Transcript Literature of Realism and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Literature of Realism and The
Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn
Shandong University, April 13, 2012
Defnition
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Broadly defined as "the faithful representation of reality" or
"verisimilitude," realism is a literary technique practiced by many
schools of writing.
Although strictly speaking, realism is a technique, it also denotes a
particular kind of subject matter, especially the representation of
middle-class life. A reaction against romanticism, an interest in
scientific method, the systematizing of the study of documentary
history, and the influence of rational philosophy all affected the rise of
realism.
According to William Harmon and Hugh Holman, "Where romanticists
transcend the immediate to find the ideal, and naturalists plumb the
actual or superficial to find the scientific laws that control its actions,
realists center their attention to a remarkable degree on the
immediate, the here and now, the specific action, and the verifiable
consequence" (A Handbook to Literature 428).
American Realism in Literature
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American realism was an early 20th century idea in art,
music and literature that showed through these
different types of work, reflections of the time period.
Whether it was a cultural portrayal, or a scenic view of
downtown New York City, these images and works of
literature, music and painting depicted a contemporary
view of what was happening; an attempt at defining
what was real. In America at the beginning of the 20th
century a new generation of painters, writers and
journalists were coming of age.
Time span
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
In American literature, the term "realism" encompasses the
period of time from the Civil War to the turn of the century
during which William Dean Howells, Rebecca Harding Davis,
Henry James, Mark Twain, and others wrote fiction devoted to
accurate representation and an exploration of American lives in
various contexts.
As the United States grew rapidly after the Civil War, the
increasing rates of democracy and literacy, the rapid growth in
industrialism and urbanization, an expanding population base
due to immigration, and a relative rise in middle-class affluence
provided a fertile literary environment for readers interested in
understanding these rapid shifts in culture. In drawing attention to
this connection, Amy Kaplan has called realism a "strategy for
imagining and managing the threats of social change" (Social
Construction of American Realism ix).
Characteristics
(from Richard Chase, The American Novel and Its Tradition)
Reality being rended closely and in comprehensive detail: Selective
presentation of reality with an emphasis on verisimilitude, even at
the expense of a well-made plot
Character as more important (than action and plot): Complex ethical
choices are often the subject.
Characters as appearing in their real complexity of temperament
and motive: They are in explicable relation to nature, to each
other, to their social class, to their own past.
Class as important issue: The novel has traditionally served the
interests and aspirations of an insurgent middle class. ( accoring
to Ian Watt, The Rise of the Novel)
Plausible events: Realistic novels avoid the sensational, dramatic
elements of naturalistic novels and romances.
Characteristics (to be continuted)
Natural language: Diction is natural vernacular, not
heightened or poetic; tone may be comic, satiric, or
matter-of-fact.
Objective representatin: Objectivity in presentation becomes
increasingly important: overt authorial comments or
intrusions diminish as the century progresses.
Interior or psychological realism is represented in a variant
form.

