"Advice to Youth" - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

"Advice to Youth"Mark Twain, 1882

Analysis MODELSlide2

TEXT EXCERPT

Being told I would be expected to talk here, I inquired what sort of talk I ought to make. They said it should be something suitable to youth-something didactic, instructive, or something in the nature of good advice. Very well. I have a few things in my mind which I have often longed to say for the instruction of the young; for it is in one’s tender early years that such things will best take root and be most enduring and most valuable. First, then. I will say to you my young friends—and I say it beseechingly,

urgingly

—

Always obey your parents, when they are present. This is the best policy in the long run, because if you don’t, they will make you. Most parents think they know better than you do, and you can generally make more by humoring that superstition than you can by acting on your own better judgment. Slide3

Hmmm… Analysis How to EXPLAIN what Twain is sayin

’!

The title lets me know that the audience is the youth.

Twain says his purpose is to teach a lesson to youth (his audience was a group of young girls). He also reveals that he believes learning advice like this at a young age is when it is most beneficial; when we are young we can learn things that stick with us as we age. The audience should be thinking, okay, what does Twain want us to learn? The audience may now be expecting a typical speech from an adult giving correct and possibly stereotypical advice to children.

Beseechingly and

urgingly

– hyperboles used to create an exaggeration of the advice to come. Slide4

Twain tells the youth to obey their parents when their parents ARE present. This is funny and unexpected; the audience probably thought he was going to just straight out say “obey your parents.” However, with his line, it makes the audience think-- what about when the parents are not present? Is he poking fun at the youth by implying that sometimes they don’t obey their parents when they are NOT present? Thinking about the point of satire, he could be helping the audience (and us—readers now) realize one of the things they need to improve on is obeying their parents whether their parents are present or not. Slide5

Twain states most parents think they know more than kids and that it pays off in the long run to obey them. He uses some humor here in saying that it is just easier and less of a hassle to just go ahead and obey them because they will end up “making you” obey them anyway (and that doesn’t sound too enjoyable!).

When Twain states that parents think they know more than kids, this may get us to think about and question whether or not parents really do always know better than children. Are there any situations where a parent might not know more? Situations where a youth might need to listen to their own inner voice?

When Twain says you can “make more” by just following what your parents say, he might be saying that you can get more (more freedom, more trust, etc.) by just obeying them than by disobeying them.Slide6

EXCERPT 2

Be respectful to your superiors, if you have any, also to strangers, and sometimes to others. If a person offend you, and you are in doubt as to whether it was intentional or not, do not resort to extreme measures; simply watch your chance and hit him with a brick. That will be sufficient. If you shall find that he had not intended any offense, come out frankly and confess yourself in the wrong when you struck him; acknowledge it like a man and say you didn’t mean to. Yes, always avoid violence; in this age of charity and kindliness, the time has gone by for such things. Leave dynamite to the low and unrefined. Slide7

In his first line,

Twain

uses some irony here as we expect him to just say “be respectful to everyone” and yet he doesn’t; he says to be respectful to superiors, strangers, and just sometimes (not all the time?) to “others.” However, underneath it all, as we read the rest of this paragraph, he really does want us to be respectful to everyone equally.

Twain

uses more humor and exaggeration by saying we shouldn’t resort to extreme measures if we are offended by someone, yet he tells the audience to go ahead and hit the person with a brick when we are offended; this is certainly extreme! This is irony as of course he doesn’t want us to go around hitting people with bricks when we have been offended. What does he want us to do? Thinking about the point of satire he probably wants us to examine our behavior and see that we too often react violently, aggressively, or inappropriately when we are offended and we need to change our behavior. Violence is never a good response to a situation.

When

Twain

speaks about confessing to a wrongdoing (after realizing the person that offended you didn’t mean to offend you and you were in the wrong when you hit him or her with a brick) it is humorous in that what good does it do to apologize after you have already hit the person with a brick? Thinking of the point of satire Twain might be telling us that we need to think before we act. When we don’t think before we act, often the action we took cannot be undone, even if we say we’re sorry, the action isn’t erased.Slide8

EXCERPT 3

Go to bed early, get up early- this is wise. Some authorities say get up with the sun; some say get up with one thing, others with another. But a lark is really the best thing to get up with. It gives you a splendid reputation with everybody to know that you get up with the lark; and if you get the right kind of lark, and work at him right, you can easily train him to get up at half past nine, every time—it’s no trick at all. Slide9

Twain starts off with a take on a familiar aphorism (Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise). Then he uses an old idiom about “being up with the lark” which refers to getting up early. The audience probably expects him to support this old cliché and yet he has a new take on it.

The last part of this section pokes fun at the conventional teaching that says you need to get up early to be successful (healthy, wealthy and wise). Getting up “early” is all relative, you can get up at nine, for example, and do just as well!

Thinking about the point of satire, Twain makes us think about why we care what others say or think about us. He says society thinks we are “great” (have a “splendid reputation”) if we get up early, that it says something about us and our character that we got up early, but Twain is trying to make us wonder why it matters when we get up and why it matters what others think.Slide10

EXCERPT 4

Now as to the matter of lying. You want to be very careful about lying; otherwise you are nearly sure to get caught. Once caught, you can never again be in the eyes to the good and the pure, what you were before. Many a young person has injured himself permanently through a single clumsy and ill finished lie, the result of carelessness born of incomplete training. Some authorities hold that the young out not to lie at all. That of course, is putting it rather stronger than necessary; still while I cannot go quite so far as that, I do maintain, and I believe I am right, that the young ought to be temperate in the use of this great art until practice and experience shall give them that confidence, elegance, and precision which alone can make the accomplishment graceful and profitable…Slide11

At the start of this section, the audience probably thought Twain would come straight out and just say “lying is bad, don’t do it.” But instead he uses irony to go about revealing this message. He ironically states that you shouldn’t lie until you have enough practice to get really good at it and then you won’t get caught.

Twain

drives home the point that if you are caught in a lie it will injure your reputation and the way people see you.

Thinking of the point of satire,

Twain

may want us to really examine ourselves and if we are good liars to recognize the kind of work and practice it has taken us to be good at it. This realization might be a part of shaming us into changing our behavior.

Also in this section,

Twain

addresses those that say “you shouldn’t lie at all.” This might make us question whether this familiar advice is really true or just what people want to hear. Most people never want to admit that lying can sometimes lead to success. Is this then a necessary part of functioning in society? What does it say about that kind of society?Slide12

EXCERPT 5

Patience, diligence, painstaking attention to detail—these are requirements; these in time, will make the student perfect; upon these only, may he rely as the sure foundation for future eminence. Think what tedious years of study, thought, practice, experience, went to the equipment of that peerless old master who was able to impose upon the whole world the lofty and sounding maxim that “Truth is mighty and will prevail”—the most majestic compound fracture of fact which any of woman born has yet achieved.Slide13

In this section too, we have some of the same points: Twain may want us to really examine ourselves and if we are good liars to recognize the kind of work and practice it has taken us to be good at it. This realization might be a part of shaming us into changing.

And these points again as well: Most people never want to admit that lying can sometimes lead to success. Is this then a necessary part of functioning in society? What does it say about that kind of society?

For the maxim, “Truth is mighty and will prevail” it might make the audience question this idea. Does the truth always prevail? Why or why not? What does that say about our society? Slide14

YOUR TURN….

Finish analyzing Twain’s essay for the purposes of:

rhetoric and

satire.Slide15