Synopsis
Delving into the psychological aspects of metaphor to reveal Twain’s attitudes and thoughts, Bird shows how using metaphor as a guide to Twain reveals much about his composition process. From “The Jumping Frog” to the late dream narratives, Bird considers Twain’s metaphoric construction over his complete career and especially sheds new light on his central texts. He reconsiders “Old Times on the Mississippi” as the most purely metaphorical of Twain’s writings, goes on to look at how Twain used metaphor and talked about it in a variety of works and genres, and even argues that Clemens’s pseudonym is not so much an alter ego as a metaphorized self. In addition to dealing with issues currently central to Twain studies, such as race and gender, Bird also links metaphor to humor and dream theory to further illuminate topics central to Twain’s work.