In Black and White Strangers, Kenneth Warren suggests
that a basic difference between realism and
sentimentalism is that in realism, "the redemption of the
individual lay within the social world," but in sentimental
fiction, "the redemption of the social world lay with the
individual" (75-76).
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Henry James (Art of Fiction) : The
representation of life should be the main object
of the novel.
James claimed that a text must first and foremost be
realistic and contain a representation of life that is
recognisable to its readers. Good novels, to James,
show life in action and are, most importantly,
interesting. The concept of a good or bad novel is
judged solely upon whether the author is good or
bad. His imaginative use of point of view, interior
monologue and possibly unreliable narrators in his
own novels and tales brought a new depth and
interest to narrative fiction.
Background
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Influence of Civil War on American psychology:
The War led many to question the assumptions
shared by the Transcendentalists concerning the
benevolence of God, natural goodness and the
optimistics view of nature and man. People
began to thnik about the “real” world they were
living in.
Development of industry: With wealth being more
and more accumulated in the hands of the few
“captains of industry” who provided stories of
success for the thousands of common people.
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The frontier is closed: The worth of the American Dream,
the romantic and idealized view of life and man began to
lose its hold in the psychology and imaginatin of the
Americans.
Suggesnted reading: "The Significance of the
Frontier in American History" by Frederick Jackson
Turner at
http://www.learner.org/workshops/primarysources/corpor
ations/docs/turner.html
Turner presented this paper to a special meeting of the
American Historical Association at the 1893 World's
Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois. His
assessment of the frontier's significance was the first of
its kind and revolutionized American intellectual and
historical thinking.
Map of American Civil War
1809－1865
1808 – 1889
Comparison between the North and South
Belligerents
Confederate States
United States
Commanders and leaders
Abraham Lincoln
Winfield Scott
George B. McClellan
Henry Wager Halleck
Ulysses S. Grant
Gideon Welles
Strenth
2,100,000
Jefferson Davis
P. G. T. Beauregard
Joseph E. Johnston
Robert E. Lee
Stephen Mallory
1,064,00
Casualties and losses
140,414 killed in action
~ 365,000 total dead
275,200 wounded
72,524 killed in action
~ 260,000 total dead
137,000+ wounded
Mark Twain (Samuel Longhorn
Clemens,1835–1910)
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Twain grew up in the Mississippi River frontier
town of Hannibal, Missouri. For Twain and other
American writers of the late 19th century, realism
was not merely a literary technique: It was a way of
speaking truth and exploding worn-out conventions.
Twain is best known for his works Tom Sawyer and
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
Stephen Crane (1871–1900),
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His haunting Civil War novel, The Red Badge
of Courage, was published to great acclaim in
1895, but he barely had time to bask in the
attention before he died, at 28, having
neglected his health.
William Dean Howells(1837–1920),
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His ideas about realism in literature
developed in parallel with his socialist
attitudes. In his role as editor of the Atlantic
Monthly and Harper's Magazine, and as the
author of books such as A Modern Instance
and The Rise of Silas Lapham.
Henry James (1843-1916)
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An American-born British author.
He is one of the founders and leaders of a
school of realism in fiction; the fine art of his
writing has led many academics to consider him
the greatest master of the novel and novella
form. He is primarily known for a series of major
novels in which he portrayed the encounter of
America with Europe. His plots centered on
personal relationships, the proper exercise of
power in such relationships, and other moral
questions.
His method of writing from the point of view of a
character within a tale allowed him to explore
the consciousness and perception, and his style
in later works has been compared to
impressionist painting.
Major works by James
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The American (1877)
The Portrait of a Lady (1881)
Daisy Miller (1878, novella)
The Story(1884)
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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is
often considered Twain's greatest
masterpiece. Combining his raw
humor and startlingly mature material,
Twain developed a novel that directly
attacked many of the traditions the
South held dear at the time of its
publication. Huckleberry Finn is the
main character, and through his eyes,
the reader sees and judges the South,
its faults, and its redeeming qualities.
Huck's companion Jim, a runaway
slave, provides friendship and
protection while the two journey along
the Mississippi on their raft.

The novel opens with Huck telling his story. Briefly,
he describes what he has experienced since, The
Adventures of Tom Sawyer, which preceded this
novel. After Huck and Tom discovered twelve
thousand dollars in treasure, Judge Thatcher
invested the money for them. Huck was adopted
by the Widow Douglas and Miss Watson, both of
whom took pains to raise him properly. Dissatisfied
with his new life, and wishing for the simplicity he
used to know, Huck runs away. Tom Sawyer
searches him out and convinces him to return
home by promising to start a band of robbers. All
the local young boys join Tom's band, using a
hidden cave for their hideout and meeting place.
However, many soon grow bored with their makebelieve battles, and the band falls apart.

YOU don't know about me without you have read a
book by the name of The Adventures of Tom
Sawyer; but that ain't no matter. That book was
made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth,
mainly. There was things which he stretched, but
mainly he told the truth. That is nothing. I never
seen anybody but lied one time or another, without
it was Aunt Polly, or the widow, or maybe Mary.
Aunt Polly -- Tom's Aunt Polly, she is -- and Mary,
and the Widow Douglas is all told about in that
book, which is mostly a true book, with some
stretchers, as I said before.

Now the way that the book winds up is this: Tom and
me found the money that the robbers hid in the cave,
and it made us rich. We got six thousand dollars
apiece -- all gold. It was an awful sight of money when
it was piled up. Well, Judge Thatcher he took it and
put it out at interest, and it fetched us a dollar a day
apiece all the year round -- more than a body could tell
what to do with. The Widow Douglas she took me for
her son, and allowed she would sivilize me; but it was
rough living in the house all the time, considering how
dismal regular and decent the widow was in all her
ways; and so when I couldn't stand it no longer I lit out.
I got into my old rags and my sugar-hogshead again,
and was free and satisfied. But Tom Sawyer he hunted
me up and said he was going to start a band of
robbers, and I might join if I would go back to the
widow and be respectable. So I went back.

The widow she cried over me, and called me a poor
lost lamb, and she called me a lot of other names, too,
but she never meant no harm by it. She put me in them
new clothes again, and I couldn't do nothing but sweat
and sweat, and feel all cramped up. Well, then, the old
thing commenced again. The widow rung a bell for
supper, and you had to come to time. When you got to
the table you couldn't go right to eating, but you had
to wait for the widow to tuck down her head and
grumble a little over the victuals, though there warn't
really anything the matter with them, -- that is, nothing
only everything was cooked by itself. In a barrel of
odds and ends it is different; things get mixed up, and
the juice kind of swaps around, and the things go
better.

