The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

• Mark Twain

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Mark Twain

• Samuel Clemens raised in Mississippi River town
  of Hannibal, Missouri
• Left school at eleven and worked for a printing
  shop
• By sixteen, he published a piece in a Boston
  magazine
• Worked as a riverboat pilot
• Reported for various newspapers before writing
  his works of fiction
• Mark Twain is the river leadsmans cry for two
  fathoms of water

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Setting

• written after Emancipation Proclamation abolished
  slavery, but time period of story set during
  slavery
• presents hypocrisy of civilized society which
  values morality, but condones slavery
• takes place in a fictional town called St.
  Petersburg, Missouri (based on Twains hometown of
  Hannibal)
• majority of the novel follows Jim and Huck up the
  Mississippi river

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Huck Finnas written by Everett Emerson in The
Heath Anthology of American Literature

• Idyllic, epic, and satiric
• Especially admired for its comedy, though Huck
  the narrator lacks a sense of humor
• Hucks great problem is to reconcile his
  adherence to social norms with what his heart
  tells him
• Conflict centers on his experiences with Jim,
  whose humanity he has to learn to respect, for it
  is denied by what Huck has been taught
• Controversy centers around whether Huck Finn is
  an attack on racism/exaltation of property values
  over human values or whether it is a racist
  narrative that mirrors Twains own values and
  understanding

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Huck, the Narrator

• No pretension
• Voice helped define what truly American
  literature was to be
• Prepared us for all types of vernacular speech
• Ernest Hemingway proclaimed, All modern American
  literature comes from one book by Mark Twain
  called Huckleberry Finn