Huckleberry Finn, pt I

1
Huckleberry Finn, pt I

• 29 March 2005
• EN3231, Week 11

2
Initial reactions to this novel?

• A good read?
• Strengths?
• Weaknesses or special difficulties?
• How does it stack up against other texts in the
  course?
• Continuation of same themesor fresh departure?

3
Overview of next two classes

• Part I
• Setting, regionalism
• Plot, design, Twains problem
• Realism, satire, irony
• Characters and conflicts
• Part II
• Language, dialect, controversy
• Race representation Jim (and Huck)
• Varieties of individualism (the Col.)
• Freedom vs morality (answerability) dilemma

4
Some resources

• Please go to this page if you get mixed up by
  numerous characters or plot twists
• Some Resources

5
Setting place, time, history

• SCENE The Mississippi Valley
• TIME Forty to Fifty Years Ago
• Map, or see this page
• 1885-40 or 50 1835-45
• Civil War 1861-65
• Emancipation Proclamation 1863
• The essential reason for the growing opposition
  to Reconstructionwas the fact that southern
  whites could not accept the idea of former slaves
  voting and holding office or the egalitarian
  policies adopted by the new governments. Eric
  Foner, Reconstruction in The Readers Companion
  to American History, 920.

6
Plot

• 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.
• Plot boy is sivilized boy runs away boy
  makes big decision anti-climax?
• 1-15 Huck in St. Petersburg
• 16-31 feud, Boggs/Sherburn, the King and Duke
• 32-43 the Phelps farm section. Purpose of front
  matter?
• Episodic organizationcontrast with TSL.
  Controversy over final third.

7
Realism, Satire, Irony

• REALISM
• concern for fact or reality and rejection of the
  impractical and visionary
• fidelity in art and literature to nature or to
  real life and to accurate representation without
  idealization
• In contrast to what? Twain makes fun of
  (Chivalric) romanticism. NB references to
  Quixote in early chapters of HF and Twains
  attack on Cooper/Scott.
• Realism vs Naturalism

8
Character and Conflict

• Various uses of character
• Huck as ironic Charley McCarthy dummy
• Jim as minstrel-show figure

9
Huck

• Huck tells the story Twain creates Huck the
  representation is contextualized
• Ellison criticized the critics of the novel "one
  also has to look at the teller of the tale, and
  realize that you are getting a black man, an
  adult, seen through the condescending eyes --
  partially -- of a young white boy.
• Hucks naiveté is not Twains

10
Socratic Irony

• H.F. is a classic naïve hero.
• The philosopher Socrates usually dissembles by
  assuming a pose of ignorance, an eagerness to be
  instructed, and a modest readiness to entertain
  opinions proposed by others although these, upon
  his continued questioning, always turn out to be
  ill-grounded or to lead to absurd consequences
  (Abrams, 136).

11
Representations of Jim

• Various illustrations
• Authorial intention vs. reception and
  interpretation
• The meaning of Twains book is not solely
  determined by Twains words
• SO how do we understand Twains representation
  of Jim?

12
Break

• Anyone going for tea?

13
Exercise

• Two questions
• Is Huck a moral witness to America circa 1845?
  (Or 1885?)
• Is Mark Twains representation of Jim racially
  demeaning?

14
Next week

• Please be ready to discuss these questions
• 1. There is a great deal of role-playing and
  identity shifting in Huckleberry Finn, and in
  Chapter 17 Huck, calling himself George
  Jackson, pretends to be someone he is not. In
  this chapter he also criticizes various kinds of
  literature and quotes one poem at length. Write
  an essay in which you explain how Twain uses the
  narrative situation to satirize 19th-Century
  sentimentality.
• 2. Chapter 18 begins with a this sentence Col.
  Grangerford was a gentleman, you see. Is this
  Mark Twains view, our (probable) view, or just
  Hucks? Write an essay in which you explain what
  Twain is doing when he has Huckleberry Finn
  describe Col. Grangerford and narrate the feud
  with the Shepherdsons
• 3. In Chapter 31 Huck says, on one page, that
  You cant pray a lie, but on the next page he
  says All right then, Ill go to hell. Is there
  a contradiction between these two expressed
  beliefs? With reference to Hucks particular
  crisis in Chapter 31, write an essay in which you
  explain Twains representations of religious
  belief in Huckleberry Finn.
• 4. In Chapter 32 an engine explodes, causing
  Aunt Sally to ask Anybody hurt? Huck answers
  No Mm. Killed a nigger. Consider this exchange
  in context and write an essay in which you
  explain what it reveals about the two characters.