Literary Analysis Essay on The Boys Ambition by Mark Twain

Introduction

Marks Twain's 'The Boys Ambition' from his expressive book Life of Mississippi is based on his love for the river Mississippi and his connection to it as it is well described throughout the book. 'The Boys Ambition' specifically talks about the arrival of a boat to the river and the thoughts of the boy from his perspective about his dreams and what he would wish to be, which makes the story very thrilling. The young boy dreams of becoming a pilot to earn the prestige that comes with it but ends up failing all the time, however, he does not lose hope but remains ambitious. The following essay, therefore, focuses on the comic devices used by Mark Twain in this chapter of 'The Boys Ambition' (Twain 64).

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First and foremost, Twain uses humor in his writing, and this is evident in 'The Boys Ambition' when he says that he would instead work on the steamboat instead of working for his wealthy father. This is humorous because it evokes laughter as one would find that statement intriguing and funny. In addition to that, there is also a show of humor through exaggeration when he wishes that the apprentice was dead. This is because literally, he would not want the apprentice to die but he uses humor to say that, which also shows how much he wanted the apprentice job (Musolff 67).

Secondly, Twain uses comic metaphors to express himself also, when he says that his father had the power over life or death, he was not referring to his father as a God but instead as a mortal man who could decide people's lives because he was the justice of the peace. He also refers to the day as being dead, but that does mean that the day is gone, it says that the sun has gone down and the darkness is approaching, so he uses the word dead to mean that the day has come to an end (Carston 45).

In addition to that, Twain also applies the use of understatement is his literature when he expresses how bad he felt when one boy back as an apprentice engineer. Twain uses the words 'shook the bottom of his Sunday school teachings' to bring a sense of humor and also the lightness to the fact he felt very jealous of the other boy. However, he managed to stay hopeful that someday he would be able to become an engineer or great of all a pilot, something that he admired (Evans 22).

Furthermore, Twain also uses the use of hyperboles in his literature, when he describes the boat. He describes the ship as being handsome which is a reference made to good-looking men and explains how the river Mississippi is tremendous and magnificent to show how much he thought of the river and its greatness. The hyperboles help delivers the message that he is trying to communicate and that is to help the reader see just how good looking the boat was and how mind-blowing the river Mississippi was. In conclusion, Twain above all things uses humor to communicate in most of his work, and it is quite evident in the expression of 'The Boys Ambition' (Wilson 212).

Works Cited

Carston, Robyn, and Catherine Wearing. "Metaphor, hyperbole, and simile: A pragmatic approach." Language and Cognition 3.2 (2011): 283-312.

Evans, Vyvyan. Language and time: A cognitive linguistics approach. Cambridge University Press, 2013.

Musolff, Andreas. "The study of metaphor as part of critical discourse analysis." Critical discourse studies 9.3 (2012): 301-310.

Twain, Mark, and George Overlie. The Boys' Ambition: [from] Life on the Mississippi. Minneapolis: Lerner Publications Co, 1976. Print.

Wilson, Deirdre, and Dan Sperber. "Relevance theory." Handbook of Pragmatics. Blackwell, 2002.