Are you a romantic or a
realist?
Explain your response.
Complete page 1 of your packet
• In 1885, Twain wrote in his notebook, “My
works are like water. The works of great
masters are like wine. But everyone drinks
water.”
The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn
Why the Controversy?
A FEW QUICK FACTS* ABOUT
HUCK:
• Required reading for 11th grade
• Huck Finn is the most taught novel and
most taught work of American literature
in American schools
• Sales surpass twenty million copies
• At least twenty-five different languages.
• 1891: Huck = “great American novel”
• 1900: Huck = admirable work
*Information for this handout was obtained from the following sources:
Brown, Robert B. “One Hundred Years of HUCK FINN.” American Heritage Magazine. 35.4 (June/ July 1984). AmericanHeritage.com. (20 Jan.
2008).
“Exploring the Controversy: The ‘N’ Word.” Huck Finn in Context: The Curriculum. Public Broadcasting Service Teacher’s Guide.
<www.pbs.org/wgbh/cultureshock/teachers/huck/section1_2.html> 19 Jan. 2008.
Fishkin, Shelley Fisher. “Teaching Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” Lecture. Summer Teacher’s Institute, Mark Twain House,
Hartford, CT. July 1995.
Despite the accolades…
– Initial reviews of the book are either
nonexistent or negative.
– 1885: What Robert Brown calls “one of the
great ironies of our literary history”—book
is banned in the home of Emerson and
Thoreau
Quick Historical Context
• 1808- Congress outlaws the importation of slaves
• 1820-Missouri Compromise allows for admission of
Missouri into the Union as a slave state
• 1850- The Compromise of 1850 includes fugitive
Slave Act, which requires all citizens to assist in the
return of fugitive slaves to their owners
• 1857-Dred Scott decision by US Supreme Court rules
that a slave’s residence in a free state or free
territory does not make him free
• 1861- Civil War begins
• 1863- Emancipation Proclamation issued by Lincoln
freeing “all slaves in areas still in rebellion”
• 1865- Lincoln assassinated; 13th amendment
abolishes slavery; Civil war ends.
Major Themes in the Novel
•
an emphasis on realism
•
a basic contempt for organized
society
•
a belief in the superiority of the
individual, particularly during youth
HUCK & TOM= REALISM vs
ROMANTICISM
• book written at the end of the Romantic
period (look at your timeline)
• Romantic= imagination, individualism,
creativity; Tom is optimistic and idealistic
and BUT he tends to follow the rules and “do
the right thing” according to Huck
• Realism= practical decisions and trouble
imagining gang events with TOM but HUCK
does like adventure so he does have some
romantic qualities
HUCK IS AN OUTCAST IN
SEARCH OF HIS IDENTITY
• Who does he live with?
– Widow Douglas and Miss Watson not his
own father.
• What happens when he doesn’t have
family to offer as “ransom”?
– almost kicked out of band of robbers
• Who does he admire?
– Tom (his YOUNGER friend) because he
has no one to look up to.
HUCK’s Internal conflict
• Society vs. Individual morals
• Miss Watson tries to teach Huck about
Moses but Huck “takes no stock in dead
people,” and looks to the future proving that
he acts by his own opinions rather than
society’s.
• Huck’s first RESOLUTION: decides to stop
praying b/c he didn’t get what he wanted.
Decides that helping others doesn’t help you
any and there is no reason to do it.
4 Major Points of Emphasis
•
•
reflection on the frontier (Huck escapes
society)
the importance of the river (symbolizes 2
things)
– byway for the hero to travel (not a road, a
river)
– a security device (provides a haven from the
trouble they face in the towns)
•
•
the theme of rebirth
Twain’s realistic appraisal of man
So, what’s wrong with Huck?
• Initial criticisms center on gentility.
• More recent anti-Huck movements
focus on racial issues:
– the treatment of Jim in the novel, the
presence of the word “nigger” (213 times,
to be exact)
– perceived ambiguity in both Huck’s and
Twain’s attitudes toward AfricanAmericans.
How do we handle these hot
topics?
