Intro to Realism &
Huck Finn
A New Era: Realism
 Outgrowth of the Civil War.
 Cannot romanticize the horrors of war.
 Grim reality forces people to look at what is
happening.
 Concerned with the way things actually
are.
 Drawn to ordinary life
 “Real People,” not heroes
Literature of the Era
 Regionalism – Trying to capture the
essence of a particular location
 Dialects – Patterns of speech central to a
location
 Words and Style
 Dialogue tries to capture the way people
really speak
Satire
 Satire = Writing style in which the author
subtly makes fun of characters and
society through their own ignorance.
 Characters are not aware of the jokes.
 Sometimes causes confusion:
 Can be difficult to detect as a reader.
Mark Twain
 Birth Name: Samuel Clemens. Born in
Missouri in 1835.
 As a young man, served briefly in the
Confederate Army
 Apprenticed on a steamboat – provides
expertise for The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn
Huck Finn Key Facts
 Characters
 Huck – 13. Uncivilized.
 Tom Sawyer – Huck’s best friend.
Adventurous.
 Widow Douglas & Miss Watson – Huck’s
adopted caregivers
 Jim – Adult slave owned by Miss Watson
 Setting –Missouri. Pre-Civil War
Huck Finn
“All modern American literature comes from
one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry
Finn.”
Ernest Hemingway
“The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark
Twain, is the most grotesque example of
racist trash ever written.”
John H. Wallace
The Controversy
 Huck Finn has been banned in hundreds
of schools, while praised as a classic in
hundreds of others.
 Controversy stems over racism in the novel.
 N-word used 213 times
 In addition to this slur, many instances of
disparaging comments toward AfricanAmericans.
Key Questions
 Essential questions of this text:
 How can an individual break free against society?
 What racial problems do we see today in America?
How can we address them?