Résumé
Résumé de Extrait de La Visite du capitaine Stormfield au paradis
À qui s’adresse-t-il ?
Readers who like American humor, tall tales told in a lively spoken voice, and playful, clever ideas about heaven, rank, pride and what people expect from eternity.
De quoi parle ce livre ?
Extract from Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven is a comic tale by Mark Twain, who died in 1910. A sea captain from San Francisco tells his friend Peters how he crossed space for thirty years and finally reached the Hereafter. Twain wrote it as a joke at the expense of the pulpit heaven of harps, halos and endless hymns, and he put in its place a heaven that is vast, busy and strangely like Earth.
The tale is short and told in the captain's own rolling sailor talk. You get a comet race, a baffled clerk at a gate, a choir that nobody can stand, and long talks with a bald angel from New Jersey. Behind the fun sits a sharp question. What would heaven really have to be like to suit every kind of person? Let us start where the captain starts, at full speed in the dark, with a comet on his starboard bow.
Dans ce résumé
- 1A dead captain races a giant cometFree
- 2A clerk who has never heard of Earth
- 3Harps and hymns cure themselves in a day
- 4Sandy McWilliams on age and a mother's grief
- 5Wings are only for show
- 6Rank, justice and who the story laughs at
Point clé 1 sur 6
A dead captain races a giant comet
Captain Eli Stormfield begins his tale thirty years after his death. He has been rushing through space aimed at the Hereafter, faster than any comet he meets. He speaks to his friend Peters like a sailor spinning a yarn, with ship talk about starboard bows, helms and sails.
One night he spots a comet far bigger than anything in our solar system. He gives chase and runs along its flank for hundreds of millions of miles without reaching its waist. The officer of the deck sees him coming and orders every hand aloft. Brimstone is heaped on the furnaces, and the comet swells into a blazing cloud of red-hot canvas.
For a while the race is close. A hundred billion passengers crowd the rail to bet on it, and their weight slows the ship until the mate roars at them to keep amidships. Stormfield creeps ahead and passes the comet's nose. Then he makes a mistake. He thumbs his nose at the captain and calls out a mocking offer to carry messages to his family.
The captain answers by dumping his whole cargo for Satan, a load measured in kazarks. Each kazark is the size of one hundred and sixty-nine worlds. The lightened comet shoots past him, and Stormfield has to admit he would have won if he had kept quiet. This opening sets the scale of the whole tale, where numbers are huge and the hero is small, boastful and easy to tease.
That’s 1 of 6 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
- Nothing to pay today · Renews every year
- We email you before you pay
- Cancel online in two clicks
Questions about Extrait de La Visite du capitaine Stormfield au paradis
What is Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven about?
It follows a sailor who dies, races a comet and arrives at the wrong gate of a vast heaven. He learns its odd customs from friends, and the story pokes fun at ordinary ideas of harps, halos, rank and fame.
Why does Stormfield race a comet?
He meets a huge comet while speeding toward the Hereafter and cannot resist a contest. He pulls ahead and jeers at the captain, who then dumps cargo and wins the race. The detour sends Stormfield to the wrong gate.
What does the Wart mean in the story?
The Wart is the name a heavenly clerk's helper gives to Earth when he finds it on a giant map. The joke shows how small Earth looks next to the countless worlds in heaven.
Is Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven a true story?
No. It is a comic fantasy by Mark Twain, told by an invented sea captain. Twain used humor to question popular ideas of heaven. Invented figures and heavenly places mix with real names and earthly places.
Is Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven easy to read?
The tale is told in a lively, chatty voice by a sailor talking to a friend. Short scenes, plenty of jokes and clear talk make it easy to follow and good to hear aloud.