Mark Twain – A River Pilot Looks at the Mississippi

The Report:

The authors stance is, the view of how knowledge and experience corrupt one’s view of beauty. His audience for this particular piece are fans who enjoy other pieces of his work. This piece is actually taken from the biography of Mark Twain’s Mississippi. After reading about his personal life one might connect his resentment of the river to the death of his younger brother. This leads to the genre of the article which is a literacy narrative or also known as realism. He tells stories of his past to make the reader think of worldly concepts. The authors purpose for this story is to explain how one may loose beauty through understanding, to show the reader that ignorance may be bliss.

 

The Summary:

Twain compares the water in the Mississippi while on a river boat to reading a book. The book has attention to detail and one without the proper vocabulary would not be able to read it. He describes how someone “uneducated” (Twain, 1) will find the poetry of the book while an educated reader finds the poetry has left. After seeing this river for so many years he realizes what had enchanted him is now gone. Reflecting on this he states another profession, the doctor and how they only recognize the disease and not the people in front of them. 

 

The Response:

Now that I’ve evaluated the rhetorical situation, I’m able to draw the following conclusions about the work in question. I believe Mark Twain is proposing that by being the educated and understanding how everything may work you are not the most privileged. He shows that the uneducated are the ones still able to see the beauty in what is before them.

 

The Analysis:

“All the value any feature of it had for me now was the amount of usefulness it could furnish toward compassing the safe piloting of a steamboat.” (Twain, 4) This proves how he has become blind to the beautiful nature, simply using it as a manual to safely navigate the river. “And doesn’t he sometimes wonder whether he has gained most or lost most by learning his trade?” (Twain, 4) When Twain states this he is questioning whether being the educated is the true advantage. By using the doctors profession he shows how they may only see the disease, blind of the person in front of them. He relates this to reading and his own life, how a “uneducated passenger” (Twain, 1) will see beauty in the boat ride where he sees only definition of what they mean. “I had lost something which could never be restored to me while I lived. All the grace, the beauty, the poetry had gone out of the majestic river.” (Twain, 2) This line not only brings together the analogy of the river and reading but shows how once you are blessed with knowledge and understanding it is kept with you forever. This shows Twain’s point of view to be that ignorance is bliss.

 

References

 

University of California, Merced. (2005) Mark Twain’s Mississippi Retrieved on October28, 2013, from, http://dig.lib.niu.edu/twain/biography.html.

 

Mark Twain. n.d. A River Pilot Looks at the Mississippi. The Broadview Reader (3^rd Edition. 1999) Broadview Press 

My Literacy Narrative

Different Situations in my life have always called for different Englishes. Often when in a different setting and around different people the sophistication and tone of my Englishes may change. To hear me now one would not expect me to be the shy child I once was but past events have sculpted me into someone I would have never been able to become on my own. Through schooling, family and close friends I have been socialized into many different social norms with a different English for each. At a young age I was able to understand which norm and English had belonged together almost without recognition.

            Around the age of three or four I was open minded, outgoing and loud around home. This personality quickly changed when in public or around unfamiliar people. I grew up in a small house with my mother and sister on the outskirts of the retirement town of Kingsville. My sister and I were unlike other siblings we got along well and I had always protected her. From when I began to start speaking it was evident that my voice was unusual. It was raspy, often cutting out when pronouncing certain words. This lead to the discovery that I had suffered scarred vocal chords when I was very young. This caused me to become shy and reserved when speaking to people not in my family. My family understood this choppy raw English and accepted it was simply how I spoke. This English was coupled with the teachings of my uneducated mother of words she had picked up around town. These words and English were now to be inherited by me. This allowed my mother, my sister and I to speak fluently with each other even though others may not understand us.

            By the time I was sent to school I was only three years old. When first entering the playground I expected all the other kids to speak like me. I was soon to realize they did not, they were older, could speak more clearly and certainly never hiccupped on a word. These differences made me shy and afraid to speak with anyone for fear of humiliation. Determined not to reveal my true speaking voice I would rarely answer a question in class and never dared to raise my hand. By grade two this had developed into a greater problem the teacher were concerned. They called home explaining if I did not learn to participate in class I would be forced into a separate program. Naturally I was terrified to be put in this “separate program” and my mother was not pleased by it either. Immediately after that day I had decided, it was time to start improving my speech. I began this journey at home, reading short stories with the aid of my sister. After two weeks of this tedious task I could already see improvement in both my pronunciation and vocabulary. The next step was to start finding new sources to tutor me. Most of my family wasn’t of much assistance but my cousin could surely help. She was six months older than me and in the same grade. Simply by having daily play dates I was able to improve my clarity of speech and learn the modern topics of interest. This made me comfortable to talk with my classmates and even engage in class participation. 

