Question

Can I please get some help on this question? What effect does the imagery of the narrator's travel experience through the American West have on the meaning of this excerpt? Excerpt from Chapter XII in The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain We are not infatuated with these French railway cars, though. We took first-class passage, not because we wished to attract attention by doing a thing which is uncommon in Europe but because we could make our journey quicker by so doing. It is hard to make railroading pleasant in any country. It is too tedious. Stagecoaching is infinitely more delightful. Once I crossed the plains and deserts and mountains of the West in a stagecoach, from the Missouri line to California, and since then all my pleasure trips must be measured to that rare holiday frolic. Two thousand miles of ceaseless rush and rattle and clatter, by night and by day, and never a weary moment, never a lapse of interest! The first seven hundred miles a level continent, its grassy carpet greener and softer and smoother than any sea and figured with designs fitted to its magnitude—the shadows of the clouds. Here were no scenes but summer scenes, and no disposition inspired by them but to lie at full length on the mail sacks in the grateful breeze and dreamily smoke the pipe of peace—what other, where all was repose and contentment? In cool mornings, before the sun was fairly up, it was worth a lifetime of city toiling and moiling to perch in the fore top with the driver and see the six mustangs scamper under the sharp snapping of the whip that never touched them; to scan the blue distances of a world that knew no lords but us; to cleave the wind with uncovered head and feel the sluggish pulses rousing to the spirit of a speed that pretended to the resistless rush of a typhoon! Then thirteen hundred miles of desert solitudes; of limitless panoramas of bewildering perspective; of mimic cities, of pinnacled cathedrals, of massive fortresses, counterfeited in the eternal rocks and splendid with the crimson and gold of the setting sun; of dizzy altitudes among fog-wreathed peaks and never-melting snows, where thunders and lightnings and tempests warred magnificently at our feet and the storm clouds above swung their shredded banners in our very faces! A. It reveals the author's feelings about his travel experience, by contrasting the ordered, uniform landscape of France and the wild, varied landscape of the American West. B. It suggests how homesick the author is and hints that he can't wait to return to the United States and ride a stagecoach across the West. C. It emphasizes the author's lack of experience as a traveler, by showing that he doesn't adapt well to new places and unfamiliar cultures. D. It implies that people are not truly capable of leaving their home countries behind, and wherever they go, they are dissatisfied.

Answer 1

It is A because throughout the passage the author is saying how he feels about his traveling.

Answer 2

Answer: A. It reveals the author's feelings about his travel experience, by contrasting the ordered, uniform landscape of France and the wild, varied landscape of the American West.

In this excerpt, the author begins by telling us of his trip in France. In this case, the author is travelling by railway. However, we can see that he does not enjoy it as much as travelling on a stagecoach. He then reflects on the beauty of the American landscape as he saw it from his stagecoach. The author contrasts the two journeys and the two modes of transportation in order to inform us of his travel experience.