Pretty soon I wanted to smoke, and asked the
widow to let me. But she wouldn't. She said it was
a mean practice and wasn't clean, and I must try to
not do it any more. That is just the way with some
people. They get down on a thing when they don't
know nothing about it. Here she was a-bothering
about Moses, which was no kin to her, and no use
to anybody, being gone, you see, yet finding a
power of fault with me for doing a thing that had
some good in it. And she took snuff, too; of course
that was all right, because she done it herself.
Soon thereafter, Huck discovers footprints
in the snow and recognizes them as his
violent, abusive Pap's. Huck realizes Pap,
who Huck hasn't seen in a very long time,
has returned to claim the money Huck
found, and he quickly runs to Judge
Thatcher to "sell" his share of the money
for a "consideration" of a dollar. Pap
catches Huck after leaving Judge Thatcher,
forces him to hand over the dollar, and
threatens to beat Huck if he ever goes to
school again.
Upon
Pap's return, Judge Thatcher and the
Widow try to gain court custody of Huck, but
a new judge in town refuses to separate Huck
from his father. Pap steals Huck away from
the Widow's house and takes him to a log
cabin. At first Huck enjoys the cabin life, but
after receiving frequent beatings, he decides
to escape. When Pap goes into town, Huck
seizes the opportunity. He saws his way out of
the log cabin, kills a pig, spreads the blood as
if it were his own, takes a canoe, and floats
downstream to Jackson's Island. Once there,
he sets up camp and hides out.

He got to hanging around the widow's too much and so
she told him at last that if he didn't quit using around there
she would make trouble for him. Well, WASN'T he mad?
He said he would show who was Huck Finn's boss. So he
watched out for me one day in the spring, and catched me,
and took me up the river about three mile in a skiff, and
crossed over to the Illinois shore where it was woody and
there warn't no houses but an old log hut in a place where
the timber was so thick you couldn't find it if you didn't
know where it was.

He kept me with him all the time, and I never got a chance
to run off. We lived in that old cabin, and he always locked
the door and put the key under his head nights. He had a
gun which he had stole, I reckon, and we fished and
hunted, and that was what we lived on. Every little while
he locked me in and went down to the store, three miles,
to the ferry, and traded fish and game for whisky, and
fetched it home and got drunk and had a good time, and
licked me. The widow she found out where I was by and by,
and she sent a man over to try to get hold of me; but pap
drove him off with the gun, and it warn't long after that till I
was used to being where I was, and liked it -- all but the
cowhide part.

But by and by pap got too handy with his hick'ry, and I
couldn't stand it. I was all over welts. He got to going away
so much, too, and locking me in. Once he locked me in
and was gone three days. It was dreadful lonesome. I
judged he had got drowned, and I wasn't ever going to get
out any more. I was scared. I made up my mind I would fix
up some way to leave there. I had tried to get out of that
cabin many a time, but I couldn't find no way. There warn't
a window to it big enough for a dog to get through. I
couldn't get up the chimbly; it was too narrow. The door
was thick, solid oak slabs. Pap was pretty careful not to
leave a knife or anything in the cabin when he was away; I
reckon I had hunted the place over as much as a hundred
times; well, I was most all the time at it, because it was
about the only way to put in the time.
A few days after arriving on the island, Huck
stumbles upon a still smoldering campfire.
Although slightly frightened, Huck decides to
seek out his fellow inhabitant. The next day,
he discovers Miss Watson's slave, Jim, is
living on the island. After overhearing the
Widow's plan to sell him to a slave trader, Jim
ran away. Jim, along with the rest of the
townspeople, thought Huck was dead and is
frightened upon seeing him. Soon, the two
share their escape stories and are happy to
have a companion.
While
Huck and Jim live on the
island, the river rises significantly.
At one point, an entire house floats
past them as they stand near the
shore. Huck and Jim climb aboard
to see what they can salvage and
find a dead man lying in the corner
of the house. Jim goes over to
inspect the body and realizes it is
Pap, Huck's father. Jim keeps this
information a secret.

Soon afterwards, Huck returns to the town disguised
as a girl in order to gather some news. While talking
with a woman, he learns that both Jim and Pap are
suspects in his murder. The woman then tells Huck
that she believes Jim is hiding out on Jackson's Island.
Upon hearing her suspicions, Huck immediately
returns to Jim and together they flee the island to
avoid discovery.

