Mark
Twain: How to Tell a Story
Introduction
Mark Twain explains that though he is not a perfect
story teller, he has knowledge on how stories should be told. He classifies
them into humorous, comic and witty stories. He says that the humorous stories
are best done in America while the comic ones are English. He adds that the
witty stories are practiced by French people. He differentiates the humorous
stories from the comic and witty ones. According to him, the humorous stories
may be lengthy and lacking a specific point in their conclusion. The comic and
witty stories are short and are concluded by a certain point. However, he
compares the humorous stories to move the emotions of the audience more than
the comic and witty ones do. They are strictly work of art and hence require
skills in telling unlike the comic and witty ones, which can be told by anyone.
How
Mark Twain Tells His Story
Mark
Twain succeeds in telling a humorous story- From
Roughing It which creates eager to the audience right from the beginning.
He gives it a title “When the Buffalo Climbed a Tree” which traps the attention
of the audience to known how could that have happened! He takes time to explain
the long story just as he had explained to be the nature of a humorous story.
He tells about how a joyful buffalo hunt which began with a party turned to be
disastrous. This becomes funny to the audience because it creates a scene where
the hunter becomes the hunted! He creates suspense to the audience who pay more
attention to know the fate of the hunter. He further creates another scene
where his horse, which could have been used to escape the wrath of the buffalo
dropped down. Instead of struggling to escape he lays down to pray. This makes
the audience laugh at the act since he lacks any other option.
At the start of the
struggle with the buffalo, he did not pray but when there seems to be no other
option, he is forced to pray. He gives the buffalo the power to reason and get
surprised. The buffalo should have attacked him when he laid down to pray but
instead it became frightened. He says that”… it stopped pawing sand and
bellowing to contemplate the inhuman spectacle…” Also the act of saddles
starting to slip when he tried to escape creates a funny scenario where one
struggles to flee for his life in vain. When audience hear that the buffalo
stopped pawing sand, it relieves their tension which had built up, eagerly
waiting know the fate of the author. It relieves them from the burden of deep
concentration and prepares them for suspense again. This starts creating when
he says that all of a sudden, the bull made a snatch on them which brought away
some of his horse’s tail.
He says that something
triggered the horse to get up and makes it funny by saying that he is not sure
about it because he was pretty busy at that time. The audience is aware that
the horse got up to escape from the attack of the bull. They are also aware
that what the author was doing, was struggling to get to the back of the horse
but he tries to hide it. This provides the audience with a chance to reason
ahead and try to connect the whole story. The act then draws the emotions of
the audience close to the story and starts to empathize with the author. He
relieves their attention when he says that the horse managed to escape and
exaggerates its speed which makes it funny. All of a sudden, he says that the
horse threw him off when the rotten girths got loose of him. At that high speed
which he says the horse was almost overtaking an antelope, it creates doubt
whether he could really have survived. The horse did not stop but instead it
continued to escape and this is shown when he says that it gave his saddle a
four hundred yard lift high. This brings in a possibility that the bull might
have attacked him. The horse had escaped and it is likely that he got injured
when he fell down. The thoughts of the audience are directed towards thinking
that there was no other option which he could have adopted in order to escape.
Miraculously, he falls
on the foot of the only tree in all the nine neighboring counties. It results
into other doubt about whether he was able to climb the tree with the injuries
he had incurred. He dramatizes it by saying that he used both his four nails
and teeth to climb up the tree. He adds that he was unwound which corrects the
idea the audience could have created in their minds. He climbed the tree
hopefully to make a step towards saving his life which would be impossible for
the bull to make. Climbing the tree did not help since the bull followed him up
there. He says that the bull was making attempts to climb without despairing.
It sets the audience eager to know whether the bull caught up with him.
Awarding the bull an ability to climb a tree shocks the audience and sets them
keen to know how it happened. As he explains step by step how the bull was
attempting to climb the tree, it builds tension to the audience and creates
scene whereby they can figure out how it was happening.
They are eager to know
whether it made up to the top of the tree. They also start figuring out what
each of them did if it made it to the top of the tree. His story traps the mind
of the audience and directs to believe that impossible things can happen. As he
narrates, though everyone knows that it is not possible for a bull neither to climb
a tree nor to think as humans do, he makes it possible. He says that the bull
took time to contemplate what he was doing. Though this is not true, he manages
to set the audience into a world of imagination where they can assume it
happening. He manages to introduce options where the audience had assumed to
have none. He shows how his expectations do slip away leaving no alternative
options at that moment, only to start finding for others.
His story is humorous
since it draws the imaginations of the audience close and involves them in
participation of the narrative. When he fell down, he says that he wished that
he could have died for a minute if the horse did not. This shows the audience
the hopelessness which had struck him after the fell down and the horse
escaped. For continuity of the story, he introduces other options. Throughout
the story, he has used misfortunes to be the driving factor towards
establishing possible options. He has created an imagination that everything he
tries to long for help, it turns him down. This is seeing when his horse drops
down and also when the girths unstrapped causing him to fall down from the
horse.
Conclusion
Mark Twain has followed
the explanations he gave on his text how
to tell a story. He has created a
humorous story which is long but funny enough to break the monotony of long
period of concentration by the audience. He has managed to direct the thoughts
of his audience to certain directions then correct them where they make wrong
assumptions. He has based the whole story on imagination in order to be able to
manipulate the thinking of the audience easily.
He also set the
audience into dilemma trying to clear any possible options towards his survival
from the attack. This involves the audience fully into participation through
thinking of any possible solution to make him escape. After a while, he
introduces an option and this relieves the audience from the hard mental work.
His story has not ended
with a main point but only a resolution to the problem. This has cleared the
suspense of the audience about whether at the end he managed to survive in good
health or the battle with the bull left him wounded.
No comments:
Post a Comment