“Reading the River” by Mark Twain, and “The Way to Rainy Mountain” by N. Scott Momaday Essay

The short industrial plant Reading the River by discern span, and The itinerary to Rainy Mountain by N. Scott Momaday, ar personal tales of moments in the authors lives and how those experiences impacted them spiritually. The profound infrastructure of both(prenominal)(prenominal) essays is that of impressing upon the commentator to be careful not to take general purport for granted. Both authors accomplish this thrill by relying on deterrent examples from nature, but Momaday goes a step farther and incorporates his Native American heritage into the explanation of his world. Twain writes somewhat learning to guide a riverboat consume the manuscript River and to look for tell-tale signs of positive or negative aspects that may affect the journey.He attains how, after so m each eld of looking for things in or on the river, he has lost the ability to deem the viewer of the river itself that others take for granted. Nature is besides an important element in the wr itings of Momaday. He uses lush lyric poem to describe the mountains and the plains in order to relay his slurred respect of his surroundings. He besides describes the spoken history of his tribe, the Kiowas, which his grandmother handed ware to subsequent generations. When his grandmother died, he effected that she was the last Kiowa who had ties to the history of the tribe and that any tales told from then on would be hardly reiterations of her stories, instead than the certain story-telling itself.Both authors equalize the subject of their interest to that of a story, be it a book or a tale well told. In this look they are able to fascinate the reader kinda than still preach their advice. It could plane be argued that both authors are scarce engaged in the fanciful retelling of their actual life events. Either intentionally or accidentally, they both provide powerful images that advance their readers to appreciate that which is mutualplace. Twain compares the Mis sissippi River to a book that is deciphered only by the trained eye, such as his. He remembers the beauty that once enraptured him and pull him to the water. He describes a old with imaginativeness that leaves the reader thirsty for more, only to hear that his trained eye no drawn- break sees such irrelevant things it sees only the riskiness of a rock, the landmark of a maneuver or the disturbances in the water that sign incoming or receding tides. He laments that those who could not read this book see nothing but all means of pretty determines in it ( p.583).This elaborate sunset that had once bewitched him now merely told him that we are going to induce pencil lead tomorrow (p. 584). Natural phenomena in Momadays recollections also summon up powerful resource for those who choose not to look too closely. He describes the lush fields, the snowy mountains, and the cutting plains with words that paint a picture in the readers mind. He also transitions into the caprice that not e verything must be seen by the eyes in order to pass on a real picture to the mind. In his grandmothers mind were places she had never been to physically, but rather were an immense landscape of the continental inner that lay like memory in her blood (p. 548). The imagery of her stories ceased to exist when her consistence lay in death. With this event, Momaday realized that in that location would be no more oral histories, merely tales of the past, and he set out to do what his grandmother had not to really see these places because he, like so some modern Native Americans, did not have these memories programmed into his own blood.Although there are similarities of hypothesis and imagery in both Twains and Momadays essays, both are also unique in relaying the shared message of paying attention to ones world. Where Twain loses the ability to appreciate the beauty of the flowing river, Momaday embraces the beauty of nature as a tool to underscore the theme of his wri ting. Unable to appreciate the beauty of the Mississippi River, Twain is forced to have a more realistic and practical view. He searches the water for nuances in the current or new dangers that werent there during the previous voyage, and he looks to the skies for predictions of weather. Momaday adopts a romantic style, relying on the legends of his forefathers to rationalize what to his tribal ancestors must have appeared unexplainable. For example, rather than recognize the existence of Devils Tower and the stars in the sky as scientifically explainable phenomena, the Kiowa people explained the existence of such things with myths and legends. world sun-worshipers, they also explained their very existence with fab importance. This is common throughout Native American heritage, whereas the quest for factual knowledge has hanker been the goal of European Americans. Twain relies to a great extent upon analogies so that the reader can more readily identify with his position. Momada y enraptures his readers with carefully expatiate descriptions and heartfeltemotions. Both are equally successful tactics and invite a wide variety of readers to leave their denotation experience with the same basic message. Where Twain equates his inability to see beauty in the river to that of a doctor no seven-day able to separate the beauty of the merciful body from the disease and deformities of humans, Momaday creates an imaginary playground that the reader is hesitant to leave.Everything we encounter has a purpose from the most magnificent sunset to the magical changing of the seasons. Both Mark Twain and N. Scott Momaday realize this and encourage others to do so by the telling of their life experiences in these two essays. A common theme is relayed via different styles and different uses of language and imagery, and both are equally effective. Twains analogy of the doctor and patient to explain his family with the river can be replaced with any profession, for examp le architects or gardeners, and appeals to a realistic and gross audience. Momadays ability to paint pictures with words and to bollocks the reader with romantic myths draws a very different group. Whether these essays be reviewed for their similarities or their differences, both are alike in their intensity to encourage readers to stop and smell the roses.