Throughout Mark Twain’s chapter “ Dreams Dissipated,” Twain refers to a loaded topic, “the great earthquake” in San Francisco, where he uses connotative diction to discuss the elite’s reaction to the earthquake. By using connotative diction associated with immoral behavior, Twain mocks society’s behavior on idolizing the wealthy and holding the elite to high moral standards. Twain uses diction often associated with grotesque behavior or unflattering qualities such as, “fat”, “raid on their husbands’ purses”, and “growled” to illustrate the wealthy’s animal-like behavior during San Francisco’s “great” earthquake. Twain utilizes the word “great” for two purposes; one being, “great” is used to describe the magnitude of the earthquake’s destruction. …show more content…
By utilizing the words “growled” and “sprawling” he portrays the elite as behaving like animals, he does this to show his audience that the wealthy are no different than or superior than animals. Twain also uses “raid on their husbands’ purses,” to address high-class women’s urgency to gather their husband’s money, “raid” is often associated as a mildly aggressive act to scavenge for an item. By using the word “raid” to describe the high-class women’s actions during an earthquake, Twain demonstrates how the elite disregard safety at the time of a disaster and rush for superficial items. The word “fat” is associated with wealth because the wealthy tend to be well fed. Overall, Mark Twain uses connotative diction to mock the wealthy’s animal-like behavior when faced with disaster; the effect on the audience is the shift of idolizing the upper class as morally superior beings to viewing them as deplorable people. Mark Twain also mocks people who aspire to be like the elite, as well as people who have an influence over others like religious