As Mark Twain once stated, “ Humor must not professedly teach and it must not professedly preach, but it must do both if it would live forever.” Throughout most of Mark Twain stories he brings humor to live such as “Cannibalism in the Cars”. “Cannibalism in the Cars” is a story about narrator telling a tale of congress members trap in a snowstorm. They go days without food which causes them to decide to sacrifice a human being for food. At the end of story, narrator leaves and the listener of story finds out the man who told story used to be congressman and got stuck in snow drift but there wasn’t cannibalism. Mark Twain creates humorous effect throughout the short story by using paradox, irony, personification, and deadpan humor.
Mark Twain uses personification to create humor into the stories and bring actions in nature. For instance, “The winds, unobstructed by trees or hills, or even vagrant rocks, whistled fiercely across the level desert, driving…show more content… For instance, “We improvised tables by propping up the backs of car-seats and sat down with hearts full of gratitude to the finest supper that had blessed our vision for seven torturing days.” This creates comedy of prepping up for dinner with actuality of the starvation situation that is happening. Lastly, the storyteller leaves train with last words: “I could like you as well as I liked Harris himself, sir.” The deadpan humor creates a curiosity of the author meaning he wants to eat the gentleman or just joking with the man. “Cannibalism in the Car” brought great lesson that human would do anything to survive in this world even eat human flesh. Mark Twain uses devices such as paradox, irony, and deadpan humor to create humorous effect to the story. The story gives hint to future for the Gilded Age how corrupted the United States government would be that would cause significant change to United States of
