Mark Twain

Mark Twain, the narrator of Life on the Mississippi is the main character and, indeed, the character who ties the narrative together. Growing up as a young boy in Hannibal, Missouri, located on the Mississippi River, Twain watched steamboats go by with envy and desire to become one of the men who worked on them. As he got older, he eventually got the idea to go explore the Amazon on a boat. However, it was too early for that; so he took a job training to become a pilot on a steamship, under an experienced man named Bixby. Twain writes the narrative from an older perspective, poking fun at his younger self, whom he describes as inexperienced, naive, and slightly puffed-up about what he already knew about the river. Later, Twain returns to the river twenty-one years after his first training, trying to be incognito. However, he...