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| Plot Summary of Roughing It |
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"In 1861, Samuel Clemens was still years away from becoming the famous author known as Mark Twain. He'd been working as a steamboat pilot, but lost his job when the Civil War broke out and traffic stopped going up and down the Mississippi River. So when his older brother Orion was appointed secretary to the territorial governor of Nevada, Sam Clemens jumped at the chance to take a trip out West.
Roughing It - which covers the years 1861-1866 - tells the story of their journey by stage from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Virginia City, Nevada, and Clemens' subsequent trip to San Francisco. where he'll settle down, at least for a time. It's there he'll begin his career as a journalist and adopt his pen name.
Clemens tells all kinds of funny stories about the people he meets (sometimes their dialect is hard to understand) and the sights he sees. He devotes paragraph after paragraph to sagebrush, prairie-dogs, and "cayotes" and many pages to Indians, and outlaws. "
Ann Gaines, Resident Scholar
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| Review Analysis of Roughing It |
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Our unique search engine provides a wealth of detail about books by breaking them down into many different literary elements, all of which are searchable (click here).
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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
job/profession:
- explorer
Job/profession/poverty story
Yes
Period of greatest activity?
- 1800's
Subject of Biography
Gender
- Male
Profession/status:
- writer
Age:
- 20's-30's
Eccentric/Mental
Yes
Eccentric:
- eccentric
Biography of famous person?
Yes
Ethnicity
- White
Nationality
- American (!)
How sensitive is this person?
- middling sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor
- Cynical sense of humor
Intelligence
- Smarter than most other people
Physique
- average physique
Setting
How much descriptions of surroundings?
- 10 (a tremendous amount)
United States
Yes
The US:
- West
Mountains/Cliffs
Yes
Desert?
Yes
City?
Yes
Century:
- 19th century
Style
Person
- mostly 1st
Accounts of torture and death?
- no torture/death
Book makes you feel?
- very happy
Is book humorous?
Yes
If humorous, kind of humor
- eccentric personalities
Writer's slant towards subject:
- favorable
Story of entire life, or part?
- story of set of events during life
Autobiography?
Yes
Pictures/Illustrations?
- More 6-10 B&W
How much dialogue in bio?
- significantly more descript than dialog
How much of bio focuses on most famous period of life?
- 0-25% of book
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Click here for more information about this book
Mark Twain Resident Scholar Profiles
TOP SCHOLAR:
 Ann Gaines
SCHOLARS:
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Note: the views expressed here are only those of the reviewer(s). | |
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