From 1865 to 1915,
writers turned away
from Romanticism and
strove to portray life as
it was actually lived.
 The major literary
movements of the
period were
Naturalism,
Regionalism, and
Realism.

 Realism: attempted
to
present a “slice of
life”: sought to
portray ordinary life
as real people live it
and attempted to
show characters and
events in an
objective, almost
factual way.
 Science
played a
part, as well: The
objectivity of science
struck many writers
as a worthy goal for
literature.
 So a realist had to
mind meaning in the
commonplace.


Naturalism: Showed life
as the inexorable
working out of natural
forces beyond our power
to control.
Regionalism: blended
Realism with
Romanticism:
emphasized place, and
the elements that create
local “color”: customs,
dress, speech, and other
local differences.
During this time, the
short story became a
popular vehicle, using
specific details to
create a sense of
realism and to capture
local color.
 Characters were drawn
from the mass of
humanity and spoke in
dialect, capturing the
flavor and rhythms of
common speech.

“All
modern
American
literature comes
from one book
by Mark Twain.”
Ernest
Hemingway.


Literary critic Joseph
Claro interpreted
Hemingway’s remark this
way:
“He didn’t mean that no
Americans before Mark
Twain had written
anything worthy of being
called literature. What he
meant was that Twain
was responsible for
defining what would
make American literature
different from everybody
else’s literature.”




How?
Twain was the first major
writer to use real American
speech to deal with themes
and topics that were important
to Americans.
Huck has a strong regional
dialect, which makes him even
more likable and forces the
reader to see things through
Huck’s eyes.
Like all great writers, Twain
altered the consciousness of
the people he wrote for; and
he re-defined the terrain for
all writers who came after
him.
 Part
of the answer as to why the novel is
so real lies in the way it is told. Twain said
a “good character” to tell his own story
“in the first person” was in fact
Huckleberry Finn, who was based on a
Hannibal childhood contemporary
named Tom Blankenship, from a family of
poor whites and whose father was the
town drunkard.
 Dialect
is variation of a given language
spoken in a particular place or by a
particular group of people. A dialect is
distinguished by its vocabulary,
grammar, and pronunciation.
 If we’re only talking about pronunciation,
we usually use the term “accent.”
 Dilalect is applied most often to regional
speech patterns, but a dialect may also
be defined by other factors, such as
social class.
 Huck’s
voice, its tone and idiom, its
“dialect” pronunciation, were among the
things that seemed literally “real” to
Mollie Clemens, Mark’s sister-in-law.
Huck’s voice in the finished novel seems
so natural that it almost appears to have
been “found” or simply remembered and
copied down.
 From
the opening
sentence to the
last, Huck talks to
us, and we share
his thoughts and
feelings, and seem
to share his very
experience.
 “Color” or
local
flavor in Huck Finn:
 Customs: Jim’s
superstitions.
 Dress: How the duke
and king are dressed
in various parts of the
story.
 Speech: Huck’s and
Jimi’s dialects.
 Speaking
of Jim’s dialect:
 It’s hard to decode at times: Take your
time reading it.
 In the end, it’s not that different from
Huck’s.
 Twain seems to be saying it is not our
innate abilities, but rather our societal
exposure and opportunities, that often
dictate how we express ourselves.




A picaresque novel:
Involves clever rogues or
adventurers.
A genre of generally satiric
prose fiction that depicts in
realistic, often humorous
detail, the adventures of a
roguish hero of low social
degree living by his or her
wits in a corrupt society.
Picaresque is a Spanish
word; the most famous
novel of this type is Don
Quixote by Cervantes, a
Spanish writer.
 These
are similar to
an action-adventure
TV series in which a
main character
survives by his wits,
usually engaging in
violence and often
breaking the law to
get things done.
 This
character is
admirable because of
bravery, quick
thinking, or strength.
 Yet, they are not
characters parents
want their children to
emulate: which is one
of the criticisms of
Huck Finn.
 Twain “broke
the
mold” by making
Huck the narrator;
telling the story in
Huck’s language and
point of view; and
perhaps most
picaresque, making
Huck likeable as our
hero.




Huck possesses many of
the qualities of a
picaresque hero.
He is an outcast from
society.
He sees himself as a
sinner by society’s code
for helping Jim escape.
He shows the reader the
false values of Southern
United States society
while keeping the
readers’ sympathy on his
side.
 Twain
does this by
“talking over” Huck’s
head to the reader:
We understand
things that Huck does
not, which lets us
know how Twain
wants us to feel.
Right from the start,
Twain has Huck
introduce himself in a
casual manner and
comment on the author
as someone who used
“stretchers.”
 Twain expects us to
see Tom Sawyer’s
adventures and gang
as young boy silliness,
even though Huck
doesn’t.

Other examples:
Pap’s complaints about
not getting any justice
from the government
when he has had “all
the anxiety and
expense” raising a
child.
 Pap berates a
government that allows
a black professor to
vote right along with a
white man like Pap.





“Everybody was sorry
[Emmeline Grangerford]
died…but I reckon, that
with her disposition, she
was having a better time in
the graveyard.”
Huck is naïve and means
this statement literally:
Emmeline doted on death
and therefore would
presumbably be happiest
among the dead.
Twain, in contrast, is clearly
laughing at the poetic
justice of Emmeline’s early
death.


“Buck said [Emmeline]
could rattle off poetry
like nothing. She didn’t
ever have to stop to
think.”
Huck’s tone is one of
admiration for
Emmeline’s ability. Twain
knows that one cannot
“rattle off” good poetry
and that “stopping to
think” is necessary; he is
laughing at Emmeline’s
verse-writing abilities.

“Next Sunday we all went
to church…The men took
their guns along…It was
pretty ornery preaching
– all about brotherly love,
and such-like
tiresomeness; but
everybody said it was a
good sermon, and they
all talked it over going
home, and had such a
powerful lot to say about
faith, and good works…”



Huck is simply telling what
happened, his reaction to it, and
the reactions of the Grangerfords.
Twain is conscious of many
ironies:
• The men took their guns to
church to hear a sermon about
brotherly love.
• Although Huck found the
sermon tiresome and ornery,
he was the most civilized and
religious person in the
audience.
The butt of the criticism here is
not only the Grangerfords but
also the church, for it is implied
that the church is lacking in true
vitality.



“…There weren’t anybody
at the church, except
maybe a hog or two…If you
notice, most folks don’t go
to church only when
they’ve got to; but a hog is
different.”
Again, Huck mainly reports
the facts as he observes
them.
Twain, however, is clearly
implying that so far as
going to church is
concerned, hogs are more
faithful than human beings.




Conventions: Our assessment of
them depends on how we choose
to express individuality.
A student who expresses
individuality through
unconventional dress might
regard high school standards of
dress as a restriction of freedom.
A student who expresses
individuality in some other way
might not object to such
standards at all.
Which conventions are socially
necessary.? Which are merely an
attempt by some dominant social
group to impose its standards on
everyone?

In the mistaken belief
that the superficial
societal conventions of
his day are
synonymous with the
values of civilization,
Huck never realizes
that his basic integrity
and his compassion
reveal him as a truly
civilized human being.