Huckleberry Finn
Mark Twain
The Novel
A. Immediate Success
Despite financial crisis of post Civil War
Took years to write, with long interruptions
Written for adults, popular with children
Became a classic
Published in at least 27 languages
B. Banning the Book
Attacked for its –
Indecency
Racism
Bigotry
History leading up to
Huck Finn
Missouri wanted into the Union 1818
The country had grown from 13 colonies/states
to 22.
There were 11 slave states and 11 free states.
Both factions had equal representation in the
Senate. The House had more representatives
(105 votes to 81) because the free states had
more population.
New York Representative James
Tallmadge . . .
Proposed an amendment to ban slavery in
Missouri even though there were more than
2,000 slaves living there.
The country was again confronted with the
volatile issue of the spread of slavery into new
territories and states.
"How long will the desire for wealth render us
blind to the sin of holding both the bodies and
souls of our fellow men in chains?"
Asked Representative Livermore from New
Hampshire.
200 years of slavery
The South's economy was dependent upon
black slavery, and 200 years of living with the
“peculiar institution” had made it an integral
part of Southern life and culture. The South
demanded that the North recognize its right
to have slaves as secured in the Constitution.
Henry Clay – ‘the great pacifier’
Maine also wanted into the Union. Clay reached
a compromise (The Missouri Compromise)
and admitted Missouri as a slave state and
Maine a free state, thus delaying the
inevitable conflict.
The balance of power in Congress was
maintained.
The Missouri Compromise of 1820
As states were accepted into the Union a fear
arose over the balance of power–
Who would have more power in the Senate –
Slave states or free states?
b. Missouri Compromise Repealed in
1854
The Missouri Compromise was
repealed by the 1854 KansasNebraska Act and declared
unconstitutional in the 1857 Dred
Scott decision.
c. Dred-Scott Decision 1857
all blacks -- slaves as well
as free -- were not and
could never become
citizens of the United
States.
Supreme Court Justice
Roger B. Taney
News article from
1857
A free booklet, presenting
the
Historical”
“Legal”
and “physical” differences
between the negro and
white forcibly presented
Dred Scott (1799-1858)
The Supreme Court ruled
seven to two that no
person of African
ancestry could claim
citizenship.
Case closed!
Justice Taney’s position:
The framers of the Constitution, he wrote,
believed that blacks "had no rights which the
white man was bound to respect; and that the
negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to
slavery for his benefit. He was bought and sold
and treated as an ordinary article of
merchandise and traffic, whenever profit
could be made by it."
Continued . . .
Referring to the language in the Declaration of
Independence that includes the phrase, "all
men are created equal," Taney reasoned that
"it is too clear for dispute, that the enslaved
African race were not intended to be included,
and formed no part of the people who framed
and adopted this declaration. . . ."
Frederick Douglass commented:
"my hopes were never
brighter than now."
For Douglass, the decision
would bring slavery to
the attention of the
nation and was a step
toward slavery's
ultimate destruction.
d. Lincoln’s House Divided Speech
"A house divided against
itself cannot stand,"
Courageous but not P.C. in
1858 from a newby
senator!
Lincoln’s speech 1858
“Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Convention. If we
could first know where we are, and whither we are
tending, we could then better judge what to do, and
how to do it.
We are now far into the fifth year, since a policy was
initiated, with the avowed object, and confident
promise, of putting an end to slavery agitation.
Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not
only, not ceased, but has constantly augmented.
In my opinion, it will not cease, until a crisis shall have
been reached, and passed.
Matthew 12:25
"A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
Lincoln continues . . .
“I believe this government cannot endure,
permanently half slave and half free.
I do not expect the Union to be dissolved -- I do
not expect the house to fall -- but I do expect
it will cease to be divided.
It will become all one thing or all the other.”
A moderate becomes firmly grounded
Stephen Douglas would twist Lincoln's meaning
and paint him as a warmonger and radical
abolitionist. But as part of Lincoln's legacy, the
House Divided Speech marked the point at
which Abraham Lincoln, local politician, firmly
planted his stake in the ground on a highlycharged national issue.
