Would Twain’s story be as effective if there was no use of dialect?
Answers
Twain has several distinct stylistic traits. One is his excellent and frequent use of dialect. Dialect is the distinctive way that a group of people from a local area speaks. For example, people in Northern Minnesota have a different dialect than people from West Virginia; they have different accents. Twain was an excellent recorder of dialects, and was passionate about recording the way people spoke exactly. He felt so strongly about it that at the beginning of his book "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," he states, "In this book a number of different dialects are used," and then he goes on to explain each and every type of dialect that he uses, so that
"readers would [not] suppose that all these characters were trying to talk alike and not succeeding."
It is a rather funny note to explain the usage of dialects. So, watch for that.
Another distinctive trait of Twain's was his sense of humor. His writings are almost always humorous and have an element of satire to them. Satire is when you point out the absurdities of something by making fun of it a bit; so, if you notice characters with extreme personality traits or elaborate and exaggerated descriptions of things, then Twain might just be satirizing. For example, in "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," an older lady is explaining what heaven is to Huck, a 10-12 year old boy, and Twain describes her as saying that it is a place where people just floated on clouds and played harps all day. Huck's reaction to this is, "I didn't think much of it." This is classic Twain. He inserts funny observations and satirical elements in a lot of his writing.
I hope that those two elements of style--dialect and satire--will help you in identifying more of Twain's work. Good luck!