“Next morning I said it was getting slow and dull, and I
wanted to get a stirring up some way. I said I reckoned I
would slip over the river and find out what was going on. Jim
liked that notion; but he said I must go in the dark and look
sharp. Then he studied it over and said, couldn't I put on
some of them old things and dress up like a girl? That was a
good notion, too. So we shortened up one of the calico
gowns, and I turned up my trouser-legs to my knees and got
into it. Jim hitched it behind with the hooks, and it was a fair
fit. I put on the sun-bonnet and tied it under my chin, and
then for a body to look in and see my face was like looking
down a joint of stovepipe. Jim said nobody would know me,
even in the daytime, hardly. I practiced around all day to get
the hang of the things, and by and by I could do pretty well in
them, only Jim said I didn't walk like a girl; and he said I must
quit pulling up my gown to get at my britches-pocket. I took
notice, and done better. “

Every night now I used to slip ashore towards ten
o'clock at some little village, and buy ten or fifteen
cents' worth of meal or bacon or other stuff to eat;
and sometimes I lifted a chicken that warn't
roosting comfortable, and took him along. Pap
always said, take a chicken when you get a
chance, because if you don't want him yourself
you can easy find somebody that does, and a
good deed ain't ever forgot. I never see pap when
he didn't want the chicken himself, but that is
what he used to say, anyway.

“Mornings before daylight I slipped into cornfields and borrowed a
watermelon, or a mushmelon, or a punkin, or some new corn, or things
of that kind. Pap always said it warn't no harm to borrow things if you
was meaning to pay them back some time; but the widow said it warn't
anything but a soft name for stealing, and no decent body would do it.
Jim said he reckoned the widow was partly right and pap was partly right;
so the best way would be for us to pick out two or three things from the
list and say we wouldn't borrow them any more -- then he reckoned it
wouldn't be no harm to borrow the others. So we talked it over all one
night, drifting along down the river, trying to make up our minds whether
to drop the watermelons, or the cantelopes, or the mushmelons, or what.
But towards daylight we got it all settled satisfactory, and concluded to
drop crabapples and p'simmons. We warn't feeling just right before that,
but it was all comfortable now. I was glad the way it come out, too,
because crabapples ain't ever good, and the p'simmons wouldn't be ripe
for two or three months yet. “

Huck and Jim approach the Ohio River, their goal. One
foggy night, Huck, in the canoe, gets separated from Jim
and the raft. He tries to paddle back to the raft, but the fog
is so thick that he loses all sense of direction. After a
lonely time adrift, Huck reunites with Jim, who is asleep on
the raft. Jim is thrilled to see Huck alive, but Huck tries to
trick Jim by pretending that Jim dreamed up their entire
separation. Jim tells Huck the story of his dream, making
the fog and the troubles he faced on the raft into an
allegory of their journey to the free states. But soon Jim
notices all the debris, dirt, and tree branches that collected
on the raft while it was adrift. He gets mad at Huck for
making a fool of him after he had worried about him so
much. “It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up
to go and humble myself to a nigger,” Huck says, but he
eventually apologizes and does not regret it. He feels bad
about hurting Jim.

“Jim looked at the trash, and then looked at me, and back
at the trash again. He had got the dream fixed so strong in
his head that he couldn't seem to shake it loose and get
the facts back into its place again right away. But when he
did get the thing straightened around he looked at me
steady without ever smiling, and says:

"What do dey stan' for? I'se gwyne to tell you. When I got
all wore out wid work, en wid de callin' for you, en went to
sleep, my heart wuz mos' broke bekase you wuz los', en I
didn' k'yer no' mo' what become er me en de raf'. En when
I wake up en fine you back agin, all safe en soun', de tears
come, en I could a got down on my knees en kiss yo' foot,
I's so thankful. En all you wuz thinkin' 'bout wuz how you
could make a fool uv ole Jim wid a lie. Dat truck dah is
TRASH; en trash is what people is dat puts dirt on de head
er dey fren's en makes 'em ashamed." (Chapter 15)

“Then he got up slow and walked to the wigwam,
and went in there without saying anything but that.
But that was enough. It made me feel so mean I
could almost kissed HIS foot to get him to take it
back.

It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself
up to go and humble myself to a nigger; but I done
it, and I warn't ever sorry for it afterwards, neither. I
didn't do him no more mean tricks, and I wouldn't
done that one if I'd a knowed it would make him
feel that way. “(Chapter 15)
Meanwhile,
Huck’s conscience troubles him
deeply about helping Jim escape from his
“rightful owner,” Miss Watson, especially after
all she has done for Huck. Jim talks on and on
about going to the free states, especially about
his plan to earn money to buy the freedom of
his wife and children. If their masters refuse to
give up Jim’s family, Jim plans to have some
abolitionists kidnap them. When Huck and Jim
think they see Cairo, Huck goes out on the
canoe to check, having secretly resolved to
give Jim up. But Huck’s heart softens when he
hears Jim call out that Huck is his only friend,
the only one to keep a promise to him.

