Mark Twain's Short Story 'Running For Governor'
Summer Reading Short Stories –Mark Twain Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by his pen name of Mark Twain, is a widely renowned author whom, throughout his life, wrote countless short stories and essays criticizing politics, media, and other government and social areas. Twain was an avid supporter of civil rights and was extremely critical of the court systems. Twain often criticized how society treatment of criminals changes for every social class. Mark Twain uses his dark humor and irony to convey said theme in three of his more popular short stories, The New Crime, Running for Governor, and A Presidential Candidate. Mark Twain’s short story, The New Crime, illustrates the positive side of having a high social class and the special
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He uses said story to show the negative side of having a high social status and how the media will treat one differently when they are put in the spotlight. Twain himself is the main character and has never done a single thing in all his life to be ashamed of. When his campaign begins, Twain feels that his advantage over his competition is that he possesses good character whereas, Twain’s two opponents are portrayed in the papers as terrible men. The next day newspapers start to come out accusing Mr. Twain of ridiculous crimes. One of the papers says that Twain has been convicted of perjury by thirty-four witnesses against a native woman in Cochin China! Twain is list all of the absurd accusations in the following pages. What Twain is doing is making the charges serious, such as murder, but also incredibly odd. The reason being to create a subtle, dark humor in all of the newspaper articles so that the reader will see how the media is clearly just making up stories about whomever runs for a political office. Twain uses this same technique in his short story, A Presidential Candidate, in which he jokingly writes that he has made up his mind to run for president but, instead of waiting
He uses said story to show the negative side of having a high social status and how the media will treat one differently when they are put in the spotlight. Twain himself is the main character and has never done a single thing in all his life to be ashamed of. When his campaign begins, Twain feels that his advantage over his competition is that he possesses good character whereas, Twain’s two opponents are portrayed in the papers as terrible men. The next day newspapers start to come out accusing Mr. Twain of ridiculous crimes. One of the papers says that Twain has been convicted of perjury by thirty-four witnesses against a native woman in Cochin China! Twain is list all of the absurd accusations in the following pages. What Twain is doing is making the charges serious, such as murder, but also incredibly odd. The reason being to create a subtle, dark humor in all of the newspaper articles so that the reader will see how the media is clearly just making up stories about whomever runs for a political office. Twain uses this same technique in his short story, A Presidential Candidate, in which he jokingly writes that he has made up his mind to run for president but, instead of waiting