Week 6 Reading Entry

List all the institutions and figures satirized in Mark Twain’s The Innocents Abroad excerpt on travels in Rome. How is each depicted by Twain? (ie. Italian clergymen: hypocritical, having penchant for violence, miserly, exploitative of public goods and Italian people).

Louis Napoleon: determined to make improvements and strengthen France
Italy: frivolous, decadent, owned/dominated by the church, magnificence, misery, wretched, princely, worthless
Church: dominating, rich, powerful
Jesuit Church: wretched, poor, appealing, pathetic, possesses incredibly rich and dazzling churches
Florence: blasphemous
The Medici Family: tyrannical, cursed, smugglers
Titian, Tintoretto, Paul Veronese, Raphael: idols, masters
Andrea del Sarto: glorified his “princes of pictures,” deserved to be left to die
Raphael: prostituted, desperate, groveling
Dominican friars: suffering, noble, charitable, pure, unselfish
One fat friar: extravagant, lively, entertaining
Citiavecchia (and its people): dirty, vermin, ignorant, indolent, impartial, quiet, unpretending, uncleanly, hot, without a patron saint
Papal states: poory educated people, poorly advanced, dense
America: free from church, independent, efficient, educated people, wealthy/well-off, organized, free from corruption, unfashionable, sparsely populated, equality, self-governed, ignorant, cleanly, wise, good business, retribution, lovely
Church of St. Peter: big, uniform, vast
Christians: all-loving, sacrificial, enduring pain, soothing, persuasive
Coliseum (ancient Roman Empire): reserved, royal, majestic, grandeous, decayed, entertaining, holy, theatrical, magnificent, ruthless
Marcus Marcellus Valerian: splendid, deserving merit, playful, expressing gaiety, seeking admiration, having bad taste, displaying levity, wholesome, instructive
Judge Oliver: young, sorrowful, never complaining, mildest-mannered, poet
Michelangelo: boring, ubiquitous, over-done
Museum (Vatican) guide—Frenchman: idiotic, eager to show strange things, taking delight in exciting admiration, passionate, weak, animated, impatient, fraudulent, overzealous, gullible, ingenuous, unsuspecting, long-suffering
William H. Neligan: undoubting, unquestioning simplicity, matter-of-fact

Cite six moments in the text where Twain’s word choice creates humor; identify which word(s) in each of these citations provokes amusement or “surprise” in the reader. What are the devices Twain is employing to achieve this effect? (ie. “. . . then by nipping their flesh with pincers – red-hot ones, because they are the most comfortable in cold weather; then by skinning them alive a little . . .”).

“And now—However, another beggar approaches. I will go out and destroy him and then come back and write another chapter of vituperation…Having eaten the friendless orphan—having driven away his comrades—having grown calm and reflective at length—I now feel in a kindlier mood.” (192)
Devices: writing of his own emotions as he is writing the satire, including ridiculous anecdotes of eating orphan beggars

“I suppose it will be sent up and filed away among the criminal archives of Rome, and will always be regarded as a mysterious infernal machine which would have blown up like a mine and scattered the good Pope all around but for a miraculous provincial interference.” (195)
Devices: equated a joke to something that could literally blow up, including the Pope in the explosion

“There is nothing here to see. They have not even a cathedral, with eleven tons of solid silver archbishops in the back room; and they do not show you any moldy buildings that are seven thousand years old; nor any smoke-dried old fire screens which are chef d’oeuvres of Rubens or Simpson, or Titian or Ferguson, or any of those parties; and they haven’t any bottled fragments of saints and not even a nail from the true Cross. We are going to Rome. There is nothing to see here.” (195)
Devices: making the objects of pride and joy of the Church sound completely unappealing and gross, even though people worship them, making fun of the fact that these are the things we come to see when we go to churches or cathedrals

“…there [America], if a man be rich he is greatly honored, and can become a legislator, a governor, a general, a senator, no matter how ignorant an ass he is—just as in our beloved Italy the nobles born noble idiots.” (198)
Devices: equating figures of power in America to asses and nobles in Italy to idiots

“but—but—I see by your looks that you do not believe the things I am telling you. Alas, my character is ruined, and I am a branded speaker of untruths!” (200)
Devices: employing his own emotions again, addressing the reader, showing self-consciousness

“A matinee for the little folks is promised for this afternoon, on which occasion several martyrs will be eaten by the tigers. The regular performances will continue every night till further notice. Material change of program every evening. Benefit of Valerian, Tuesday, 29th, if he lives.” (212).
Devices: making gladiatorial games and killings seem entertaining and exciting, making the loss of life seem trivial