Jim said it made him all over trembly and feverish to be so close to
freedom. Well, I can tell you it made me all over trembly and feverish, too,
to hear him, because I begun to get it through my head that he WAS
most free -- and who was to blame for it? Why, ME. I couldn't get that
out of my conscience, no how nor no way. It got to troubling me so I
couldn't rest; I couldn't stay still in one place. It hadn't ever come home to
me before, what this thing was that I was doing. But now it did; and it
stayed with me, and scorched me more and more. I tried to make out to
myself that I warn't to blame, because I didn't run Jim off from his rightful
owner; but it warn't no use, conscience up and says, every time, "But you
knowed he was running for his freedom, and you could a paddled ashore
and told somebody." That was so -- I couldn't get around that noway.
That was where it pinched. Conscience says to me, "What had poor
Miss Watson done to you that you could see her nigger go off right
under your eyes and never say one single word? What did that poor
old woman do to you that you could treat her so mean? Why, she
tried to learn you your book, she tried to learn you your manners,
she tried to be good to you every way she knowed how. THAT'S
what she done."

I got to feeling so mean and so miserable I most
wished I was dead. I fidgeted up and down the
raft, abusing myself to myself, and Jim was
fidgeting up and down past me. We neither of us
could keep still. Every time he danced around
and says, "Dah's Cairo!" it went through me like
a shot, and I thought if it WAS Cairo I reckoned I
would die of miserableness.

Jim talked out loud all the time while I was talking
to myself. He was saying how the first thing he
would do when he got to a free State he would go
to saving up money and never spend a single
cent, and when he got enough he would buy his
wife, which was owned on a farm close to where
Miss Watson lived; and then they would both
work to buy the two children, and if their
master wouldn't sell them, they'd get an
Ab'litionist to go and steal them.

It most froze me to hear such talk. He wouldn't
ever dared to talk such talk in his life before. Just
see what a difference it made in him the minute
he judged he was about free. It was according to
the old saying, "Give a nigger an inch and he'll
take an ell." Thinks I, this is what comes of my not
thinking. Here was this nigger, which I had as
good as helped to run away, coming right out flatfooted and saying he would steal his children -children that belonged to a man I didn't even
know; a man that hadn't ever done me no harm.


I was sorry to hear Jim say that, it was such a
lowering of him. My conscience got to stirring me
up hotter than ever, until at last I says to it, "Let up
on me -- it ain't too late yet -- I'll paddle ashore at
the first light and tell." I felt easy and happy and
light as a feather right off. All my troubles was gone.
I went to looking out sharp for a light, and sort of
singing to myself. By and by one showed. Jim
sings out:
"We's safe, Huck, we's safe! Jump up and crack
yo' heels! Dat's de good ole Cairo at las', I jis
knows it!"



In the end, all is well for Huck, Tom, and Jim.
Jim informs Huck that he doesn’t have to worry about his
cruel Pap anymore, because it was the corpse of his Pap
that they found on the floating house when they left St.
Petersburg.
Tom has recovered from his bullet wound and keeps a
pendant around his neck containing the infamous bullet.
Huck says, “There ain't nothing more to write about, and I
am rotten glad of it, because if I'd a knowed what a trouble
it was to make a book I wouldn't a tackled it, and ain't agoing to no more. But I reckon I got to light out for the
Territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she's going
to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can't stand it. I been
there before.”
General reception

The book is noted for its colorful description
of people and places along the Mississippi
River. Satirizing a Southern antebellum
society that had ceased to exist about twenty
years before the work was published,
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an often
scathing look at entrenched attitudes,
particularly racism.


T. S. Eliot says: "It is Huck who gives the book style. The
River gives the book its form. But for the River, the book
might be only a sequence of adventures with a happy
ending. A river, a very big and powerful river, is the only
natural force that can wholly determine the course of
human peregrination.... Thus the River makes the book a
great book... Mark Twain is a native, and the River God is
his God."
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1935) says: "Huckleberry Finn took the
first journey back. He was the first to look back at the
republic from the perspective of the west. His eyes were
the first eyes that ever looked at us objectively that were
not eyes from overseas. There were mountains at the
frontier but he wanted more than mountains to look at with
his restive eyes--he wanted to find out about men and how
they lived together. And because he turned back we have
him forever."


