Author: Mark Twain Date of Publication

Simran Kaur, Cindy Jiang, Elizabeth Moncayo Band 6

Born on November 30, 1835 in the village of Florida, Missouri, Samuel L. Clemens moved to the small frontier town of Hannibal, Missouri with his family at a young age. Since Missouri was a slave state at the time, Clemens was often exposed to African American slaves throughout his childhood. In fact, though his father only owned a single slave, his uncle owned several. As a boy, Clemens would spend his summers around his uncle’s slave quarters, where he listened to tall tales and slave spirituals. These experiences undoubtedly possessed a great influence over him, and would eventually become the basis of several novels such as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. At the age of eleven, Clemens was forced to cope with the death of his father, and he left school soon after to work as a printer’s apprentice for a local newspaper. In the following years, he found some success at writing articles in New York and Philadelphia, but then returned home to pursue a riverboat pilot career that he was later quickly forced to abandon due to the start of the Civil War. From there, Clemens assumed numerous other jobs during which he first signed under his pen name, Mark Twain. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is said to have possibly been Twain’s most famous work of literature, because of the way in which he attacked the institution of slavery with satire. Twain passed away at the age of 74 on April 21, 1910, but he left behind a legacy through his novels, which continue to allow readers to draw connections between the late nineteenth century mindset and that of the modern day.

Satire is essentially the utilization of humor and wit to criticize aspects of human institutions or sometimes humanity as a whole. The goal of this writing style is to portray a vice or folly in a laughable light and show that it is worthy of ridicule. Such a portrayal usually brings about social pressure upon those engaged in or advocating the wrongdoing. Thus, satire seeks to reform a particular behavior that is considered corrupt by the satirist, or simply to alert an audience to the existence of a flaw in society. Regardless of its targeted attacks, satire in literature is often implicit and addresses types rather than specific persons.

           Since the narrator in this novel is a twelve-year-old boy, Mark Twain’s style is informal with a simple vocabulary. To accurately portray Huckleberry Finn, he talks with a colloquial Missouri accent, thus lending into the excessive use of apostrophes to shorten words and create certain sounds. He also uses racist words such as “nigger” because they were commonplace to that time period. The use of simple speech contrasts with and therefore emphasizes the insightful remarks Huck makes on society.

“Well, I did. I said I wouldn’t, and I’ll stick to it. Honest INJUN, I will. People would call me a low-down Abolitionist and despise me for keeping mum—but that don’t make no difference. I ain’t a-going to tell, and I ain’t a-going back there, anyways. So, now, le’s know all about it” (45).

Huckleberry Finn’s journey mostly takes place along the Mississippi River, it starts in the town of St. Petersburg, Missouri and ends in Arkansas. The novel is set before the Civil War around 1835 to 1845; according to Twain it was set forty to fifty years before the novel’s publication. Huck’s story begins with him living with Ms. Watson and the Widow Mrs. Douglas, until Pap takes him away and stows him in a decaying shack by the river. Huck eventually finds a way to ran away from Pap and he is reunited with Jim in Jackson’s Island. Huck and Jim at this point start their journey and stop by various towns in search of Cairo, Illinois.

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  Mississippi River/The raft: Huck comes to realize that he is able to feel a sense of freedom when he’s with Jim on the raft floating along the river. Life on the raft and the river ultimately becomes a symbol of freedom for both Jim and Huck. At one point in the story, when Huck had just escaped from the Grangerford-Shepherdson feud he feels disgusted by the ways of society. Despite the luxuries that Huck experienced while staying with the Grangerfords he still felt that it couldn’t compare to the raft. The raft was their way of moving away from reality, or society. In Chapter 18 Huck says, “We said there warn’t no home like a raft, after all. Other places do seem so cramped up and smothery, but a raft don’t. You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft.”(117) The rules of society didn’t reach the raft; there was no need for it to affect Huck or Jim.
  
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  Jim: The character Jim is used majorly in the novel as a base to show the stereotypical views that most white southerners, if not all, had towards slaves at that time. The stereotypes that Jim embodies include superstitious and unintelligent, however, Jim is also used to counter certain stereotypes. Slaves were thought to have been uncaring and inhumane, but during the novel Jim shows acts of caring and even fatherly affection towards Huck. Jim is used many times in degrading and humiliating manner, but he also symbolizes the humane and caring side of slaves.
  
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  Tom: Towards the end of the novel when Huck and Tom are trying to gain Jim’s freedom, Huck appears to be reverting back to how he was in the beginning of the novel. Tom represents the white society in the novel, when he and Huck reunite Huck uses the word “nigger” more than any other time in the novel. Before Huck used to refer to Jim as a “nigger” and it wasn’t until after their journey together that Huck was able to see the humanity in Jim and called him by his name. Huck also follows Tom and seems to depend on him more now that they are together because according to him he knows how things are done because of the books he reads. This may also show how people in the South were able to follow others that owned slaves and treated Africans terribly because a that time that how things were done, “it’s in the books”.
  
