Mark Twain’s short story, ‘ The Five Boons of Life ’, is a fictional tale that signifies the meaning of life. The work comprises a well-presented story that gives insight into the real experiences that human beings encounter from the time they start understanding their environment at the time of their death. The interactions between the man and the fairy provide an ideal scenario that describes the human desires and the consequences of the choices that one makes. The primary lesson from the story is the importance of life and the need to make the right decisions since life is short (Twain, 2010). The critical aspect of the work that most interests me is the manner in which Twain has organized the work in chapters, an element that has played a crucial role in effectively communicating the five universal human experiences. Each experience is elaborated in a section, therefore making the work and the themes that the author aims to communicate, easy to identify and understand.
Analysis of the Work
Description of the Historical Context
‘ The Five Boons of Life ’ was written in 1902 during the Realism period. Realism is an artistic movement that started in the 1850s in France following the 1848 Revolution and lasted until the early 1900s ( Kleiner, 2015) . The art movement spread across Europe from France, and nearly all artists began incorporating elements of Realism in their works. Realism brought about ideas that replaced the previous dominant art movement, Romanticism, which dominated art and literature in France from the late 18 th century ( Kleiner, 2015) . Realism sought to challenge the exaggerated drama and emotionalism as well as the exotic subject matter that the Romantic period presented. Unlike Romanticism, which portrayed numerous aspects of unreality in human relations and life in general, Realism focused on depicting typical and real contemporary situations and people with accuracy and truth. Artists during the Realism period openly brought forth and explored unpleasant aspects of life, which Romanticists strived to avoid. Hence, they described people of all classes in the typical situations that occur in ordinary life, and often reflecting on the changes that emanated from the Commercial and Industrial Revolutions ( Kleiner, 2015) . One of the significant aims of Realism involved avoiding artificiality in the portrayal of human emotions and relations; therefore, the movement largely rejected the treatment of subjects romantically or heroically.
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Insights of the Work that can be derived from the Author’s Biography
Twain’s work borrows heavily from his personal experiences, and the story of the ‘ The Five Boons of Life ’ can be said to be a narration of Twain’s life. Mark Twain, born Samuel L. Clemens in Florida, Missouri on the 30 th of November 1835 authored built a successful career as an author but died an unhappy and depressed man on the 21 st of April 1910 ( Paine, 2018) . Twain authored several novels, including The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Life on the Mississippi, and The Prince and the Pauper among others. Twain equated writing and business and pursued each with equal commitment and aggressiveness, a factor that led him to earn a lot of money and become wealthy although he did not reach acquire the amount of wealth he projected.
Twain started gaining fame as an author in 1885 when he authored the bestselling memoirs of S. Grant, former President of Ulysses ( Paine, 2018) . Twain enjoyed 15 years of fame and public honors such as degrees from Yale and Oxford, and he is ranked among the most famous Americans in the 19 th century ( Paine, 2018) . However, he later started experiencing financial challenges, and he was forced to work harder to pay off his debts, including going on a global tour between 1895 1896 ( Paine, 2018) . The financial failure affected Twain’s state of mind, an aspect that was portrayed through his anger and growing pessimism. Twain also experienced different personal struggles in his life, including the loss of his son to diphtheria, his favorite daughter to spinal meningitis, and the youngest daughter who was diagnosed with severe epilepsy and later died of a heart attack. Twain's relationship with his surviving daughter, Clara was poor and distant since they were always quarreling. Twain’s pain worsened with the death of his wife in 1904, when he was away ( Paine, 2018) . These experiences caused Twain to become bitter in his old age, and often pacified his bitterness by reading in bed or smoking cigars.
Twain’s biography and his life experiences are similar to those of the man in the short story, where each real expertise is linked to an equally negative experience. For instance, just like the man became poor after acquiring wealth, Twain enjoyed many years of financial success but eventually faced a significant financial crisis that left him in debt (Twain, 2010). Further, Twain’s story is similar to the man’s in that after marrying the love of his life and having four children together; an aspect that represents happiness in a family, Twain ended up in grief after losing his wife and three children. The scenario is similar to that of the man in the story who ended up grieving over his wife yet he earlier thought that by having love, his life would be complete forever (Twain, 2010). Moreover, Twain suffered shame in his later years, especially with the financial challenges and poor mental health that emanated from his struggles despite having enjoyed many years of fame. Towards his later, Twain’s life seemed like had nothing left to live for since he had lost nearly everything he lived for and only death made sense at the time, just like in the case of the man in the short story.
The theme of Reality as Portrayed in the Short Story
One of the major themes from the Realism period discussed in the story is the theme of the reality of human experiences and emotions. The work explores the theme by presenting the universal human experiences, which include wealth, love, pleasure, fame, and death, which human beings spend all their life trying to achieve (Twain, 2010). The aspect of reality is brought out through the illustration of the fact of all the five experiences that human beings consider valuable, only death can be regarded as a precious experience since it leads to eternal rest, while the other four experiences are temporary masks for the lasting realities of life, which include poverty, shame, grief, and pain (Twain, 2010). The work also explores the theme of reality by examining the unpleasant aspects of life, which include depression, shame, grief, and poverty, rather than presenting the subjects in a world with artificial undying happiness as it was the case with Romanticism ( Kleiner, 2015) .
The relevance of the Work to Today's Audience
Although the work was written several decades ago, it is still relevant to today’s audience, especially the young people who have many years left to live. The work presents the realities of life and emphasizes on the need for people to make the right choices to ensure that they live their life to the fullest since they cannot turn back the hands of time when a moment is gone. The author emphasizes on the idea that each choice one makes a consequence; when one chooses wealth, he or she is likely to face poverty with the wrong decisions, grief often accompanies love, shame accompanies fame, and pleasure by pain. Hence, the work is particularly relevant to today’s audience since it illustrates the need to embrace the fundamental realities of life, which include pain, poverty, shame, and grief while pursuing their goals in life. This is important because life is short and by focusing too much on the temporary aspects of life, such as fame, riches, love, and pleasure, one misses the chance to live a satisfactory life and ends up longing for death when he or she realizes that they have nothing else to live for since they are old and they wasted their years on vanities.
Reflection
The process of analyzing Mark Twain’s work has significantly changed the perception of the work from a mere fictional short story to a valuable piece of art with vital life’s lessons. At the begging of the analysis, I perceived the primary intention of the author as educating the audience about making choices since each choice is associated with a negative consequence. However, as I progressed with the analysis, I realized that the author mainly aimed at expressing the meaning of life; where it is clear that the author illustrates that the purpose of life is in the capacity for one to live it to the fullest amidst life’s realities of shame, anger, pain, and poverty, rather than in the pursuit of temporary life’s gifts, which include fame, wealth, love, and pleasure.
References
Kleiner, F. S. (2015). Gardner s Art Through the Ages: Backpack Edition, Book E: Modern Europe and America . Nelson Education.
Paine, A. B. (2018). Mark Twain, A Biography: The personal and literary life of Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Vol. 4). Harper.
Twain, M. (2010). The Complete Short Stories of Mark Twain. Stilwell: Neeland Media LLC.