            As you would expect this socialization lead me to my second English. Gossiping within my group o close friends I had developed about which boy we had a crush on or whom we had decided not to like. Naturally as we grew older nothing was a sensitive topic, things were changing and who wouldn’t want to talk about it. It was noticeable from the beginning this is not an English I should use around family or in the presence of an elder. This still left me unsure of how to properly speak in public around strangers, which kept me in my shy state for a little longer.

            The next influence in my life was a man named Robert. This was mother’s latest and longest boyfriend. He was the best mannered and most polite man I had ever met; he’d be perfect to help me create my third English. The process began after a long night at his parents for dinner. With both of them being very well educated he could tell I was not comfortable in the situation.  When we returned home he promised to teach me this third English. He demonstrated how to use proper table manners, introductory manners; manners I didn’t even know existed. Once these lessons had been completed he taught me subjects that were appropriate and inappropriate to talk about with elders. I now knew how to act even in surprise situations. I termed this to be my filtered and improved English. This third English was my most impressive English yet and was soon to be incorporated in all of my others. I believed practicing it as much as I could would help improve it even more.

            Now in university I realize how I still use these different Englishes. While calling home to my mother I often find myself without recognition using the old Kingsville slang from the first English I was taught. When speaking with my close friends from home I can catch myself using a different tone and even talking about different subjects. I find while away at school speaking in these more simplistic Englishes brings me comfort and even relieves stress. Although some of these Englishes may be used when talking to my roommates and close friends here I generally find myself using my more sophisticated English. This English is used daily when making new acquaintances, speaking with professors, and even when grocery shopping. Since first learn this English there has been many alterations and improvements everyday that help me to communicate my thoughts and opinions more clear and comfortable in new environments. This shows me that I still have many more Englishes to learn as I grow older and experience new situations and circumstances. 

Reflective Learning Statement

 

            Writing has always been quite the challenge for me. Over the last two years my writing has improved dramatically. I believe a good teacher to influence my writing experience is truly a great help. My greatest challenge to overcome while writing was learning to let my work be criticized. I have always been to shy to show others my work, now in this present day I realize to get others to understand my work they must help me revise it. This has also been the most valuable lesson I have learned in my writing career. As I move forward I allow people to criticize my work, and to teach me knew lessons to improve my work.  I also have learned personally how to revise my work and how to rewrite my work thoughtfully. 

Me

My name is Hailey Quigley; I enjoy to run and would love to start a running group for the following year. I also enjoy exercising and living a healthy lifestyle. On another note some close friends may refer to me as a nerd, I believe that “The intellect has little to do on the road to discovery. There comes a leap in consciousness, call it intuition or what you will, and the solution comes to you and you don’t know how or why…” – Albert Einstein. I enjoy schooling and am currently enrolled in biological sciences. I have never excelled in writing, leading to this decision to stay in science. I chose to attend Nipissing University because of the small classrooms and the astounding up north environment. I would have to say my creative intelligence is, my ability to give good advice and put things into perspective for friends, or so I’ve been told. I find myself to be a positive thinker and I think this gives me an advantage when helping friends. one of my favourite quotes to prove this is from Theodore Roosevelt and it states, “Believe you can and you’re half way there.” Beginning my undergraduate career I believe I am a visual learner and prefer to have things mapped out before me to help me better understand. When reading I will often breeze through it quickly leaving out small details that are insignificant to the text. When writing I prefer to be in my room with music quietly playing or simply silence. Being in the North is something that has allowed me to be surrounded by silence and I truly believe this helps me when completing assignments. I have discovered that writing in a classroom setting has never been helpful and the outdoors is too distracting. Although I cannot learn outdoors I do enjoy it throughly, I will often go for walks, runs or hikes when I have too much on my mind. The outdoors provides a piece of mind that cannot be found anywhere else. Overall I am excited for the current year at Nipissing University to start and to begin learning new information to help me get closer to my future goals of forensic pathology, a career that has interested me since I was just a child.

Owning Your Uncool

Born to Be

The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what we share with someone else when we’re uncool. Lester Bangs, Almost Famous

There is a great scene in the film “The Holiday” when Kate Winslet’s character, Iris, is so distraught over hearing the news of her ex’s engagement that she starts breathing in gas from her stove as she is getting ready to light the flame for a cup of tea.  She then realizes what she is doing and scrambles to open the window, finishing the moment with a mumble to herself, “Low point!”

I love this scene because it reminds me of our humanity and the vulnerability we carry in our hearts that result in situations in our lives that really are “UNCOOL.”  It makes me laugh every time.  The scene has become an unfailing reflection of my own relationship foibles.  As I have opened this article with a…

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