Helen Keller once said these to parise a master : I love HIM------who wouldn’t love him? Even God, giving him wisdom and painting a rainbow of love and faith in his heart. William Faulkner applaud him as “the first real American writer.”This lovable man is Mark Twain. Regard as the Mirror of America, many of his famous works had revealed the problems of the America .Every people pursue the equality and freedom.But racial discrimination still existed. The work had exposed the mask of democracy and freedom of the American capitalist ,revealed its worship of money, racial discrimination and the true face of aggression.
In his early time, he writes about Children Literature, works like The adventures of Huckleberry FInn, The adventures of Tom Sawyer, and the book I only read The prince and the pauper.
The prince and the pauper first published in 1881 in Canada before its 1882 publication in the United States. The book represents Twain's first attempt at historical fiction .Set in 1547, the novel tells the story of two young boys who are identical in appearance:
Two boys borned in the same day but lead a total different life. Tom Canty ,a pauper, lives in a poor family in a the slum of London. His father is a abusive person, his mother and his two sister were clumsy but comely. Only his grandma loves him. Little tom wish that one day he will become a honorable prince living a rich and populous life. To most pauper this is only a beautiful dream, but to Tom Canty this dream came ture.
Prince Edward was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He is a royal prince and the King of The British Empire in the future. Everyone loves him. He had been arranged to learn the royal manner and other knowledges. That’s to cruel for a kid. Little young prince was fed up with the red tape and vacant life, wish to become a common people, lives a ordinary and leisurely life.
One day the two boys met in accident, they were astonished that they look so alike, the prince said “If we go out naked, who also don't know which is you, which is me!”。 That’s true. As a jest they swiched their clothes. While dressed in the pauper's rags, the Prince leaves the palace to punish the guard who knocked Tom down. However, the boys look remarkably alike and because they switch clothes, the palace guards throw the prince out into the street. The Prince fares poorly in London because he insists on proclaiming his identity as the true Prince of Wales. Meanwhile despite Tom's repeated denial of his birthright, the court and the King insist that he is the true prince gone mad. Edward eventually runs into Tom's family and a gang of thieves and Twain illustrates England's unfair and barbaric justice system. After the death of Henry VIII, Edward interrupts Tom's coronation and the boys explain, switch places, and Edward is crowned King of England…
Tom Canty was exist in the history. He is the friend of the King Edward VI since he was 6 years old and also the protector of the King of the great Britain, the preside of The Anglican Church and the bishop of Campbell Rett.
As a masterpiece for Children Literature there’s no doubt that The prince and the pauper is a success. The story was full of imagination and humorous language, that’s typical Mark Twain’s style. The book stimulate the imagination of children and longing for pure, kind-hearted, beautiful things.Consider the writing historical background we should take serious about his work, because writer writes in vain. Although the story was settled in the 16th century but the reader would associate with the difficult situation of the working people of the United States in 19th century in thinking. Readers would thinking about the tyranny fraud of the United States of America bourgeois government during that time while reading the emperor autocratic rule.