The Historical and
Cultural Context of
Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn
by Mark Twain
Historical Context of
Huckleberry Finn
Set in pre-Civil War years
40-50 years before 1885
publication
Slavery ended, but racism still
rampant (Jim Crow Laws)
Mark Twain underwent
moral transformation…
 He believed slavery was
wrong and white
Americans owed black
Americans reparations
th
19
CENTURY
The Civil War
Industrial Revolution
Extreme contrasts
between rich and poor
Literary and Artistic Movements:
REALISM and REGIONALISM
1. Attack upon Romantics and
Transcendentalists
 pragmatic, democratic,
and experimental
Responsibly moral – goal
was to report the world
with HONESTY
2. Drew subject matter
from “our experience”
Focused on the
common, the
average, the probable
3. Character and Setting
more important than Plot
(Local Color Movement)
Focused on the norm
of daily experience
Dialect, geography,
regional manners
HUCKLEBERRY FINN is a…
COMING-OF-AGE NOVEL: moral
growth of a comic character in an
physically beautiful yet morally
repugnant setting
and a…
PICARESQUE NOVEL: follows the
adventures of a roguish hero
• episodic: Mississippi River
• flight to freedom vs. river
flowing toward Deep South
(slave territory)
th
19
century Americans are
self-conscious…
They want to know what
their new country looks
like, and how the varied
races of growing
population live and talk
th
19
century Firsts…
First mappings of the West
First transcontinental
railroad
First Photography
Photography as a
social mirror…
The invention ignited an
artistic and scientific frenzy…
Best portrait makers could
bring out the very human
essence of a subject…
The advantages of
photography: immediacy,
reliable representation, low
cost, etc…
Massive social changes
reflected in literature &
photography.
1861-65 - Mathew Brady,
Alexander Gardner: honest
photographic record of the
Civil War.
Photography, like literary
Realism & Regionalism
showed TRUTH.
“Something new
happened in Huck Finn
that had never happened in
American literature
before. It was a book…that
served as a Declaration of
Independence from the
genteel English novel…
…[It] allowed a different kind
of writing to happen: a clean,
crisp, no-nonsense, earthly
vernacular…it was a book that
talked. Huck’s voice,
combined with Twain’s satiric
genius, changed the shape of
fiction in America, and
African-American voices had a
great deal to do with making it
what it was.”
- Dr. Shelley Fishkin, 1995
Comparing VIEWPOINTS OF SLAVERY in…
Photograph
Huckleberry Finn
•
#1
"Slave Boy
Brought to
Waterbury
from Bucks
Hill by Aunt
Ella Johnson's
Second
Husband
(Whelan)"
Ninth-plate
ambrotype,
circa 1855
http://www.ph
otographymus
eum.com/slave
boylg.html
The American
Photography
Museum, Inc.
#2
"Our Little
Pedlars"
Quarter-plate
ambrotype, circa
1855-1860
http://www.phot
ographymuseum
.com/pedlarslg.h
tml
The American
Photography
Museum, Inc.
#3
W. Queen (Philadelphia),
Publisher or Retailer:
"The Darkey's Vanity"
Tinted Albumen
Stereograph circa 1860
http://www.photography
museum.com/vanitylg.ht
ml
The American
Photography Museum,
Inc.
#4
Cumberland Landing, Virginia,
Group of "contrabands" at Foller's house, May 14, 1862
http://memory.loc.gov/learn/lessons/psources/slavpho2.html
#5
Unidentified Photographer:
Civil War Soldiers with a "Contraband"
Albumen carte de visite, circa 1863
http://www.photographymuseum.com
/contrabl.html
The American Photography Museum, Inc.
#6
E. & H. T. Anthony &
Co. (New York),
Publishers:
"Bombproof Quarters of
Maj. Strong, at Dutch
Gap, 16th N. Y. Artillery"
Albumen Stereograph
circa 1864
http://www.photography
museum.com/majstrong.
html
The American
Photography Museum,
Inc.
Unidentified Photographer:
Ten Children
Cyanotype, circa 1898
http://www.photographymuseum.com/cyanokidslg.html
The American Photography Museum, Inc.
#7
#8
Palmer (Tuskegee, Alabama)
Instructor & Three Graduates with Diplomas and Geraniums
Gelatine-Silver Print, circa 1905
http://www.photographymuseum.com/tuskeglg.html
The American Photography Museum, Inc.
Works Cited
The American Photography Museum, Inc. Virtual Exhibit: “The Face of Slavery and Other Early
Images of African Americans.” (2004). http://www.photography-museum.com/faceof.html
Cross, J.M. . “Nineteenth-Century Photography: A Timeline.” The Victorian Web. (2001).
http://www.victorianweb.org/photos/chron.html
Reuben, Paul P. “Chapter 5: Late Nineteenth Century: American Realism - A Brief Introduction.”
PAL: Perspectives in American Literature: A Research and Reference Guide - An Ongoing
Project.(2003). http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap5/5intro.html
Rubio, Juan Carlos. (Curator). “Portraits and Landscapes in Nineteenth Century Photography. Private
Collections of Madrid.” Fundacion Telefonico. (2001).
http://www.fundacion.telefonica.com/at/photoes/efotoxix.html