roman’s blog

The difference between the presentation of the two accounts is distinct. The first account is more “time specific” oriented and gives a sort of play-by-play description of the earthquake as it unfolded. It is a witness writing about the damage and significance of the quake, however the author did watch it from “out on the bay” and didn’t personally catch all the details that Twain includes when he was on 3rd street in downtown San Francisco.  Twain was able to recall all kinds of people’s reactions and emotions and he includes many examples of how the quake make some people do some odd things, like run naked in the street. Twain’s presentation focuses more on how the quake affected the citizens as opposed to summarizing the earthquake like the first author does. Since this was Twain’s first earthquake experience his account is more in-depth and is centered on drawing the reader in to feel what Twain felt when he was there.