Ernest Hemingway says: "The good writers are Henry James,
Stephen Crane, and Mark Twain. That's not the order they're
good in. There is no order for good writers.... All modern
American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called
'Huckleberry Finn.' If you read it you must stop where the
Nigger Jim is stolen from the boys. That is the real end. The
rest is just cheating. But it's the best book we've had. All
American writing comes from that. There was nothing before.
There has been nothing as good since." -- from Ernest
Hemingway, "The Green Hills of Africa" (1934)
“I believe that ‘Huckleberry Finn’ is one of the great
masterpieces of the world, that it is the full equal of ‘Don
Quixote’ and ‘Robinson Crusoe… I believe that Mark Twain had
a clearer vision of life, that he came nearer to its elementals
and was less deceived by its false appearances, than any other
American who has ever presumed to manufacture
generalizations, not excepting Emerson.
Characterization of Huck

Living in conflicts: He has got about
ten systems of conflicting rules he’s
trying to sort out. He has to decide to
what and whom he feels loyal: follow
religion, or follow his gut instincts?
Obey his father, or obey the Widow?
Listen to Tom, or to the Phelpses?
With all this conflict, Huck has to sort
his way through what he thinks is
right, which is hardly easy when
you’re a young boy caught up in
some pretty weighty moral issues.

Adaptability to deal with the conflicts: What’s
appealing about his character is that he approaches
these conflicts so earnestly. Check out the scene where
Huck decides to apologize to Jim even though he’s a
black man, or that moment in Chapter 31 when Huck
debates whether or not to turn Jim in and explain
everything to Miss Watson. On the one hand, all the rules
he’s been raised by tell him he can’t free a slave. No
matter how he feels about Jim as a friend, he really does
believe he’ll go to hell if he helps Jim out. Because of this
belief, it reflects an incredibly strong personal character
when Huck defiantly declares that, d--n his conscience,
he’ll just go to hell and that’s that.
As with several of the frontier literary characters
that came before him, Huck possesses the ability to
adapt to almost any situation through deceit. He is
playful but practical, inventive but logical,
compassionate but realistic, and these traits allow
him to survive the abuse of Pap, the violence of a
feud, and the wiles of river con men. To persevere
in these situations, Huck lies, cheats, steals, and
defrauds his way down the river. These traits are
part of the reason that Huck Finn was viewed as a
book not acceptable for children, yet they are also
traits that allow Huck to survive his surroundings
and, in the conclusion, make the right decision.


Innocence: Because Huck is young and uncivilized, he
describes events and people in a direct manner without
any extensive commentary. Huck does not laugh at
humorous situations and statements simply because his
literal approach does not find them to be funny; he fails to
see the irony. He does not project social, religious,
cultural, or conceptual nuances into situations because
he has never learned them.
As a coming of age character in the late nineteenth
century, Huck views his surroundings with a practical and
logical lens. His observations are not filled with
judgments; instead, Huck observes his environment and
gives realistic descriptions of the Mississippi River and
the culture that dominates the towns that dot its shoreline
from Missouri south.
For example, when Miss Watson tells Huck that
“she was going to live so as to go to the good
place [heaven],” Huck, applying what he knows
Miss Watson and the obvious lifestyle that
 about
.
makes her happy, responds that he “couldn’t see
no advantage in going where she was going,”
and makes up his mind to not try to get there.
Huck does not intend his comment to be
disrespectful or sarcastic; it is simply a
statement of fact and is indicative of the literal,
practical approach to life that he exhibits
throughout the novel



Pursuit or exploration of identity: Huck definitely
struggles with his own sense of identity. In the beginning of
the novel, he oscillates between his comfort living in the
woods and his realization that, actually, gettin’ civilized
ain’t so bad. He seems to make his living on the river out
of pretending to be other people, and he certainly displays
a penchant for telling lies all the time.
He constantly refers to Tom Sawyer as his foil while he’s
on his journey; he repeatedly expresses a desire to be like
Tom, wonders how Tom would act, hopes he’s doing as
good of a job as Tom would, etc.
In the end, he is acting upon his own choice, presumably
quite different from that of Tom.



Defiance against the authority: Huckleberry Finn
tells the story in first-person point of view. His narration,
including his accounts of conversations, contains
regionalisms, grammatical errors, pronunciation errors,
and other characteristics of the speech or writing of a
nineteenth-century Missouri boy with limited education.
In the form of language: The use of patois bolsters the
verisimilitude of the novel.
As an “bad” boy in contrast to model boy: With his many
bad habits, Huck lies, cheats, steals, and defrauds his
way down the river. These traits are part of the reason
that Huck Finn was viewed as a book not acceptable for
children.

