The Adventures
of
Huckleberry Finn
By
Mark Twain
The name Mississippi roughly
translated from Native American
folklore means "Father of Waters."
The translation comes from the
Chippewa words "mici zibi"
meaning "great river" or "gathering
in of all the waters" and the
Algonquin word "Messipi".
The river’s approximate length at 2,350 miles.
Introduction:
Mark Twain described the major theme of The
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as
“A sound heart and a deformed conscience come
into collision and conscience suffers defeat.”
•“A sound heart” is a good heart.
•“A deformed conscience” is a conscience influenced
by the laws of society and a sense of duty toward
those laws.
Themes:
• Death and rebirth
• Coming of age (Huck’s rite of passage) – the
hero’s journey
• The nature and significance of human traits
such as gullibility, ignorance, & innocence
• Loneliness and isolation; the quest for freedom,
the role of women and the concept of family
Conflicts:
Major Conflict: Huck’s struggle
with his “deformed conscience.”
The novel also includes the
following conflicts which are
common to many other pieces of
literature:
• The conflict between the individual and
society (man vs. society)
• The conflict between the emotional and the
rational (Romanticism vs. Realism)
• Appearance vs. Reality (hypocrisy and
phoniness)
• Ignorance vs. Enlightenment (Superstition as
a method of explaining and understanding)
• Tolerance vs. prejudice
• Man’s inhumanity to man (regardless of race)
Major Symbol: The River
In Huck Finn, the river symbolizes life’s
journey, and it becomes symbolic of Huck’s
natural virtue. The current determines the
direction of the raft as well as Huck’s life.
There is a major contrast between life on
the river and life on the shore because life
on the river (uncivilized) is peaceful and
easy, yet not totally without danger;
however, life on the shore (civilized) can be
cruel, authoritarian, hypocritical, and
reflective of the “Damned Human Race.”
Life on the raft is paradoxical. Even though
they are confined to a small space on the
raft, Huck and Jim experience greater
freedom on the raft (mrgunnar.net).
Satire:
At the beginning of this unit, we discussed read and
discussed the essay, “The Damned Human Race,” in
which Twain utilizes satire to reveal human follies.
Satire is a style of writing using humor and hyperbole
to ridicule some aspect of human behavior.
The purpose of satire is to call attention to flawed
human behavior or to initiate change.
In Huck Finn Twain satirizes the following human
behaviors:
Greed, racism, Southern chivalry and aristocracy,
human nature, lack of altruism, hypocrisy,
romanticism, “religious” people (not religion),
innocence, etc. (mrgunnar.net).
Point of view: ____________
Style: __________________
He was most fifty, and he
looked it. His hair was long and
tangled and greasy, and hung down,
and you could see his eyes shining
through like he was behind vines. It
was all black, no gray; so was his long,
mixed-up whiskers. There warn't no
color in his face, where his face
showed; it was white; not like another
man's white, but a white to make a
body sick, a white to make a body's
flesh crawl -- a tree-toad white, a fishbelly white. As for his clothes -- just
rags, that was all. He had one ankle
resting on t'other knee; the boot on
that foot was busted, and two of his
toes stuck through, and he worked
them now and then. His hat was laying
on the floor -- an old black slouch with
the top caved in, like a lid.
Her sister, Miss Watson, a tolerable slim old maid, with
goggles on, had just come to live with her, and took a set at
me now with a spelling-book. She worked me middling hard
for about an hour, and then the widow made her ease up. I
couldn't stood it much longer. Then for an hour it was
deadly dull, and I was fidgety. Miss Watson would say,
"Don't put your feet up there, Huckleberry;" and "Don't
scrunch up like that, Huckleberry -- set up straight;" and
pretty soon she would say, "Don't gap and stretch like that,
Huckleberry -- why don't you try to behave?" Then she told
me all about the bad place, and I said I wished I was there.
She got mad then, but I didn't mean no harm. All I wanted
was to go somewheres; all I wanted was a change, I warn't
particular. She said it was wicked to say what I said; said
she wouldn't say it for the whole world; she was going to
live so as to go to the good place. Well, I couldn't see no
advantage in going where she was going, so I made up my
mind I wouldn't try for it. But I never said so, because it
would only make trouble, and wouldn't do no good.
Now she had got a start, and she went on and told me all
about the good place. She said all a body would have to do
there was to go around all day long with a harp and sing,
forever and ever. So I didn't think much of it. But I never
said so. I asked her if she reckoned Tom Sawyer would go
there, and she said not by a considerable sight. I was glad
about that, because I wanted him and me to be together.
Our papers have one
peculiarity--it is American-their irreverence . . . They are
irreverent toward pretty much
everything, but where they
laugh one good king to death,
they laugh a thousand cruel
and infamous shams and
superstitions into the grave,
and the account is squared.
Irreverence is the champion of
liberty and its only sure
defense.
-Mark Twain's Notebook