Social class and Political satire in Mark Twain’s The Prince and The Pauper

ABSTRACT

A novel always attracts our attention almost immediately not because it is merely written to drive our curiosity to follow the run of the story, but novel simply offers another sides of life view which are seemingly bored and wearied us so often. A story does not provide clues of accepting life modestly, indeed; however, it can gradually transform human being s brighter sight toward their own world. This means that after having read a novel we have a critical stance in seeing certain age or even the age of ours.

This study aims at explaining Mark Twain s satire through his The Prince and the Pauper toward English social class and political experience around 1880s. Thus, to achieve those mentioned goals, the writer of this thesis involves two statements of the problem: what the satirical messages are presented and what the topics of the satires are. So far, this study is expected to be a worth contribution in both literary criticism and other literary studies generally.

This study is literary criticism since it applies sociological literary approach to reveal English social class and its political experience. The data are primarily collected from the original text of Mark Twain s The Prince and the Pauper. The result of this study shows that Mark Twain s The Prince and the Pauper contains several satires toward English social Class and political experience.

From the discussion, it is revealed that Mark Twain satirizes English social class and political experience over English statesmen s negligence of law enforcement throughout the society. However, the novel can largely be classified into two main portions; the first half is Twain s emphasize on humanitarian message through satirical setting, while the second half is Twain s main point of the satire. Through that of the first half, Twain assigns the idea of honesty, openness, and egalitarian manner. Meanwhile, the remaining chapters explain Twain s satires toward English Social class and political experience. In the field of social class, it is mentioned that the lowest level of law Enforcement has arisen significantly a disordered and distrustful society. As a result, this kind of neglectful society attempts at acquiring their own ways to maintain their continual life. The novel shows us immediately from the Canty s family life. Furthermore, in the area of politic, Twain satirizes the government s chief exchange position and the ineffectiveness of the government s apparatus or institution.