Huckleberry Finn

1
Huckleberry Finn

• Childrens Fiction
• Outcast as Hero
• Pastoral Escape vs sivilization
• Huck and Jim

2
Childrens Literature

• Juvenile fiction often inculcates moral teaching
• American fiction as juvenile still a young
  nation whose literature reflects adolescence of
  the country
• America as innocent
• Idealism not reflected in the actual

3
Outcast as Hero

• Hucks outcast status
• Individualism vs. convention (Emerson)
• Outcast challenges rule of law (All right then,
  Ill go to hell!)

4
Escape vs Civilization

• Country vs. City
• Pastoral vs. culture
• Civilization is corrupt
• Nature as the site of true freedom

5
Huck and Jim

• Two outcasts together
• Original buddy plot no sex plot
• Portrait of equality?

6
Realism and Social Critique

• Linguistic Detail
• Social Realism
• Descriptive Realism

7
Regionalism

• No single United States
• Post-Civil War South as victim
• West Land of Promise
• Northeast represents America as a whole
• Rural vs. City / Agrarian vs. Industrialization

8
Huck Finn the End

• Reconstruction 1865-1880
• 13th Amendment No slavery in the U.S.
• 14th Amendment All persons born in the U.S. are
  citizens
• 15th Amendment Vote could not be denied American
  men on racial grounds

9
Reconstruction, continued

• 14th amendment naturalization would produce a
  new class of anti-southern voters
• New black vote would prevent white, pro-south
  politicians from winning office.

10
Rise of Jim Crow

• Local laws intended to deny federal amendments
• Grandfather Laws you can vote only if you can
  prove your grandfather did
• Literacy Laws you can vote only if you can
  prove your own literacy
• Poll Tax you must pay to vote

11
The Legacy of Reconstruction

• Federal Amendments vs. Jim Crow which actually
  affected lives of black people?
• Reconstruction a failure (recall duBois) blacks
  actually worse off after slavery than before
• Emancipation and Enfranchisement a fiction,
  only a theory
• Huck Finn written at the end of the
  Reconstruction period.