• Read the novel with an understanding that
“Twain’s consciousness and awareness is
larger than that of any of the characters in
the novel, including Huck.” In other words,
analyze Huck’s words carefully in order to
hear Twain’s own perspective peeking
through. Do not make the age-old mistake of
confusing author and narrator!
• How does this change our perception?
Narrator
• Huck Finn or Mark Twain?
• HUCK! Do not confuse the two. Huck is
ignorant and innocent, Mark Twain, the
author is very aware.
How do we handle these hot
topics?
– Consider the fact that in 1885—the year of
Huck’s American debut—Twain writes a
letter to Yale Law School, requesting to
pay the tuition of one of the first black
students. Twain claims, “We have ground
the manhood out of them, and the shame
is ours, not theirs, & we should pay for it.”
– What does this tell us?
HUCK Vs. TWAIN
• Huck is too innocent and ignorant to
understand what’s wrong with his society
and what’s right about his own rebellious
behavior.
• Twain and Huck do NOT share the same
voice. Twain teaches lessons through Huck.
You have to look beneath the surface.
• Twain had come to believe not only that
slavery was a horrendous wrong, but that
white Americans owed black Americans
some form of reparations for it. That is one of
the lessons he teaches
How do we handle these hot
topics?
• Remember that Twain is a Realist. He
wants to get away from the genteel,
Romantic, British-style novel. He wants his
story to be distinctly American, rugged,
earthy, bold, and even messy. He could
use the elision “n—” instead of the word
“nigger,” but he doesn’t. WHY?
– Realism
– Put the issue of prejudice on the table
PAP: Symbol of EVIL and
CORRUPTION
–
Greedy
•
–
Child abuser
•
–
Racist—he kidnaps his own son! Just because
he wants the $6,000 (that’s love for ya)
Beats Huck. Twain loved children and anyone
who was not nice to children was ridiculed in
his books.
Racist
•
•
Pap is angry about a black man going to
school.
So why would Pap act this way?
–
–
–
He’s JEALOUS!
Alcoholic
Criminal
•
JIM—The REAL hero of the
novel
He seems gullible but remember, the story is being told
As you continue to read,
Jim breaks free from the stereotype
look
Jim
the
hero
of LEE’s Hat
uses theat
incident
withas
the hat
to gain
fame!—SPIKE
Scenenovel.
by Ralph Wiley
(African at
American
Screen
writer
and
the
Look
him
as
the
satirist)
•
“ part of Twain'sof
genius
in this bookLook
is letting the reader see
protector
Huck.
things that Huck doesn't see, making Huck an endearing and
engaging but ultimately unreliable narrator. In Wiley's script, the
beyond
Huck
says
and
juxtapositionwhat
of the visual
message the
viewer gets,
on the one
hand, and the comically limited version of that reality that Huck
see
whoonhe
really
(theJim
narrator)for
communicates,
the other,
capturedis.
that dramatic
by a KID (12 years old!!!!!!)
–
–
irony.”
–
–
P. 18 uses a nasty hairball to make money—only works
w/money!
TO UNDERSTAND JIM you must read between the lines.
Why does Huck need a Father
Figure?
Who can become the Father
Figure?
Other thoughts on the “n”
word…
 Writer David Bradley: “Language hurts
people, reality hurts people. . . . If the
word ‘nigger’ did not have meaning
today we wouldn’t care that it was in
[Huck Finn]. The hurt is that it still does
have meaning.”
 The old adage “sticks and stones might
break my bones…”
Other thoughts on the “n”
word…
 Unlike other words or phrases that
have become negative through
association (i.e. Buchenwald or 9-11),
“nigger” has always been used
pejoratively.
Other thoughts on the “n”
word…
• Consider Harlem Renaissance poet Countee Cullen’s
“Incident”:
Once riding in old Baltimore,
Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me.
Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His tongue, and called me, "Nigger."
I saw the whole of Baltimore
From May until December;
Of all the things that happened there
That's all that I remember.
Tough questions:
Write these down, answer with
caution and we’ll discuss them.
• In general, who can or can’t say the
word?
• Is the use of the word in the classroom
different from outside the classroom?
• Is it different to read it in a text by an
African-American? Why or why not?
• Does the use of the word in a “classic”
work give it validity elsewhere?