TOW #4- Corn-pone Opinions by Mark Twain (non-fiction text)

Corn-pone Opinions was written by Mark Twain. Mark Twain was a famous literary icon from the late 1800s, and is often referred to as the father of American literature. He wrote a mix of fiction and nonfiction writing. This particular essay was published posthumously in 1923,and was found in his papers after his death. As a result, it can be assumed that this essay was never written for an audience, and was written more as a personal contemplation as opposed to being published for an audience. However, if he did intend for it to be published, it seems to be written for the general public since he references a variety of topics that would connect to multiple different people, from topics like religion to politics. In this essay, Twain writes about public opinion and the inability for people to have independent thoughts and ideas. Twain begins the essay by referencing his childhood and the black slave who told Twain about his ideas that no one can have their own opinion and about the constant conforming of society. Twain’s purpose in mentioning this is to explain to the reader about public opinion and about how people cannot ever have their own thoughts that are not influenced by something else in some way. He uses the personal anecdote about the man from his childhood in order to describe the origins of his thoughts on public opinion. Twain uses rhetorical questions as another rhetoric device in his writing. He asks the question and then immediately answers it. For example, Twain writes, “Was the acceptance reasoned out? No” (Twain 2). In this way, Twain is able to connect to the reader’s thought process (since he/she is probably thinking a similar question as the rhetorical question in the essay) and the reader can better understand about public opinion when Twain promptly answers the asked question. As a result, Twain is able to more clearly explain his ideas about public opinion to the reader, and his purpose of explaining these ideas is accomplished well.

Source: http://www.cmgww.com/historic/twain/about/index.php