The 16th President
Abraham Lincoln
Feb. 12, 1809 to April 15th, 1865
Elected in 1860, reelected in 1864
The Civil War
1861 - 1865
Lincoln
Assassinated
April 15th, 1865
<><><><>
Image from
Harper’s Weekly
April 1865
Lincoln at Ford’s Theater
14th amendment (1867)
Passed to give freed slaves citizenship and civil
liberties. Most southern states refused to
ratify this amendment so it was imposed by
further legislation. The 1867 Reconstruction
Act allowed readmission to the Union by
southern states after they ratified the 14th
Amendment.
C. The Setting of Huck Finn –
The Antebellum South
The story is set in 1852 in antebellum (pre war)
Missouri
Twain lives in the Post-war era of Reconstruction
Rebuilding the nation
The South rejects integration
a. Jim Crow Laws
Post Civil War
Reconstruction
enforced integration –
The Jim Crow Laws
stripped away this
forced integration
“We’ll make you
integrate!”
“No, you can’t!”
a. Jim Crow Laws
A.M.E. Church
In Philadelphia in 1816
African-Americans
formed a new Wesleyan
denomination, The
African Methodist
Episcopal Church
The A.M.E. . .
Launched a major
missionary effort after
the war and was a
leading source of
resistance to Jim Crow
Laws.
a. Jim Crow Laws
No person or corporation
shall require any white
female nurse to nurse in
wards or rooms in
hospitals, either public
or private, in which
negro men are placed.
Alabama
a. Jim Crow Laws
The schools for white
children and the
schools for negro
children shall be
conducted separately.
Florida
a. Jim Crow Laws
It shall be unlawful to conduct a
restaurant or other place for
the serving of food in the city,
at which white and colored
people are served in the same
room, unless such white and
colored persons are effectually
separated by a solid partition
extending from the floor
upward to a distance of seven
feet or higher, and unless a
separate entrance from the
street is provided for each
compartment.
Alabama
II. The Author
Samuel Clemens
1835-1910
Mark Twain
Twain’s Family
A. Hannibal, the model for St.
Petersburg
St. Petersburg
The fictional town where
Huckleberry Finn begins
B. Missouri
A slave state
In Missouri, most slaves worked as domestic
servants, rather than on the large plantations
that most slaves experienced further south.
Clemens’ family owned slaves. This domesticstyle slavery is what Twain describes in
Huckleberry Finn, even when the action occurs
in the deep South.
The river
The Mississippi River is the perfect plot element!
The story progresses from one adventure to
another as the characters move further down
river
C. Twain will use his characters, and
humor, to make a point
Twain uses satire to expose the social ills of his
day.
He uses the vernacular of an unschooled boy
and an ignorant-yet-wise slave to make fun of
religious hypocrites – especially those who
support oppression of African-Americans!
An important note from the author . . .
Notice
“PERSONS attempting to find a motive in this
narrative will be prosecuted; persons
attempting to find a moral in it will be
banished; persons attempting to find a plot in
it will be shot.
BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR
Per G.G., CHIEF OF ORDNANCE”
Twain is using irony, saying one
thing but meaning the opposite
of its literal definition.
He is using this irony humorously,
covering this declaration of the
book's seriousness in a joke.
III. The Characters
The two most
important
characters
JIM
HUCK
A. Huckleberry Finn
•
•
•
•
The protagonist of the novel
The narrator of the novel
A classic “Noble Savage’ character
Huck’s society was hypocritical, unjust, blind,
and ignorant
• This is the statement Samuel Clemens is
making to the world through satire. The
negative aspects of Huck’s character come
from his exposure to civilization.
2. Huck’s Conflict
Between what society says is right and what his
moral conscience says is right
Twain uses an ignorant boy to make his point –
the world is wrong!
B. JIM
• An escaped slave
• Probably the best developed character in the
novel
• The best father figure in the book
C. The Duke and Dauphin
Two criminals who take advantage of Huck
The Duke of Bridgewater (the Dauphin will call him
‘Bilgewater’)
"Dauphin" was the title given to heirs to the French
throne.
The Dauphin, son of Louis XVI, the executed French
king. The Dauphin is called “the king”
“Tar and Feathers,” Ch. 33
Directions:
Cover the victim in hot tar oil
Apply feathers
The oil burns, cuts off oxygen to skin, removes
skin with it when it is peeled off (if the victim
is still alive)
The modern version
“Riding a Rail,” Ch. 33
The victim/s is placed on a rail and paraded
through and out of town. Townsmen stand on
either side so they don’t fall off.
