Clemens/Twain became, to an extent, that stranger, sickened not only by what he saw as the money-mad society around him but also by his own participation in it. At the same time, he remained, however self-contradictingly, the sensation-loving boy whom he depicted as Tom Sawyer, eager to cause a stir and ready to apologize afterwards. Get-rich-quick schemes, intense personal hatreds arising from business as well as from personal dealings, equally intense loves and loyalties--the emotional nature of the man and his final confusion when the promises of the American Dream of personal satisfaction through financial success turned increasingly into nightmare--have made Mark Twain's life the subject of intensive scholarly research equal in range and in thoroughness to the critical exploration of his written work. We study the life because of the work, but both repay attention.
From genteel but shabby beginnings, Samuel Langhorne Clemens rose to both respectability and respect, glad to belong to the wealthy upper reaches of the society that he knew well enough to laugh at while striving, meanwhile, to please.
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