The Drasnoe Pipe-Line

Read the following excerpt from life on the mississippi by mark twain. no girl could withstand his charms. he "cut out" every boy in the village. when his boat blew up at last, it diffused a tranquil contentment among us such as we had not known for months. but when he came home the next week, alive, renowned, and appeared in church all battered up and bandaged, a shining hero, stared at and wondered over by everybody, it seemed to us that the partiality of providence for an undeserving reptile had reached a point where it was open to criticism. how does twain's use of understatement serve his purpose? be sure to use specific details from the text to support your answer.

In the poem "we wear the mask," paul laurence dunbar voices his repressed anger and frustration toward american society. he repeats the title phrase three times in the poem, using the words mask and we to show that the first use of the phrase is matter-of-fact. in the second stanza, the statement is followed by a period, which shows resignation. however, at the end of the poem, dunbar almost shouts the phrase defiantly. the mask seems to become something he wears proudly. through this gradual emphasis on the phrase, dunbar could be implying that

How many stanzas does this poem have, shall i compare thee to a summer day?