The crotch is damaged or split to cause severe
injury so the person can never walk normally
again.
A tiny sub-plot
The Duke and King pose as heirs to an estate
and sell a family of slaves –
The mother is sent to New Orleans and her sons
are sent to Memphis
Making a point: even nice people sell their
slaves
D. Tom Sawyer
•
•
•
•
•
Huck’s very selfish, civilized friend
The protagonist of Tom Sawyer
Tom is a literary ‘foil’ to Huck Finn
Twain uses Tom to scorn literary romanticism
Tom insists on doing ‘right’ things that the
reader knows are wrong. Twain uses Tom’s
character to scorn civilization!
E. The Widow Douglas and Miss
Watson
• Two wealthy sisters
• Widow Douglas wants to civilize Huckleberry
• Miss Watson is a religious hypocrite
Twain uses these characters to scorn religious
hypocrisy and notions of proper society
F. Pap
Pap is the town drunk. He is illiterate, cruel, a
racist, and disgusting
Pap wants Huck’s money (for alcohol)
Pap is angry that Huck is getting educated
1. Pap Finn’s purpose in the novel
Twain uses irony: Pap believes Blacks
are incapable of intelligence and
should not vote.
Through Pap, Twain scorns the Jim
Crow Laws of the 1880s
G. The Grangerfords and the
Shepherdsons
Twain presents them as the best of society in
the slave states – thus making fun of the ‘best’
The Grangerfords are in a feud with the
Shepardsons, though no one can remember
the cause of the feud or see any real reason to
continue it.
Emmeline Grangerford
This deceased character had
morbid fascinations. She is
probably written in to poke
fun at author Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson
1830-1886
wrote about
death
Dying, by Emily Dickinson
I heard a fly buzz when I died;
The stillness round my form
Was like the stillness in the air
Between the heaves of storm.
H. The Phelps family
Aunt Sally, Uncle Silas, and their
children
Twain uses these characters to
make fun of bigotry towards
blacks
Definition of a ‘bigot’
Aunt Sally is a bigot! A bigot is a
person who is utterly intolerant
of any differing creed, belief, or
opinion.
IV. Literary Devices in
Huckleberry Finn
A. Use of Humor and Irony
1. Irony- saying one thing but meaning the
opposite of its literal definition.
2. The irony is used humorously to cover the
serious issues addressed in the book.
Irony for fun
Most of the ironic situations stem from Huck’s
youth and gullibility. An example of irony is
given when Tom tells Huck of his new
gang. Huck says, “But Tom Sawyer he hunted
me up and said he was going to start a band of
robbers, and I might join if I would go back to
the widow and be respectable.”
More irony
The gap between the thing or words expected
and the thing that actually happens, or is said,
creates humor when presented just right.
When the Widow says grace, Huckleberry views
it as "grumbling." Huck thinks the nice clothes
she gives him are stifling. He thinks Heaven is
dull and would prefer to go to Hell if his friend
Tom is there.
B. Stock Characters
1. The Widow Douglas and her sister, Miss
Watson
a) Represent society – what’s wrong with it!
They are artificial, Huck is sincere
b) Religion
They are hypocrites
Twain’s superstition and pessimism show
through clearly in Miss Watson
There Is not one sincere Christian in the book!
From The Bible According to Mark
Twain
“His own intellectual development from
the fundamentalist Presbyterianism of
the Hannibal Sunday school to a Deism
molded by Thomas Paine’s The Age of
Reason and later modified by the
evolutionary determinism of Darwin and
his followers places Mark Twain . . .
Cont.
In the mainstream of the nineteenth-century
conflict between science and religion. Hence,
these writings also form an important literary
reflection of that conflict, which in some
respects continues today.”
The Bible According to Mark Twain, p. xvi
“church” in Huck Finn
Tom Sawyer tells Huck all about angering genies
...
"Why, whoever rubs the lamp or the ring. They
belong to whoever rubs the lamp or the ring,
and they've got to do whatever he says. If he
tells them to build a palace forty miles long
out of di'monds, and fill it full of chewinggum, or whatever you want,
and fetch an emperor's daughter from
China for you to marry, they've got to
do it -- and they've got to do it
before sun-up next morning, too.
