in the times of feudal despotism.

Mark Twain makes the king travel among the people in the disguise of a peasant. It is the same device used in The Prince and the Pauper when the king comes to see by himself how bitter the life of the people was.

Mark Twain was a very good short-story writer as well. The most popular stories are: Running for Governor, An Encounter with an In­terviewer, A Chinaman's Letters and some others. They contain sharp criticism of the political life of the country, of the American system of election and the morals and manners of the reactionary press.

Mark Twain was a very good narrator and he wrote as he talked.

ignorance ['ignarsns] n невежество medieval [^medi'iival] о средневековый narrator [пэг'геПэ] п рассказчик peasant ['pezsnt] n крестьянин sound [saund] v звучать strata ['strata] pi от stratum stratum ['straitsm] n слой (общества) superior [sjix'pisna] n превосходящий другого

Vocabulary

appreciate [s'prkjieit] v ценить contemporary [кэп 'temparen] а со­временный corruptive [кэ'глрйу] а развращающий device [di'vais] n прием (зд. литера­турный) disguise [dis'gaiz] л измененный костюм in disguise of a peasant переоде­тый крестьянином flattery ['flffitsn] n лесть

Questions and Tasks

1. Speak about Samuel Clemens's childhood.

2. When did he have to earn his living?

3. Where did he work?

4. Comment on the years Samuel Clemens spent piloting on the Mississippi.

5. When did the writer take the pen-name "Mark Twain"?

6. What does this term mean?

7. What did Clemens do when the Civil War stopped the traffic on the Mississippi?

8. When did Clemens's career as a journalist really begin?

9. What story made him famous?

10. Name Mark Twain's first important book. Comment on it.

11. What novels did he write in the period from 1874 to 1885?

12. What was his last short novel?

13. What Mark Twain's novels won the hearts of millions of readers?

14. What can you say about the plot and the main characters of the The Adventures of Tom Sawyer?

15. Give a brief summary of the contents of the The Adventures of Huckle­berry Finn.

16. Why can The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn be called a social novel?

17. Analyse the novel The Prince and the Pauper and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.

18. Speak on Mark Twain's activities as a short-story writer.

19. What else did he write in the last years of his life?

20. Speak on Mark Twain's place in American and world literature.

O. Henry (1862-1910)

O. Henry is one of the most popular short-story writers. His real name was Wil­liam Sidney Porter fwiljam 'sidni 'porta]. He was bom in Greensbore, a little town in North Carolina.

His mother died when he was little. His
father spent all his time on inventions of.
various kinds. His aunt had a private school
and she encouraged him to read. His fa­
vourite authors were: Brontes, Walter
Scott, Dickens, Thackeray, Byron and
others. His schooling was short. He left
school when he was fifteen and worked
in his uncle's drugstore as a clerk. In nine- o. Henry

teen Porter went to Texas.

He changed a variety of jobs, working as a cowboy, miner, clerk and then a teller of a bank. While working at a bank Porter was falsely accused of embezzlement and he left the bank. He went

to Houston where he worked for a Houston newspaper and founded a humorous journal, which he called The Rolling Stone. He worked on the newspaper for nearly a year. Then William porter had to return to the Texas capital Austin to start trial for the embezzlement at the bank. He was not guilty. However, the case was so confused that he considered it better not to go there and he went to South America.

In 1897 he returned to his dying wife to the USA and was arrested on the old charge, tried and sentenced to imprisonment. He spent five years in the Ohio State prison. While in prison he started writing stories. He used the pen-name of O. Henry — from the name of the captain of the prison guard, Orrin Henry.

When O. Henry was released from prison, he went to New York where he continued writing stories. The first of his volumes of short stories was Cabbages and Kings (1904). It was followed by The Four Million (1906), The Trimmed Lamp (1907), Heart of the West (1907), The Voice of the City (1908), The Gentle Grafter (1908), Roads of Destiny (1909), Options (1909) and Strictly Business (1910). The years of hard work and privations had undermined the writer's health and he died in 1910.

O. Henry worked out the various kinds of the short story: the monologue, the dialogue, the adventure story, the anecdote, the psychological story. O. Henry wrote about 150 stories with a New York background. His stories depict the lives of people belonging to different layers of society from businessmen to beggars. Most of his stories are romantic portrayals of the lives of shop girls, poor artists, unhappy lovers. Social criticism in O. Henry's stories is very mild. The writer's interest is not in the social scene but in some unusual incident in the lives of his heroes.

O. Henry's stories are based on plot. Mood and character are of less importance. He was an entertainer, his aim was to amuse and surprise his readers rather than to analyse a human situation. Never­theless, his stories.attract the readers to this day. He is still a living author. His love for humanity, for the common people, his critical attitude towards injustice appeal readers. O. Henry's works had a great influence on American literature of the 20th century. The most popular O. Henry's stories are: The Ransom of Red Chief in which the two crooks who kidnap a boy for ransom cannot stand his pranks and

are forced to pay his father two hundred and fifty dollars to get rid of
him; The Gift of Magi, the story of Jim and Delia, a young couple, whose
only treasures are Delia's beautiful long hair and Jim's gold watch.
Jim sells his watch to buy Delia a comb for her hair, and she sells her
hair to buy a chain for his watch; A Service of Love, the story about a
young couple, Joe Larrabee and Delia Caruthers, who love each oth­
er very much. Each has a favourite hobby. He likes drawing, and she
likes music and plays the piano. Soon they lack money to pay for their
lessons, so Delia is going to give music lessons, and Joe too decides to
earn money. Delia pretends to give lessons to a general's daughter
and Joe pretends that she has sold a sketch. One evening Delia comes
home with her right hand tied up with a rag. When Joe sees the band­
age, the truth comes out that they have been working in the same
laundry. They are happy because Joe says: "When one loves one's
Art no service seems —"; The Last Leaf is about an old painter, Behr-
man, who is a failure in art. He protects the two young artists, two girls,
Sue and Johnsy. Johnsy gets very ill and believes she will die when the
last leaf of the tree falls down. The old painter saves Johnsy by paint­
ing on the wall the last leaf. But he catches cold and dies of pneumo­
nia; The Cop and the Anthem, in which a tramp does everything possi­
ble to be arrested and put to prison because winter is approaching
and he is homeless. „

O. Henry's stories are related with skill, humour and feeling.

Vocabulary

accuse [s'kjuiz] v обвинять appeal [э'рк1] v привлекать bandage ['basndicfe] n бинт charge [tfa:u^] n обвинение confused [k3n'fju:zd] а запутанный crook [kruk] n проходимец drugstore fdrAgsto:] n аптекарский ма­газин embezzlement [im'bezlmant] n растрата kidnap ['kidnsep] v похищать детей laundry ['b:ndn] n прачечная layer ['1ею] п слой pneumonia [nju: 'тэгяу'э] п воспале-

prank [praerjk] n шалость

rag [raeg] n тряпка

ransom ['raensam] n выкуп

release [n'li:s] v освобождать

rid [rid] v (rid; ridden) освобождать

to get rid of smb избавиться от кого-л. sentence [ 'sentgns] v приговаривать teller ['tela] n кассир в банке trial ['traial] n суд

to stand trial предстать перед судом undermine [^Ands'mam] v разрушать

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