马克?吐温是十九世纪后期美国批判现实主义文学的卓越代表。是第一个将文学创作“美国化”，将文学语言民族化的作家。他通过一生的艰苦劳动，写出了大量的文学作品，对统治美国资本主义社会的金钱的力量、虚伪的道德、腐败的政治、伪善的宗教、永不满足的贪欲、奴役世界的渴望等等，进行了嘲笑、讽刺和抨击。他的作品中充满了马克·吐温式的幽默，他以锐利的目光，抓住社会的丑陋面进行了辛辣的讽刺和批判，马克?吐温以他特有的幽默而又犀利的文笔，将社会上诸多丑恶现象描绘的淋漓尽致，将美国政府机构当时的腐败无能暴露的纤毫毕见。作品中充满了轻松乐观、幽默诙谐的格调。马克·吐温在小说方面为美国树立一座新的里程碑，是一棵真正美国土生土长的参天大树。被称为美国“现实主义之父”的作家豪威尔斯（1837-1920），称马克?吐温为美国文学界的林肯。晚生于马克?吐温半个世纪的海明威（1899-1961），则认为现代美国文学起源于马克?吐温的作品《哈克贝利?费恩历险记》。马克·吐温创作初期，美国资本主义迅速发展，国内出现了繁荣昌盛的局面；与此同时，资产阶级民主、自由的虚伪性和资本主义固有的弊病也逐渐暴露出来。但由于马克·吐温对整个资本主义制度还抱有幻想，因此，这个时期他作品总的基调是轻松、乐观、幽默、欢快的。这一时期（1865-1870）的主要作品有《卡拉韦拉斯县驰名的跳蛙》（1865）；《傻子出国旅行记》（1869）《坏孩子的故事》（1870）和《好孩子的故事》（1870）《田纳西的新闻界》（1869）和《我怎样编辑农业报》（1870）；《哥尔斯密的朋友再度出洋》（1870）等等。随着他的生活阅历加深，他对美国表面繁荣掩盖下的社会现实有了更清醒的认识，他开始在作品中探讨一些深刻的社会问题，其作品的基调也由早期的幽默乐观转为无情的揭露和辛辣的讽刺，笔锋更加犀利，讽刺更加激烈。这个时期（1871-1889）他创作的作品主要有长篇小说《镀金时代》（1873）、《汤姆·索亚历险记》（1876）、《哈克贝利·费恩历险记》（1884）、《傻瓜威尔逊》（1894）和两部历史题材的作品《王子与贫儿》（1881）、《亚瑟王朝廷里的康涅狄格州美国人》（1889）等，还有一部比较重要的短篇小说集《百万英镑及其他新作》（1893）。19世纪末，美国由自由资本主义进入垄断资本主义。面对社会矛盾日益激化的现实，马克·吐温民主理想幻灭了，加之个人生活的不幸，他产生了悲观主义情绪。随着思想认识的深化，诙谐、滑稽的成分明显减少，冷峻的字里行间流露出作者对现实社会的愤恨。他晚期（1900-1
910）创作虽保留了笔锋犀利、嘲讽辛辣和揭露深刻的风格，但也有浓厚的悲凉情调。这个时期，他写下了著名的中篇小说《败坏了赫德来堡的人》（1900），还写了不少时评政论，《给在黑暗中的人》（1901）《为芬斯顿将军辩护》（1902）《沙皇的独白》（1905）《私刑合众国》《战争祈祷文》等。这些文章都具有强烈的战斗性。而散文《人是怎么回事》（1906）和死后发表的中篇小说《神秘的来客》（1916）等则有悲观主义色彩。幽默讽刺是马克·吐温小说创作的最显著的特征，具有强烈的密西西比地域文化特点，不同于传统的欧洲文学的幽默，他喜欢贴近生活，选择生活中最具讽刺意义的事物加以漫画式的夸张，让人在捧腹大笑之余对现实进行深刻的思考，使幽默具有丰富的现实内容。马克?吐温一生经历了美国资本主义从自由竞争到垄断的发展过程，他站在民主主义的进步立场，在继承美国西部幽默文学传统的基础上、形成了自己独特的艺术风格、为把美国民族文学提高到世界水平作出了重要贡献” 马克·吐温被称为美国现实主义文学之父是当之无愧的。他的创作，把十九世纪美国现实主义文学推向了世界的高峰，他在作品中所表现出来的讽刺艺术永远成为人类的瑰宝；他的创作，艺术地、忠实地，同时又是无情地批判地记录了美国这一时期从资本主义走向帝国主义地演变过程，成为历史的可靠见证；他的创作，极大的启发了一大批忠于人民、忠于艺术的正值的现实主义小说家，推动了美国文学第三个高潮的出现，为世界文学写下了光辉的一页。
Mark Twain is a remarkable representative of American realistic literature in the 19th century , he is the first writer who had the literary creation “Americanization” and had the literary language “nationalize” .With hard work, he finished lots of literature works in his life. In his works of literature , he laughed at, satirized and criticized the power of money ,the hypocritical morality ,corrupted politics ,etc. It is full of Mark Twain’s humor, he criticized and satirized the social hideousness bitterly . Mark Twain detailed the social hideousness with his particular humor .It is full of relaxation, optimism and humorous style. Mark Twain developed a new milestone in novels for American people , he is a real great native American .Howswil----(1837-1920) the Father of Realism called Mark Twain—“Lincoln” in American literature area. Hemingway—(1899-1961) who was younger than Mark Twain about half a century believed that Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was the origin of the modern American literature.At the beginning of Mark Twain’s literature creation .American bourgeois developed very fast and it looked so prosperous but at the same
time sham democracy and freedom of the bourgeoisie and the defects inherent in capitalist exposed too ,but Mark Twain still had fantasy to the Capitalist so the basis style of his works during this period is delight ,optimism ,humor and pleasure .His important literature works of this time are The Celebrated frog of Calaveras County ,A Tramp Abroad etc..As he realized the social reality under the prosperous appearance ,he began to study some further social problems ,his writing style changed from the humor optimism in his early time to inexorable explosion and bitter irony ,he wrote in an more incisive and satirical style .During this time his important works are: The Gilded Age(1874)The Adventures of Tom Sawyer(1876)The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn(1885) The Prince and the Pauper ,The ￡1,000,000 Bank-Note and Other New Stories etc.. At the end of 19th century ,American free competition Capitalism turned to be monopoly Capitalism. Face with the reality that all the basic contradictions are intensifying, Mark Twain lost his ideal .He became pessimistic for his personal life is not so happy . With the deep realization to the American society, the humor , amusing element in his literature works became less and less, we can know his resentment to the society through the lines of his works. In his later literature works , he kept writing in an incisive and satirical style but with a little pessimism. At this time he finished his famous medium-sized story The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg. He wrote some current events surrey such as: King Leopold’s Soliloquy: A Defense of His Congo Rule(1905),What Is Man?(1906), Extract from Captain Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven(1909),The Muaterious Stranger,A Romance(1916).Humor and satire is the outstanding characteristics in his novel creation, it is different from the traditional European literature humor with clear Mississippi area culture characteristics. He liked to be close to the life to find the stories that had the most satirical meaning and did caricatures of them. He wanted the reader could think it over after laughing, thus humor would be more realistic .Mark Twain experienced from free competition capitalism to monopoly capitalism .He stood by the side of the advanced democracy forever. He had his own particular art style and he made a great contribution to that for developing the American literature to the world’s standard. He fully deserved to be called Father of American Literature . The third climax of the American literature came with his literary creation .It is Mark Twain who began a magnificent page of the world’s literature.