And more: they've got to waltz that
palace around over the country
wherever you want it, you
understand."
"Well," says I, "I think they are a pack of flatheads for not keeping the palace themselves
'stead of fooling them away like that. And
what's more -- if I was one of them I would
see a man in Jericho before I would drop my
business and come to him for the rubbing of
an old tin lamp."
"How you talk, Huck Finn. Why, you'd have to
come when he rubbed it, whether you wanted
to or not."
"What! and I as high as a tree and as
big as a church? All right, then; I
would come; but I lay I'd make that
man climb the highest tree there was
in the country."
"Shucks, it ain't no use to talk to you,
Huck Finn. You don't seem to know
anything, somehow -- perfect
saphead."
I thought all this over for two or
three days, and then I reckoned I
would see if there was anything in it.
I got an old tin lamp and an iron ring,
and went out in the woods and
rubbed and rubbed till I sweat like an
Injun, calculating to build a palace
and sell it; but it warn't no use, none
of the genies come.
So then I judged that all that stuff was
only just one of Tom Sawyer's lies. I
reckoned he believed in the A-rabs
and the elephants, but as for me I
think different. It had all the marks of
a Sunday-school.
“church” in Huck Finn cont.
So I slid out and slipped off up the road, and
there warn't anybody at the church, except
maybe a hog or two, for there warn't any lock
on the door, and hogs likes a puncheon floor
in summer-time because it's cool. If you
notice, most folks don't go to church only
when they've got to; but a hog is different.
C. Serve as Foils
A literary foil is “a character whose personality
and attitude is opposite the personality and
attitude of another character.”
Per Twain’s philosophy –
The hypocrisy of the sisters make Huck’s
naturalistic qualities seem better than the
qualities found in society
2. Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn
a) Foils
Tom’s romanticism acts as a foil for Huck’s
naturalism. The reader will prefer Huck’s
simplicity and sincerity. Huck makes Tom
seem more comical. Tom makes Huck seem
more practical.
3. Jim
a) As a foil to Huck
Huck is ignorant, immature, and inconsiderate.
Jim acts as a foil to Huck as he balances out
Huck’s bad qualities. Jim provides adult
wisdom, sincere humanity, and a voice of
reason to balance Huck’s immaturity,
inconsiderate nature, and thoughtlessness.
Jim continued
Jim’s story provides the plot! Jim
motivates the characters and
moves the action.
C. Narration
Huck is our narrator, in the dialect
of a young southern boy.
V. The Theme of Huckleberry Finn
A. Society tends to corrupt true morality,
freedom, and justice, which exist in nature.
Huck must follow his own conscience.
Society stifles your conscience
Society is corrupt
Twain doesn’t think you need religion to be
moral
B. Realism
In the beginning note, Twain tells us that his
characters will all speak in dialects – regional
or ethnic variants of English. We call this
‘vernacular.’ This makes the book more
believable. This is part of the story’s realism –
a non-romantic, or idealistic, picture of the
world.
C. Making a Statement with a Bad
Word
“Ni - - er”
This word is from a corrupt, racist
society. We need to remember
that Twain condemns slavery
(and this word) in his mockery of
civilization.
D. Poking fun at Romanticism
Through the character of Tom, Twain also pokes
fun at romantic (non-realistic) literature.
Tom insists that all his make-believe adventures
be conducted "by the book.“ Tom gets many
of his ideas from fiction. In particular, Tom
tries to imitate romantic (that is, not realistic)
novels. Twain scorns these romantic novels!
Tom Sawyer’s Gang (romanticism)
"Now, we'll start this band of robbers and call it
Tom Sawyer's Gang. Everybody that wants to
join has got to take an oath, and write his
name in blood."
Everybody was willing. So Tom got out a sheet
of paper that he had wrote the oath on, and
read it.
Continued . . .
It swore every boy to stick to the band, and
never tell any of the secrets; and if anybody
done anything to any boy in the band,
whichever boy was ordered to kill that person
and his family must do it, and he mustn't eat
and he mustn't sleep till he had killed them
and hacked a cross in their breasts,
Cont.
which was the sign of the band. And nobody
that didn't belong to the band could use that
mark, and if he did he must be sued; and if he
done it again he must be killed. And if
anybody that belonged to the band told the
secrets, he must have his throat cut, and then
have his carcass burnt up and the ashes
scattered all around,
Continued . . .
and his name blotted off of the list with blood
and never mentioned again by the gang, but
have a curse put on it and be forgot forever.
