In the following essay, I will analyze the figurative language used by Mark Twain in his “Two Views of the Mississippi.” Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essayMark Twain was many things in his life. Writer, miner, apprentice in a newspaper store, but also steamboat pilot on the Mississippi. After being trained to navigate the Mississippi River, it quickly lost its charm and its magnificent features no longer seemed as captivating. Twain no longer focused on the wonders of the river, but rather on its dangers, as he viewed every errant branch or "floating log" as a potential threat to his boat, its cargo, and its passengers. In his writings, Twain recalls a scene where he witnessed a majestic sunset while he was a novice steamboat pilot. Using images, he described the reflections of sunlight and delicate waves on the water, later describing how, after becoming a pilot, he would perceive the sunset as an indicator of incoming winds and the water ripples as a dissolution effect. sandbar. The beauty of the river was now reduced to the obstacles he had to overcome. The main idea that Twain is trying to address in this excerpt is that learning is both a matter of loss and gain. Understanding how something works also helps you better understand how you can manipulate it, or even how it can manipulate you. This new knowledge erases the mystical nature of the thing before you know exactly what it was. It's no longer mysterious and intriguing, it's technical and concise. It is human instinct to place things we do not understand within a veil of magic. This is basically how most traditions and cultures came to be. For example: “Well, this big rock is making loud, scary noises! Maybe we should add a human sacrifice or two? are angry, let's appease them! What we today call natural disasters, others consider to be something much more mystical and astonishing. Mark Twain begins his article by describing the Mississippi River. Twain uses epithets to describe it, such as “graceful curves, reflected images, wooded heights, gentle distances; and over the whole scene, far and near, the dissolving lights drifted regularly, enriching it at every moment with new wonders of coloring.” Through the vividly written imagery, readers are able to bring the beauty of the Mississippi River to life, with the abundance of epithets contributing to the interest of the piece. Along this line, it seems that Mark Twain is like any other casual observer of the landscape, indifferent to what he actually knows at the time - to all the potential dangers that lurk beneath this fascinating landscape. Similarly, Twain also uses simile to emphasize that the view of the Mississippi River is particularly familiar to him, with the phrase: "Now that I had mastered the language of that water and had come to know every detail insignificant that bordered the great river as familiarly as I knew the letters of the alphabet. Twain's use of the comparison between familiarity with the river and the alphabet is intentional, as it leads the reader to understand that although he had memorized the landscape like the back of his hand, it was ultimately only the surface he had scratched. with his understanding of the river. Shortly after this line, Twain uses repetition with: "But I hadalso lost something. I had lost something…”. By emphasizing that he has lost something and repeating the phrase one more time, Mark Twain conveys to the reader that what he "lost" must have been important enough to be worth repeating. In short, his "loss" was that of the innocence of knowing only the beauty of the river, and not its ugliness. How strange that after simply describing how well he had come to know Mississippi, he could then say that he knew very little about it, in truth. Mark Twain then goes on to discuss the deceptive nature of the river: which has two sides: the surface and what is beneath. To signify this, he incorporates the liberal use of metaphors and imagery to indicate how the river is changing, even personifying the river's characteristics with descriptions of its color (blood): "A large expanse of the river has been transformed bloody; in the distance the red tint glowed gold, through which floated a solitary log, black and clearly visible; in one place, a long oblique mark sparkled on the water.” The effective use of metaphors, imagery and personification in these lines paints a vivid picture in the reader's mind of the splendor of the river from the average person's perspective. An interesting note can be made about the passage at the beginning of the second paragraph: "I drank it, in speechless rapture." In using a metaphor to describe his admiration for the river, Twain also includes a deliberate comparison to the act of drinking itself. Imagine someone drunk on their favorite type of alcohol (or any alcohol, really). Being drunk dulls the senses and distorts your view of what is really going on around you. By connecting the intoxication of the beauty of the river with that of real intoxication, Twain draws the reader's attention to the fact that all is not as it seems and that although the splendor of the river While certainly captivating, it doesn't give the full picture. A floating log could destroy the boat that sails along it, the stream could drown anyone who falls into it, etc. It can be argued that allegory is the most important figurative language used by Mark Twain in Two Views of the Mississippi because it is used to illustrate larger concepts based on his description of the Mississippi River. First, he describes the river in great detail, emphasizing its power and beauty. This superficial view is something any passerby would notice. Instead, Mark Twain would like readers to look beyond the surface and guide them toward this understanding through the use of figurative devices such as metaphor, personification, and similes, as well as his own personal narrative about the way he too, once saw the river only for its grandeur, but now he knows better. Toward the end of the play, Twain compares the river's duplicity and ambidextrousness to people, to doctors, in particular. With the sentence: “the pretty redness on a beauty's cheek means for a doctor but a “break” which has repercussions on a fatal illness”. Mark Twain essentially notes that what most people may consider beautiful, like blushing on a woman, can actually be something much more dangerous, like a disease, something that can only be detected by those who have the experience and who know how to be wary of it. A passenger on a steamboat sees the beautiful sunset, while the steamboat captain can see an approaching storm. Then comes the barrage of rhetorical questions. “Are not all his visible charms sown, think what the signs and symbols of a hidden decadence are to him? Does he ever see his.