The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

1
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

• By Mark Twain

2
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884)

• When Mark Twain began The Adventures of
  Huckleberry Finn in 1876, he probably wasn't
  setting out to write an American classic, and
  certainly not, as Ernest Hemingway later
  proclaimed it, the book from which "all modern
  American literature" flows. What started out as a
  simple sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
  turned out to be one of the most celebrated and
  controversial novels in American history.
• For some readers, it is simply a boy's adventure
  tale. For others, it is a story of the choices we
  must make in order to make ourselves free. For
  still others, it is an unsettling exploration of
  one of the most persistent and troubling divides
  our nation faces, that of race. Each generation,
  it seems, has its own Huck Finn.

3
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910)

• Clemens was born on November 30, 1835 in Florida,
  Missouri and spent most of his childhood in
  Hannibal, Missouri.
• His fathers family had once been slaveholding,
  and his mothers family had not, being from NY.
• After his father's death in 1847, now 12, Twain
  worked as an apprentice in one of his brother's
  newspaper. He later became a skilled licensed
  Mississippi river-boat pilot.
• The Civil War broke out in 1861, and Louisiana
  seceded. Twains steam boat was taken and put in
  Confederate service. In these days his sympathies
  were with the South and he enlisted. It rained a
  lot, so he resigned to be with his brother Orion
  in Nevada, who was a Union abolitionist and had
  received an appointment from President Lincoln as
  Secretary of the New Territory.

4
Twains many trades

• There wasnt much to do with his brother Orion,
  so he became a miner, and then he went to Carson
  City to become a reporter. This was where 'Mark
  Twain' was born when Clemens signed a humorous
  travel account with that pseudonym.
• Thereafter, he used that name and became popular
  with The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras
  County. He became well known for his stories and
  lectures and was able to earn a living at it.

5
Mark Twain

• Clemens maintained that his primary pen name,
  "Mark Twain," came from his years working on
  Mississippi riverboats, where two fathoms (12 ft,
  approximately 3.7 m) or "safe water" was measured
  on the sounding line. The riverboatman's cry was
  "mark twain" or, more fully, "by the mark twain"
  ("twain" is an archaic term for two). "By the
  mark twain" meant "according to the mark on the
  line, the depth is two fathoms".

6
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910)

• Between 1876 and 1884 Clemens published several
  masterpieces, Tom Sawyer (1881) and The Prince
  And The Pauper (1881). Life On The Mississippi
  appeared in 1883 and Huckleberry Finn in 1884.
• In the 1890s Twain lost most of his earnings in
  financial speculations and in the failure of his
  own publishing firm. To recover from the
  bankruptcy, he started a world lecture tour.
  Twain toured New Zealand, Australia, India, and
  South Africa.

7
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910)

• The death of his wife and his second daughter
  darkened the author's later years, and Twain died
  on April 21, 1910.
• At the same time of Twain's death, Halley's Comet
  reappeared in the April skies. The last time the
  comet had appeared was in November 1835, the time
  of Twain's birth. Twain often said the he would
  "go out with the comet." Remarkably, his
  prediction came true.

8
When and where do the events of the novel take
place?

• Setting (time) - Before the Civil War, roughly
  18351845 Twain said the novel was set forty to
  fifty years before the time of its publication.
• Setting (place) Hannibal (St. Petersburg) is a
  legendary small riverfront city, popular with
  tourists internationally, located in Marion and
  Ralls County, Missouri. Their adventure leads to
  various locations along the river through
  Arkansas.

9
Slave vs. Free States 1860
10
The Time and Place

• So important to the novel is the great
  Mississippi River that many readers consider it
  as much a character as a place. T. S. Eliot, the
  great twentieth-century poet who grew up in St.
  Louis, said, The River makes the book a great
  book. It fired the imagination of the young
  Twain, served as the setting for his beloved
  riverboats, and became the only real home
  Huckleberry Finn and Jim were to know.

11
These humorous warnings were the first words that
readers of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn saw
when they opened Mark Twains new novel in 1885.
At the time, Twain was already well known as a
humorist and the author of the nostalgic boys
book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Therefore,
Twains readers probably did not expect that
Twain would have serious motives for writing
Huckleberry Finn or that the novel would teach
serious moral lessons. Readers soon found out,
however, that Huckleberry Finn is very different
from Tom Sawyer. The odd notice at the beginning
of the novel is the first warning that things may
not be exactly as they seem. The warning is
ironic because the novel definitely has a motive,
a moral, and a plot and Twain wanted his readers
to be aware of each of them.
12
The Most Essential Questions

• Is the novel racist?
• Should it be taught or banned?
• What is the book really about?
• To answer these questions you will consider
  these themes
• Hucks search for identity (coming of age)
• Social Identity (when how to conform and what
  it means to be civilized)
• Friendship Betrayal
• Freedom Enslavement

13
Other Aspects We Will Examine

• What Twain satirized and how he uses irony to
  make us think!
• Huck as narrator- his voice, speech, his
  portrayal of Jim, and his moral dilemmas and
  conflicts
• The relationship between Huck Jim and how it
  changes
• Well also examine slave narratives,
  illustrations of the novel, and others arguments
  for banning the novel.

14
Reading chapters 1-5

• On the right side of your interactive notebook,
  youll want to gather data (take notes!) on
• Theme
• To what and to whom does Huck conform?
• When and how does Huck reject conformity?
• Notes on characters- Huck, Jim, Widow Douglas,
  Miss. Watson, and Pap
• Quotes you find important when considering
  whether the book is racist or not

15
On the Left Side

• Write any questions you have- skinny ones ok.
  Fat ones encouraged!