Everybody said it was a real beautiful oath,
and asked Tom if he got it out of his own head.
He said, some of it, but the rest was out of
pirate-books and robber-books, and every
gang that was high-toned had it.
Cont.
Some thought it would be good to kill the
families of boys that told the secrets. Tom said
it was a good idea, so he took a pencil and
wrote it in. Then Ben Rogers says:
"Here's Huck Finn, he hain't got no family;
what you going to do 'bout him?"
"Well, hain't he got a father?" says Tom
Sawyer.
Continued . . .
"Yes, he's got a father, but you can't never find
him these days. He used to lay drunk with the
hogs in the tanyard, but he hain't been seen in
these parts for a year or more."
They talked it over, and they was going to rule
me out, because they said every boy must
have a family or somebody to kill, or else it
wouldn't be fair and square for the others.
Continued . . .
Well, nobody could think of anything to do -everybody was stumped, and set still. I was
most ready to cry; but all at once I thought of
a way, and so I offered them Miss Watson -they could kill her. Everybody said:
"Oh, she'll do. That's all right. Huck can come
in."
Continued . . .
Then they all stuck a pin in their fingers to get
blood to sign with, and I made my mark on
the paper.
"Now," says Ben Rogers, "what's the line of
business of this Gang?"
"Nothing only robbery and murder," Tom said.
"But who are we going to rob? -- houses, or
cattle, or -- "
Cont.
"Stuff! stealing cattle and such things ain't
robbery; it's burglary," says Tom Sawyer. "We
ain't burglars. That ain't no sort of style. We
are highwaymen. We stop stages and carriages
on the road, with masks on, and kill the
people and take their watches and money."
"Must we always kill the people?"
Continued . . .
"Oh, certainly. It's best. Some authorities think
different, but mostly it's considered best to kill
them -- except some that you bring to the
cave here, and keep them till they're
ransomed."
"Ransomed? What's that?"
Cont.
"I don't know. But that's what they do. I've seen
it in books; and so of course that's what we've
got to do."
"But how can we do it if we don't know what it
is?"
"Why, blame it all, we've got to do it. Don't I
tell you it's in the books? Do you want to go to
doing different from what's in the books, and
get things all muddled up?"
VI. Black and White in 1885
(remember the novel is written in a
pre Civil War setting)
Although born and raised in Missouri,
Twain vehemently opposed slavery.
He witnessed the inhumane
treatment of blacks and openly
criticized the barbaric institution of
slavery.
In an 1885 letter sent to Francis
Wayland, dean of Yale University Law
School, which was publicized in the
New York Times, Twain sought
reparations for former slaves:
"We have ground the manhood out of them,
and the shame is ours, not theirs, and we
should pay for it."
<><><><>
Twain was an early pioneer in this movement as
the debate over compensating former slaves
continues to rage into the 21st Century.
A. Goodness and Badness, Stock Types
Despite Twain’s hatred of racism, in chapter four,
he allows Jim to tell us that Pap had two
angels on either side of him, one good and
one evil--a common literary convention
familiar to any cartoon fan. One angel was
black, one white. This would seem to be in
keeping with an even more common literary
convention:
. . . the identification of goodness with the color
white and badness with the color black.
This convention is exemplified in everyday
references to someone's "dark side."
B. Jim and Pap
When describing Pap, Twains refers to Pap's skin
as "a white to make a body sick, a white to
make a body's flesh crawl."
Throughout the novel, the most decent, the
most moral character, is Jim. Jim is the best
friend figure and the best father figure.
Twain purposely uses opposite expectations to
make his point!
In Conclusion: Twain’s Realism
Huck learns to break away from society’s norms
Huck develops his own conscience
Huck has a natural sense of right and wrong:
one who is alienated from society can figure
out right and wrong more easily!
Society teaches that blacks are inferior and
slavery is right. Huck discovers the opposite.
The climax of the story
Dover copy pages 161-62
Huck writes a letter to Miss Watson. He will tell
her where Jim is. His conscience pricks him.
Huck decides, “All right then, I'll go to hell!“
He resolves to "steal Jim out of slavery."
This is the climax of the story.