https://padlet.com/shenri1795/Bookmarks Mark Twain en-us 2022-02-28 12:34:12 UTC 2023-03-09 18:16:43 UTC hello@padlet.com shenri1795 https://padlet.com/shenri1795/Bookmarks/wish/2069382035 American author, Mark Twain, consistently criticized the American Dream in his writings by using religious satire, highlighting democratic hypocrisy, and drawing attention to those who take advantage of those genuinely pursuing the American dream.]]> 2022-02-28 12:45:33 UTC https://padlet.com/shenri1795/Bookmarks/wish/2069382035 shenri1795 https://padlet.com/shenri1795/Bookmarks/wish/2069400149 The United States was founded on religious freedom and the founding fathers actively embraced the idea of God helping one achieve the American Dream. For many people, all they had to do was believe in God and have faith. Mark Twain was skeptical of traditional religious views and he did not believe that God would provide people with the American Dream. Twain knows that his view is going to be controversial when he says, “I have a religion — but you will call it blasphemy…”(Mark Twain). He also does not believe that God will lead one to the American Dream, but that one has to diligently work towards and earn it. When times are good, people credit their success to good fortune, rather than to God. When times turn bad, people tend to blame God for their misfortune. Twain mocks those people by saying, “Our religions are alike, though, in one respect — neither can make a man happy when he is out of luck.” 

]]> 2022-02-28 12:58:11 UTC https://padlet.com/shenri1795/Bookmarks/wish/2069400149 shenri1795 https://padlet.com/shenri1795/Bookmarks/wish/2069409434 Although American society claimed that it was a democracy in which citizens enjoyed equal rights and were able to achieve their versions of success of the American dream, there were those who bought, sold, and owned slaves. Mark Twain made fun of those who thought they were moral citizens, yet (6)attended church while their slaves worked in the fields for them. If a slave managed to escape, they were hunted down, as if they were a wild animal that needed to be captured or killed. In the novel Huckleberry Finn, the main character, Huck, is good friends with a slave named Jim. When Jim escapes from his master, he is afraid to tell Huck what he had done. Huck promises not to turn Jim in, saying “People would call me a low-down Abolitionist and despise me for keeping mum—but that don’t make no difference” (Huckleberry Finn). Even though Huck was a teenager, he knew that those who wanted to free or help slaves were looked at as traitors and the lowest members of society. Twain didn’t just create characters that either owned slaves or were Abolitionists. He himself did not support the idea of slavery. Mark Twain biographer Fred Kaplan writes, "Twain strongly believed that white America owed reparations to black America" (Moss). 

]]> 2022-02-28 13:04:43 UTC https://padlet.com/shenri1795/Bookmarks/wish/2069409434 shenri1795 https://padlet.com/shenri1795/Bookmarks/wish/2069411133 Mark Twain describes the “New World” as an ideal environment in which those in society have the opportunity to improve their living conditions in a new way, thereby fulfilling the American Dream. Twain believed that "...humanity had been given a chance to remedy its situation in the New World, where the foolish superstitions and false hierarchies of Western Europe could be replaced with egalitarianism and the true progress represented by improved living conditions." He uses stereotypes like rich and poor, black and white, that are passed through in order to fully understand the American Dream. In the article, Mark criticizes the way in which American society had been modeled after the hierarchical societies in Europe. Americans wanted to be free of those expectations and traditions when they founded America but now, generations later, society is just like that in Europe. He implies that American society is actually moving backwards instead of forwards.

]]> 2022-02-28 13:06:00 UTC https://padlet.com/shenri1795/Bookmarks/wish/2069411133 shenri1795 https://padlet.com/shenri1795/Bookmarks/wish/2076036253 2022-03-03 15:21:45 UTC https://padlet.com/shenri1795/Bookmarks/wish/2076036253 shenri1795 https://padlet.com/shenri1795/Bookmarks/wish/2076217641 2022-03-03 16:45:23 UTC https://padlet.com/shenri1795/Bookmarks/wish/2076217641