Analysis Running for a Governor

388 Words2 Pages
“Running for Governor” The title of the story under analysis is called “Running for Governor”. The author of the story is one of the greatest writers in American literature – Mark Twain. In “Running for Governor” Mark Twain makes a subtle parody of demagogy and false rhetoric of the press. The plot of the story is that Mark Twain was running for governor on an independent ticket. At first he was fully committed to struggle for this post. But as several article accusing of different crimes appeared in the press, he was made withdraw his candidacy. The problems raised in this story are the role of the media in the election campaign; corruption of the media and the politicians; usage of the shameful means on the part of the politicians. The message of the story is that the politicians resort to shameful means in order to achieve their goals and in scramble for office one of these means turned out to be the press. This story discloses the fact that in election campaign all means were good. In order to attain the governor’s post the politicians are eager to break written and unwritten laws, principles, buy everything and everybody. According to the story the narrator was unfairly charged with numerous crimes like perjury, bribery, theft, defilement, drunkenness, corruption, blackmail. We know that these accusations are amplified, but these charges suppressed his desire to go into politics and made him withdraw his candidacy. Having read this story we may point out the following conflicts: the external conflict, between the narrator and the politicians, between the narrator and the media, and also the internal conflict, inside the narrator. The fact is that the narrator was alone in his struggle with other politicians, he was surely to be checkmated. The narrator was self-confident and considered himself to have one prominent
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