Roughing It Literary Elements

Humorous memoir/Regional non-fiction/Travel/Social commentary

Nevada, California and Hawaii in the early 1860’s.

First person narration from the perspective from a narrator who shifts easily from Samuel Clemens to “Mark Twain.”

Sardonic, ironic, sarcastic, and occasionally bombastic.

Protagonist: The narrator. Antagonist: The constant disillusionment of the romantic myths that had already built up about the West.

Illusion versus reality, man versus nature, man versus himself.

After a series of failed dreams, the books concludes with the narrator launching his latest scheme for gainful employment: becoming a lecturer.

The narrator admits on practically the first page that just before setting out for the west he “dreamed all night about Indians, deserts, and silver bars.” The subject of these dreams foreshadow the disappointment and disillusionment of discovering the famous myths of the west are just that.

“I am not given to exaggeration, and when I say a thing I mean it.” This understated way of admitting just the opposite pretty much describes the entire text in full.

“I felt like the Last Man, neglected of the judgment, and left pinnacled in mid-heaven, a forgotten relic of a vanished world.” This is a reference to a Mary Shelley novel that was already obscure by then and probably offers insight into how Twain was occupying a lot of his time when there was nothing to do.

“I was armed to the teeth with a pitiful little Smith & Wesson's seven-shooter, which carried a ball like a homoeopathic pill, and it took the whole seven to make a dose for an adult. But I thought it was grand. It appeared to me to be a dangerous weapon. It only had one fault--you could not hit anything with it.” The imagery here is representative of much of the rest of the book in which Twain crafts descriptive prose with the sly sensibility of a stand-up comedian: creating a set-up with sincerity and then springing the ironic trap for the punch-line.

Much of the book is given to travel writing conventions of describing natural wonders and beauties never experienced before. At one point, Twain writes: “I was full as much amazed as if I never had heard of snow in August before. Truly, `seeing is believing.’” The paradox here is sly in its ironic subversion: Twain is asking his readers to believe that it snows in August while at the same time suggesting that snow in August is something that cannot be believed until seen with one’s own eyes.

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Twain has much to say about the low coyote (spelled cayote). A lot to say: the section covers several pages, including at least one example of personification through attribution of human traits. “He is so spiritless and cowardly that even while his exposed teeth are pretending a threat, the rest of his face is apologizing for it.”