“Through Huck's dialect and the informal diction of the
novel's first person narrative, Twain is able to repeatedly
trick his reader (especially his American readers) into
laughing at the strange mix of naiveté and galling trickery
present in Huck before slamming the truth in the reader's
face: Huck is Us. The reader is reminded throughout the
story that this backwards, uneducated, shameless
narrator speaks to the reader as he does to nearly every
character in the book--as an equal. Only when confronted
with the subjects and ideas that form the bases of
Religion and Romanticism does Huck become really
condescending.”

Uniqueness of the character: Huck Finn is the
narrator and will tell his story in his own words, in
his own language and dialect (complete with
grammatical errors and misspellings), and from
his own point of view. By using the first person
narrative point of view, Twain carries on the
southwestern humor tradition of vernacular
language
Themes of the work


Thematic image of the work: natural, free
individualism contrasted with the expectations
of society.
Huck feels confined by the social expectations
of civilization and wants to return to his simple,
carefree life. He dislikes the social and cultural
trappings of clean clothes, Bible studies,
spelling lessons, and manners that he is forced
to follow. Huck cannot understand why people
would want to live under such circumstances,
and he longs to be able to return to his
previous life where no one tries to “sivilize” him.

Freedom: The contrast between freedom and
civilization permeates the novel, and Huck’s
struggle for natural freedom (freedom from
society) mirrors the more important struggle of
Jim, who struggles for social freedom (freedom
within the society). Both Huck and Jim search
for freedom during their adventure down the
Mississippi, and both find that civilization
presents a large obstacle to obtaining their
dream. From the beginning, readers realize that
civilization is filled with certain hypocrisies,
including religion and the practice of slavery.
“Freedom” in diverse dimensions


Twain wrote a novel that embodies the search for
freedom. He wrote during the post-Civil War period
when there was an intense white reaction against
blacks. Twain took aim squarely against racial
prejudice, rising segregation, lynchings, and the
generally accepted belief that blacks were subhuman. He "made it clear that Jim was good, deeply
loving, human, and anxious for freedom".
To highlight the hypocrisy required to condone
slavery within an ostensibly moral system, Twain has
Huck's father enslave him, isolate him, and beat him.
When Huck escapes - which anyone would agree
was the right thing to do - he then immediately
encounters Jim "illegally" doing the same thing.
Morality in perspectives


Throughout the story, Huck is in moral conflict
with the received values of the society in which
he lives, and while he is unable to consciously
refute those values even in his thoughts, he
makes a moral choice based on his own
valuation of Jim's friendship and human worth,
a decision in direct opposition to the things he
has been taught.
Mark Twain in his lecture notes proposes that
"a sound heart is a surer guide than an illtrained conscience", and goes on to describe
the novel as "...a book of mine where a sound
heart and a deformed conscience come into
collision and conscience suffers defeat".
Racism involved in the novel

Much modern scholarship of Huckleberry Finn has
focused on its treatment of race. Many Twain scholars
have argued that the book, by humanizing Jim and
exposing the fallacies of the racist assumptions of slavery,
is an attack on racism. Others have argued that the book
falls short on this score, especially in its depiction of Jim.
According to Professor Stephen Railton of the University
of Virginia, Twain was unable to fully rise above the
stereotypes of black people that white readers of his era
expected and enjoyed, and therefore resorted to minstrel
show-style comedy to provide humor at Jim's expense,
and ended up confirming rather than challenging late-19th
century racist stereotypes.


In one instance, the controversy caused a drastically
altered interpretation of the text: In 1955, CBS tried to
avoid controversial material in a televised version of the
book, by deleting all mention of slavery and having a white
actor play Jim.
Another example involves the disputes on the
appropriateness of teaching the book in the U.S. public
school system—this questioning of the word “nigger” is
illustrated by a school administrator of Virginia in 1982
calling the novel the "most grotesque example of racism
I’ve ever seen in my life". According to the American
Library Association, Huckleberry Finn was the fifth mostfrequently-challenged book in the United States during the
1990s.
Historical Background




By the time that Mark Twain completed The Adventures
of Huckleberry Finn, the U.S. Congress had amended the
Constitution to do the following:
Abolish slavery (Thirteenth Amendment, 1865),
Guarantee citizenship rights to every person born in the
U.S. (Fourteenth Amendment, 1868)
Grant all citizens the right to vote regardless of "race,
color, or previous condition of servitude" (Fifteenth
Amendment, 1870).

However, beginning in 1877, some state
legislatures began passing segregation laws that
limited or denied blacks access to white-controlled
schools, restaurants, restrooms, cemeteries,
theaters, parks, and other facilities. Consequently,
Twain's theme of racism in Huckleberry Finn
remained current when the book was published. It
remains current today because, even though
segregation laws have been struck down, racism
persists as a serious problem.

