Stylistic analysis

"The Story Of The Good Little Boy" by Mark Twain

    The story under analysis comes from a short story ‘The story of the good little boy’ written by Mark Twain. Mark Twain (1835-1910) was an American humorist, lecturer, essayist, and author wrote ‘The Adventures of Tom Sawyer’ (1876).

    The author was famous for his humorous and witty quotes and sayings. Mark Twain is the pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens and was the author of the classic American novel called ‘Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’. His most famous works ‘Huckleberry Finn’, ‘Tom Sawyer’ and ‘A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court’ are still considered classics and reflections of American history.
    Twain made historical contributions to the literary world by chronicling a specific culture and time in American history. His portrayal of boyish pride and slavery has been studied by scholars in both grade schools and Universities.
Mark Twain continued to write and travel throughout the remainder of his life. His wife, Olivia died in 1904 and Twain passed away from a heart attack on April 21, 1910. By the time of his death, M. Twain was already renowned as a great American author.

    The extract describes a boy named Jacob Blivens, who is always perfect, unlike other normal boys, who are quite the opposite. In the story Mark Twain ridicules the accepted norms and institutions of the society as he discusses the qualities of Jacob Blivens and tells his tale.

    Jacob is so ‘good’, because he loves to read the Sunday school books, and is fascinated by the good little boys portrayed in the books, he believes they existed and he idealizes them thinking will meet one of them.

    The main idea of the story is to turn conventional wisdom on its ear as the good little boy gets destroyed. The story teaches us to be own self in different situations and to be honest, especially with our dreams and believes, to have own ideas and thoughts in life.

    Setting in this story is presented in a detailed way. We have the detailed description of the boy and his family, his behaviour and attitude to life, qualities of Jacob Blivens 'He wouldn't lie, no matter how convenient it was', which make different from other boys of his age 'He was so honest that he was simply ridiculous'. 'He wouldn't play marbles on Sunday, he wouldn't rob bird's nests, he wouldn't give hot pennies to organ-grinders' monkeys; he didn't seem to take any interest in any kind of rational amusement.' It is the description of the place and time of the events.

     The events of the story take place in one family, their son is a little, very good boy. He always listens to his parents, no matter how absurd and unreasonable their demands are; learns his lessons and never miss Sunday school, even if his better judgment tell him to skip school. He seems extremely strange and abnormal to his peers as he refuses to lie and was always honest. And he doesn't stop at that, he also refuses to do anything that a boy would generally do. His refusal to be a part of any of the mischievous plans makes him appear “afflicts” to others. They thought there is something wrong with him so they protect him.

   From the viewpoint of presentation the story is the 3^rd person narration. The author is able to provide us with an objective rendering of the principal character’s thoughts and actions.

   

    The character we meet in the story under analysis is Jacob Blivens. He is the protagonist of the story. The writer reveals J.Blivens by means of indirect characterization of the character. He is a good, clever and an obedient boy: ‘He always obeyed his parents, no matter how absurd and unreasonable their demands were; and he always learned his book, and never was late at Sabbath- school’. He never lies and no matter how convenient it was. Jacob is a kind child, who never robs birds’ nests and never gives hot pennies to organ-grinders’ monkey. This boy is keen on reading all the Sunday-school books, where he finds the greatest delight. He believes in the gold little boys in the books. Without a doubt, Jacob has  dreams – to meet with them, even to travel thousand of miles and gaze on them, and the second dream is to be put in a Sunday school book, because he is a very good boy, doings so many good things. Unfortunately, his dreams will never come true. ‘It made him feel a lithe uncomfortable sometimes when he reflected that the good little boys always died. He loved to live, you know, and this was the most unpleasant feature about being a Sunday-school-boo boy. He knew it was not healthy to be good’.

    Jacob Blivens wants to teach other bad boys to do only good and right affairs, but when he stars to do it, he has troubles:  once the boy who falls out of a neighbor’s apple tree breaks Jacob’s arm; once he wants to help a blind man, but the man doesn’t give him any blessing at all, ‘but whacked him over the head with his stick and said he would like to catch him shoving him again, and then pretending to help him up’. He does everything as in the books but it has the opposite.

    The reason that Jacob is so “good” is because he likes to read the Sunday-school books, and is fascinated by the good little boys portrayed in the books, he believes they existed and he idealizes them thinking he will meet one of them. And see what happen to them in the end, however, every time he looks at the end he sees that all of them died and the picture of the funeral with everybody else weeping. Consequently, he never met any of those boys.

    The plot of the story runs as follows: The exposition: Mark Twain begins with a detailed description of the main character of the story. The author tells about the good little schoolboy Jacob Blivens, who likes to read books and does good affairs and helps everyone, obeying his parents.

    The development of the events: the boy has dreams to be put in a Sunday school book and to meet even one of the good boys in a real life. He follows the events in the book, does good things, but has mishaps.

    The climax is the movement when Jacob wants to help bad boys which start off pleasuring in a sailboat. ‘He was filled with consternation, because he knew from his reading that boys who went sailing on Sunday invariably got drowned’. Finally, he gets a cold and lay sick in a bed nine weeks.

    We also have an anticlimax; the boy doesn’t understand why the events in the book and in a real life are different. He wants to change the world to be good and kind, but it is useless.

    The type of speech employed by the author of the analysed story is narration. It is a story about the good little boy.

    I shouldn't say that this text is full of expressive means and stylistic devices, because the author’s narration in rather serious, the main aim here is to show this ironical effect that one can observe in the end of the story. That’s why he tried not to express the personality of a main hero, no, he was a good boy. But through the actions and movements in a climatic moment, we can notice some means of expression, Mark Twain uses.

    In order to portray the characters, to render the mood and reveal the idea vividly and convincingly, the author of analysed text resorts to such devices:

    Lexical:

   Hyperbole: ‘he wanted to travel thousands of miles and gaze on him’ – to show how boy’s dream is important and strong.

   Syntactical: There are some cases of repetition: ‘ He wouldn’t play hookey, he wouldn’t lie; he wouldn’t play marbles on Sunday; he wouldn't rob birds' nests, he wouldn't give hot pennies to organ-grinders' monkeys – to point out, put a stress on the details of situation and to underline that Jacob is a good boy.

    Antithesis: ‘gloriously declining’ – to underline that to lie is not a good thing for good boys.

    Separation: ‘He longed to come across one of them alive once; but he never did’ – to emphasize the phrase which is separated.

   Phonetic: alliteration: ‘the other boys used to try to reason it out and come to an understanding of him’ – is used to make the utterance expressive and melodic.

    There are no graphic and phonetic, graphic means of expression.  

    Thus perished the good little boy who did the best he could, but didn’t come out according to the books. Every boy who ever did as he did prosper except him. His case is remarkable. It will probably never be accounted for.

    Summing up the analysis of the story we should say that Mark Twain brilliantly uses all the stylistic devices and this help us to feel the atmosphere of the story and to understand character's state of mind. This story has a very deep meaning. It makes us think about many things in our life.