Charles Henn
“Lucky Blunder”
In Mark Twains’ short story “Luck” a hero’s image is compared to what he truly is through a story with in a story. The story is told about a man named Lieutenant-General Lord Arthur Scoresby by a clergyman who was an instructor in a local military academy. The speaker in the story then retells the events that led to Scorsby becoming a well-recognized man by sheer luck and not by his own gumption. The areas that bring this story together the best are, the plot and theme, point of view, social and political events during the writing of the story, and the things that influenced the author during the time this story was written.
The plot and theme play a major role in putting this story together. The theme basically says that success is not achieved by ability, but sometimes rather by pure luck. The luck is strongly portrayed by the clergyman when he tells of the many stories of how dumb Scorsby is, and how he felt sorry for him and helped him cram for his examinations. Of course by sheer luck he would only get asked the questions in which he knew every answer. The clergyman would say that he basically “blundered” (Twain pg. 215) his way through it.
The plot of the story would basically build up or paint a good picture of how admired Scorsby was to everyone except the clergyman. He somehow knew or maybe a sense of jealousy was there from the clergyman, because of the luck that Scorsby was getting through his life. The examinations that took place, and all the way down to the war that they were both involved in really brought together the focus on the characters in the story. Although the plot and theme play a major role in bringing this story together, the social and political events during the time this story was written well affected the way the story was portrayed.
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While coming out of the brink of the civil war period was a milestone for society at the time this story was written by Twain, many people of this time looked up to higher military personal and sought to them as popular, or very intelligent. Mark Twain grew up in Missouri and later in his life served in the confederate military very briefly in the mid 1800’s before he wrote the story “Luck”. His experience in that time was probably one of the driving forces in this story. Even though the events that surround the writer while writing this story are important so are the things that influenced him as well.
Mark Twain was influenced by a lot of events during his lifetime that can relate to some of the dictations in this story. He grew up being a captain of a boat on the Mississippi river for a number of years before he briefly joined the confederate military. He experienced many events that would lead to how he portrays leadership and how others portrayed him as a leader in the literary world at that time. He describes Scorsby in this story as a well decorated leader, but has the clergyman look at him as lucky and just blundering his way through life, which also describes how many people looked at Twain, and his life as a journalist which he turned into after his short lived role in the confederate military. The events definitely help shape the story. Now let’s look at the point of view and how it brings the story together.
By using the first person point of view for both the speaker and the clergyman Twain is able to give a perspective of not only the actions that take place in the story, but is also able to give the reader a different understanding of it. The speaker gets to describe Scorsby as how others have already viewed him to set us up for the clergyman. When he says “…of the deep, loving, sincere worship welling out of the breasts of those people and flowing toward him” (Twain pg. 213) the reader gets an idea of how people look up to and admire Scorsby. That speaker sets us up for the clergyman who sees right through Scorsby and thinks he is just plain lucky, and incompetent to say the least. While the point of view is a major impact on the stories events, let’s look at a final critical analysis of the story.
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The clergyman in the story “Luck” by Mark Twain tells how getting to leadership and recognition is simply done by sheer luck. He speaks of Scorsby just blundering his way through life, never really earning his achievements, but getting through them by luck. For example, the clergyman talked about the battle where Scorsby took the charge by accident over the hill, but at the very right time and the Russians retreated and Scorsby was recognized yet again for his “blunder.” Mark Twain shows us the contrast of viewing success as luck or determination. Now that the overview or analysis of the story has been laid out, let’s bring it all together.
In the story “Luck” by Mark Twain we see that many people view accomplishments and recognition as luck, or done by accident. The character Scorsby as viewed by the speaker is well known and admired by many accept the clergyman who is a cornet in his regiment in the military. He views Scorsby as a clueless soldier just blundering his way through life. The readers learn that success of Scorsby can be done by sheer luck according to the clergyman, and blundering through life. The theme and plot, along with the social and political views of the author, and the things that influenced Twain at the time he wrote the story, as well as point of view portrayed throughout the story really give the reader a good look at what luck truly looks like in combination with success. Success is not an accident to some, but is also viewed as just pure luck to others.