Two views of a River

This piece of work by the great literature composer Mark Twain was an excerpt, or chapter rather titled Two Views of a River. The story is him talking about how dangerous a river is or can be because of all the travel due to steamboats because sometimes it can be rather difficult to navigate and control a steamboat. I would not know from first hand, but Twain says it is hard. However, it is not hard for this guy he says that he knows this river like the letters of the alphabet(Twain). The main view someone else would see of a river is a beautiful piece of nature that we can admire, but for Mark Twain the river no longer represents anything near that. It is just a job to him. It is something he has to do. His first job was a steamboat pilot on the River, and at first he loved it but then just like any other job it just became work. I can relate to this, I used to love clothes, and yes I do still like them, but I look at them in completely different ways after I have been an employee at Old Navy for over a year. I do not notice the nice elements clothes used to have, they are just stock items to me now. The same for Mark Twain he wishes that he could just go back and make himself see the river as a beautiful piece of nature like it really is instead of a map of where he steers the steam boat. The only thing that he now sees on this beautiful body of land is all of the landmarks that he uses to navigate the steamboat he drives for work. You can tell what the story or chapter is going to be like just from the title. There are two completely different views of the river, there is the work view where it is no longer beautiful and the view of a tourist as looking at a beautiful body of land. The title helps you understand the story just a little bit more. The two views in the book are both from Mark Twain but they are different views due to times in his life where he was working on the boat and before he worked on the boat. He was influenced by the nature around him. Influence from nature is actually a characteristic of Realism(Diamond). Some times I feel like Mark Twain wanting to go back before I ever worked so I could see clothes how I used to.


Diamond, Marie Josephine, ed. "realism." Encyclopedia of World Writers, 1800 to the Present. New York: Infobase Publishing, 2011. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= GEWW480&SingleRecord=True (accessed February 21, 2012).

Twain, Mark. "from Two Views of the River" Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 554-555. Print.