A Curious Dream by Mark Twain
The aim of the following paper is to analyze a story by Mark Twain called A Curious Dream. We propose in this paper firstly, to analyze characters, theme and point of view; secondly, the author’s style and thirdly, the author’s beliefs. Firstly, Characters
The main participants in the story are: the author and John Baxter Copmanhurst (the skeleton). The author in the story is the narrator presented with the subject pronoun “I”; he is the one who describes and comments a singular dream he had. At the beginning of the story, the narrator is surprised, horrified and pitying when he is brought face to face with a skeleton but at the end he is interested and filled with sympathy for the dead and gives his
Moreover, Mark Twain is known for writing about issues of his time and using social satire as well as realism of place and language, and memorable characters. This can be proved in the short story “a curious dream” in which he wrote about a social issue using as a setting a cemetery near his house. Also, the main character, the skeleton, was one of the persons who founded and secured the prosperity of the city. That makes him a memorable character.
Furthermore, the narrator’s attitude changes through the course of the story. At the beginning he is astonished and bewildered “I may say I was surprised. Before I could collect my thoughts and enter upon any speculations as to what this apparition might portend…” but then, at the end of the story he shows his consideration “this whole matter interested me deeply, and likewise compelled my sympathy for those homeless ones…”
Thirdly, the author’s beliefs
“A Curious Dream” is the story of a skeleton named John Baxter Copmanhurst, who appears to the narrator at midnight to lament the neglect of the dead and their graves by relatives wasteful their inheritances.
Mark Twain uses the dream to express his beliefs and ideas about two social issues at his time. The first one is the neglect of local cemeteries. Through the story the author makes his point about the bad conditions in which the cemeteries are, and calls the