The short works Reading the River by Mark Twain. and The Way to Rainy Mountain by N. Scott Momaday. are personal narratives of minutes in the writers lives and how those experiences impacted them spiritually. The cardinal subject of both essays is that of affecting upon the reader to be careful non to take mundane life for granted. Both writers accomplish this mission by trusting on illustrations from nature. but Momaday goes a measure further and incorporates his Native American heritage into the account of his universe. Twain writes about larning to steer a riverboat down the Mississippi River and to look for tell-tale marks of positive or negative facets that may impact the journey.

He describes how. after so many old ages of looking for things in or on the river. he has lost the ability to appreciate the beauty of the river itself that others take for granted. Nature is besides an of import component in the Hagiographas of Momaday. He uses exuberant linguistic communication to depict the mountains and the fields in order to relay his deep regard of his milieus. He besides describes the unwritten history of his folk. the Kiowas. which his grandma handed down to subsequent coevalss. When his grandma died. he realized that she was the last Kiowa who had ties to the history of the folk and that any narratives told from so on would be merely reduplications of her narratives. instead than the existent story-telling itself.

Both writers compare the topic of their involvement to that of a narrative. be it a book or a narrative good told. In this manner they are able to intrigue the reader instead than simply preach their advice. It could even be argued that both writers are simply engaged in the notional retelling of their existent life events. Either deliberately or by chance. they both provide powerful images that encourage their readers to appreciate that which is platitude. Couple compares the Mississippi River to a book that is deciphered merely by the trained oculus. such as his. He remembers the beauty that one time enraptured him and drew him to the H2O. He describes a sundown with imagination that leaves the reader thirsty for more. merely to uncover that his trained oculus no longer sees such irrelevant things it sees merely the danger of a stone. the landmark of a tree or the perturbations in the H2O that signal entrance or withdrawing tides. He laments that those who could non read this book saw nil but all mode of pretty images in it ( p. 583 ) .

This luxuriant sundown that had one time bewitched him now simply told him that we are traveling to hold air current tomorrow ( p. 584 ) . Natural phenomena in Momadays remembrances besides summon up powerful imagination for those who choose non to look excessively closely. He describes the exuberant Fieldss. the snowy mountains. and the harsh plains with words that paint a image in the readers mind. He besides transitions into the thought that non everything must be seen by the eyes in order to give a existent image to the head. In his grandmas mind were topographic points she had ne’er been to physically. but instead were an huge landscape of the Continental interior [ that ] lay like memory in her blood ( p. 548 ) . The imagination of her narratives ceased to be when her organic structure ballad in decease. With this event. Momaday realized that there would be no more unwritten histories. simply narratives of the yesteryear. and he set out to make what his grandma had non to really see these topographic points because he. like so many modern Native Americans. did non hold these memories programmed into his ain blood.

Although there are similarities of theory and imagination in both Twains and Momadays essays. both are besides alone in relaying the shared message of paying attending to 1s universe. Where Couple loses the ability to appreciate the beauty of the fluxing river. Momaday embraces the beauty of nature as a tool to underline the subject of his authorship. Unable to appreciate the beauty of the Mississippi River. Couple is forced to hold a more realistic and practical position. He searches the H2O for niceties in the current or new dangers that werent at that place during the old ocean trip. and he looks to the skies for anticipations of conditions. Momaday adopts a romantic manner. trusting on the fables of his sires to explicate what to his tribal ascendants must hold appeared unaccountable. For illustration. instead than acknowledge the being of Devils Tower and the stars in the sky as scientifically interpretable phenomena. the Kiowa people explained the being of such things with myths and fables.

Bing sun-worshipers. they besides explained their very being with fabulous importance. This is common throughout Native American heritage. whereas the quest for factual cognition has long been the end of European Americans. Twain relies to a great extent upon analogies so that the reader can more readily place with his place. Momaday enraptures his readers with carefully detailed descriptions and heartfelt

emotions. Both are every bit successful tactics and ask for a broad assortment of readers to go forth their reading experience with the same basic message. Where Couple equates his inability to see beauty in the river to that of a physician no longer able to divide the beauty of the human organic structure from the disease and malformations of worlds. Momaday creates an fanciful resort area that the reader is hesitating to go forth.

Everything we encounter has a intent from the most brilliant sundown to the charming changing of the seasons. Both Mark Twain and N. Scott Momaday recognize this and promote others to make so by the relation of their life experiences in these two essays. A common subject is relayed via different manners and different utilizations of linguistic communication and imagination. and both are every bit effectual. Twains analogy of the physician and patient to explicate his relationship with the river can be replaced with any profession. for illustration designers or nurserymans. and entreaties to a realistic and earthy audience. Momadays ability to paint images with words and to badger the reader with romantic myths draws a really different group. Whether these essays be reviewed for their similarities or their differences. both are likewise in their effectivity to promote readers to halt and smell the roses.