Reality of a dream (Roughing IT)
In the book Roughing It by Mark Twain, Twain gives his account of the West he encountered on his journey across the U.S. Twain depicts many aspects of the west such as outlaws, Indians, Mormons, and miners. All of the mentioned were and still are stereotyped by people not possessing the entire truth. Because of this many of the people are misinformed on the truth of these different sections of the western culture. Twain writes about the miners in Nevada and California. All of the miners were looking for the quick dollar but, most found themselves deeper in the hole. Twain's Roughing It as well as Vardis Fisher and Opal Holmes's Gold Rushes and Mining Camps Of The Early American West both show how miner's in the west were searching for the dream of making it rich and instead finding the harsh reality of chance. To start the section on mining Twain writes of how he first hears of the fortunes being found. He tells of hearing the story the widow Brewster by saying, "The widow Brewster had struck it rich in the Golden Fleece and sold ten feet for $18,000 - she hadn't money enough to buy a crape bonnet before."(109). To this he replied, " And so on - day in and day out the talk pelted our ears and
The problem of listening to these stories was further enhanced by the prospectors lack of knowledge of what they were about to do and that was mining itself. Twain himself showed his lack of reality when he said, " I confess without shame, that I expected to find masses of silver lying all about the ground."(115). He further showed his lack of knowledge when he brought back to camp a bag of what he thought to be gold. He was so proud of himself until the man he showed it to and asked what he thought of it replied, "I think nothing but a lot of granite rubbish and nasty glittering mica that isn't worth ten cents an acre."(117). Twain was showing how miners in general went out looking for the quick money but did not know exactly what that quick money was. the excitement waxed hotter around us."(109). What the people were not realizing was the fact that these people finding prosperity were just a fraction of the miners who were not finding anything as Twain would later find out. Like Twain the authors of Gold Rushes and Mining Camps of the Early American West agreed many of the miners were going into mining without the proper knowledge of what they were doing. Holmes and Fisher show how many of the stories the prospectors heard were hoaxes or just stories conjured up by a bored newspaper reporter. Holmes and Fisher also agree with Twain in the respect that the dream of the quick dollar and the greed that accompanied the dream blinded many of the miners. The story of the Diamond Field Gold Rush by Holmes and Fischer correlates to how Twain saw and depicts mining in Roughing It . Therefore, I think Twain representation of the miner looking for the quick buck and finding reality is accurate. It is accurate not only because a historical book shows the same thing but also because people can see the same characteristics of mining today in the gambling of today's society in places like LasVegas. Not only does Twain show the lack of knowledge of the miners, Twain also depicts the miners looking for t
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1369
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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