“亲近型不可靠叙事常见的第二、第三、第四子类型
在马克•吐温的《哈克•贝利芬历险记》中有很好的
体现，在此我将一并讨论并评价其总体效果。第二
个子类型我称之为隐含作者和叙述者之间的“玩笑
式比较”。隐含作者玩笑性地采用了不可靠叙事来
提醒读者注意他和叙事者之讲述的共同点或不同点。
隐含作者如何建立他和叙述者之间的关系决定“玩
笑式比较”将产生疏离效果还是亲近效果。例如，
隐含作者若让叙述者高估其故事讲述的能力，我们
多半会认为这就是疏离型不可靠性。马克•吐温小说
的第一段提供了一个绝好的例子来说明具有亲近效
果的“玩笑式比较”。(唐伟胜：《叙事》）

这里，哈克谈论《哈克•贝利芬历险记》时是一名可靠的报道者，但如果
从读解者和评价者的角度看，他的可靠性就令人生疑了。一方面，哈克显
然是权威的报道者，因此站在“作者的读者”位置，我们坚信他的诠释和
评价是可靠的。如果说有人知道《汤姆•索耶》是否有胡侃鬼扯的成分，
那个人就是哈克。另一方面，如果我们完全信赖哈克，那么作为隐含作者
的马克•吐温就在引导我们发现《汤姆•索耶》的某些伦理缺陷，尽管是极
微小的缺陷。摆脱这种有趣的困局的办法并不难：隐含的吐温玩笑式地处
理哈克这个人物的“模仿”成分和“虚构”成分之间的关系，从而使哈克
的读解和评价显得有点不太可靠。对“作者的读者”而言，哈克和《汤姆
•索耶》中的其他事件一样都是虚构的，他在一部虚构小说中所作的“真
实”与“胡扯”之分也就站不住脚。隐含的吐温无意邀请其“作者的读者”
回到《汤姆•索耶》中去寻找胡扯的地方，因为我们根本找不到。而且，
我们知道，哈克批评吐温胡扯（并原谅这些胡扯），完全是因为吐温准许
他这样做。换言之，这种玩笑式的比较涉及到了吐温的“错层”手法的使
用：他让自己和哈克处于同一叙事层面（将自己从小说作者的身份转变为
研究汤姆的生平然后为之著书的记者、传记作家或历史学家），同时又信
任其读者能够认识到，他是那一叙事层面的创造者，正是他这个创造者的
授权，哈克才能对同一叙事层面的其他人挑过拿错。授权哈克来指责自己
胡扯，又让他表现出宽宏大量的气度，隐含的吐温就塑造出了一个有点不
可靠但非常吸引人的哈克形象。其结果是，在小说的第一段，无论情感上
还是伦理上，我们和哈克及隐含的吐温都保持着“亲近”关系。
Major Ideas of Realistic literature


1. Writers sought to portray American life as it
really was, insisting that the ordinary and the
local were as suitable for artistic portrayal as the
magnificent and the remote.
2. The representation of life was considered the
primary object of the novel. An objective and
realistic reflection of human existence was
advocated rather than the idealized view as
advocated by romanticism and sentimentalism.


3. The style is characteristic of the combination
of the gentle and graceful prose and the
vernacular diction and rough frontier humor.
4. Characterization also witnessed typical shift
from “flat characters” to “round characters”.
Writers sought to describe the wide range of
American experience and to present the
subtleties of human personalities, to portray
characters who were not simply all good or bad.
From Realism to Naturalism



In the 1890s, Howells spoke against the description of
bleak fiction of failure and despair, and advocated the
writing of the “smiling aspects of life”, since he believed
that America was a land of hope and possibility.
But the turn of the century just witnessed a generation of
writers whose understanding of lack of orders, beliefs and
values helped facilitated the growth of naturalism.
Naturalists dismissed the validity of values and truths and
attempted to present the extreme objectivity and frankness
of life. They described people from lower classes
dominated by their environment.



Many critics have suggested that there is no clear
distinction between realism and its related late
nineteenth-century movement, naturalism.
As Donald Pizer notes in his introduction to The
Cambridge Companion to American Realism and
Naturalism: Howells to London, the term "realism" is
difficult to define, in part because it is used differently in
European contexts than in American literature. Pizer
suggests that "whatever was being produced in fiction
during the 1870s and 1880s that was new, interesting,
and roughly similar in a number of ways can be
designated as realism, and that an equally new,
interesting, and roughly similar body of writing produced
at the turn of the century can be designated as
naturalism" (5).
Put rather too simplistically, one rough distinction made
by critics is that realism espousing a deterministic
philosophy and focusing on the lower classes is
considered naturalism.