26 pages • 52 minutes read
Mark TwainA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
The frame story and the first-person narrative style establish the narrator of “The Invalid’s Story” as the protagonist, although Thompson provides most of the action and dialogue. Readers know little about the narrator beyond the information provided in the frame story—that he is a bachelor of 41 who has lost his health and is dying as a result of the strange story he has to tell. Much can be gleaned, however, from his first-person thoughts, his scant dialogue, and his reactions to Thompson’s actions.
Above all, he is gullible. He never imagines that the smell in the train car could come from anything but the pine box he believes to hold the body of his friend Hackett. He (and Thompson) allow their imaginations to run away with them to such a point that their health is severely compromised. The story provides several points at which the narrator could have discovered the true origin of the smell: when he first sees a white box identical to his own; when a stranger “skips” into the express car and sets a package down on the supposed coffin-box; and when the two attempt to budge the box, bending directly over the package.
By Mark Twain
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
Mark Twain
A True Story
A True Story
Mark Twain
Letters from the Earth
Letters from the Earth
Mark Twain
Life on the Mississippi
Life on the Mississippi
Mark Twain
Roughing It
Roughing It
Mark Twain
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Mark Twain
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Mark Twain
The Autobiography of Mark Twain
The Autobiography of Mark Twain
Mark Twain
The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
Mark Twain
The Gilded Age
The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today
Mark Twain, Charles Dudley Warner
The Innocents Abroad
The Innocents Abroad
Mark Twain
The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg
The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg
Mark Twain
The Mysterious Stranger
The Mysterious Stranger
Mark Twain
The Prince and the Pauper
The Prince and the Pauper
Mark Twain
Pudd'nhead Wilson
The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson
Mark Twain
The War Prayer
The War Prayer
Mark Twain