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  The Grangerford-Shepherdson feud: The Grangerford and the Shepherdson both symbolize the typical white southern aristocracy of that time. Both the Grangerford and the Shepherdson grew up to be motivated by the notion of family honor, so much so that they are willing to kill each other to protect it. Buck’s death and Huck’s reaction towards the murder changes the tone of the novel to be very serious and show the lack of humanity. This scene in the story demonstrates how twisted society is and part of the reason why Huck has trouble to accept it.
  

From the first page Huck creates a conversational voice with the reader and he also is able to give the sense of independence from the author. When Huck alludes to “Mr. Mark Twain” he seems to disconnect himself from Twain when in reality Huck is Twain’s means of expressing ideas. The opening scene not only establishes the voice of novel but it also gives the characteristics of Huck’s personality, which is important to understand when reading the novel. Being able to understand the main characters personality allows the reader to connect or criticize him, they are able to form an opinion. The opening scene tells the reader how Huck isn’t like most white southern boys at this time, he deviates from social norms and questions the things around him. In the beginning, Huck describes how Widow Douglas and Ms.Watson try to “sivilize” him by teaching him about the story of Moses, and religious manners such as praying. Huck’s reactions towards these methods show how he is a pragmatic character and tries to see how useful the religious traditions are. Huck enjoys to test out things and see if what others say are true.

The ending scene reveals Tom to be a more manipulative character than once thought, and a connection from the beginning of the book is made when Huck is attempted to be “sivilized” again. Tom reveals that Ms.Watson has actually been dead for two months and that she had freed Jim in her will, this confession shows even more how Tom has been using Jim selfishly as a way to indulge in the feeling of a great adventure. At the end of the novel Aunt Sally offers to adopt Huck, and even though he likes Aunt Sally, Huck knows that they are still part of the society that he can’t accept. Huck thinks that he can find a better version of society for him to live in if he leaves. Huck at the end says “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 be there before.”(295) The parallel from the beginning of the book to the end shows how Huck is no longer willing to allow himself be “sivilized” as he was before.

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  Racism/Slavery: As this is a story set in the South before the Civil War it made sense that most of the characters that made appearances in the novel have slaves, support slaves, or are connected to them in some way. Twain shows how many characters in the story dehumanize slaves so much so that they are simply property that can be used in anyway. This can be seen in Jim’s situation when the duke and the dauphin dressed him as a sick Arab humiliating him in so many ways. Another instants when this is shown is when Huck, pretending to be Tom, describes trouble that occurred on the steam engine to Aunt Sally, “[Aunt Sally] Good gracious! Anybody hurt? [Huck] No’m. Killed a nigger. [Aunt Sally] Well, it’s lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt” (223). Slaves weren’t considered people and this racist attitude towards slaves may not actually be from hatred but rather the status quo. Huck hasn’t said that he is against slavery, in fact at first when he was with Jim he was scared he would be called an abolitionist, but towards the end it can be seen that he at least has found companionship from Jim. A character that shows true hatred towards slaves or Africans is Pap, he ranted in one chapter how insane it was that a “nigger” can live a better life than him.
  
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  The N word: The word “nigger” is used many times throughout the original novel and it has caused many points of controversy especially in schools. The use of the word can certainly cause discomfort for some of those who read the book, but its a question of either keeping the word in the book or read a book that replaces the word with “slave”. The word “nigger” has been used in the past a degrading term towards slaves but it is still part of history that can’t be ignored, which is why many think the word should be kept in the book, something is lost when it is replaced. Through out the years the word “nigger” has changed to “nigga” which is a way to show affections towards another. However, many times it is felt that the meaning behind the word hasn’t really changed, when some hear “nigga” they can’t help but hear “nigger”.
  
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  Child malleability/Society influences: The story is completely told from the perspective of a twelve-year-old boy, Huck. A smart move by Twain, he made the main character a child, giving the possibility of change that readers hope happens to Huck. Huck is shown from the beginning to have been affected by society’s views. Even though Huck does appear to be different from the normal southern boy, he was still able to inherit the racist views from the world around him. Between Huck’s ability to change and societies affect on him he experiences great difficulty in understanding where he stands.
  
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  Morality/ Conscience: Huck constantly struggles from acting on what is practical and what he thinks is right. From the beginning it is described how Huck is a practical character that enjoys proving if things are handy or useful. The fact that Huck is a racist is expressed from the beginning of the story as well, he has a twisted attitude towards slaves as a result from his surroundings. Twain describes Huck to have “a sound heart and a deformed conscience.” The internal struggle that Huck experiences is what causes him to have outbreaks like when he decided to help Jim, even though it wasn’t the most practical, and said “All right, then, I’ll go to hell” (217).