Mark Twain - Journal Entry

Characters Satirized:

Italy: No consideration for its people, only its image.

The Church: Extravagant, overwhelming, and decadent

Florence: Church saps the land

Medici: Vermin

Raphael: Worked only for money

Civitavecchia: Plain, unclean, as advanced as Turkey

America: Freedom, independence, intelligence, without Church as guiding power, wide open

St. Peter: Vastness cannot be comprehended with other monuments of size

Colosseum: The brutality as a parallel to today’s violence

Judge Oliver: Patience and wouldn’t complain.

Michelangelo: He made everything.

French Guide: Ignorant of English humor, overly passionate

William H. Neligan: Pretentious, taking things with a handful of salt.

Humor:

“Marcus Marcellus Valerian (Stage name – his real name is Smith)” Taking an exotic Latin name and converting it to the basest English name.

“However, another beggar approaches. I will go out and destroy him and then come back and write another chapter of vituperation.” Twain talks about how horribly the people are treated and treats them the same.

“We got along first-rate with the friar, and were excessively conversational, albeit he could not understand what we said, and certainly he never uttered a word that we could guess the meaning of.” Twain pulls a complete reversal here.

“This Civitavecchia is the finest nest of dirt, vermin and ignorance…” Twain uses oxymoron’s here.

“The women wash clothes half the day, at the public tanks in the streets, but they are probably somebody else’s” How could this tourist know this from such a short time. It is a big time assumption, but it is hilarious all the same.

“I never felt so fervently thankful, so soothed, so tranquil, so filled with a blessed peace as I did yesterday when I learned that Michelangelo was dead.” Once again Twain takes something that is nice and pulls a full reversal on you.