Against Marx: Huck Finn Is About a Boy -- And Is Not a Coming-of-Age Novel
The character of Huck Finn is based upon the idea of the crucial inversion, which Twain develops at every instance of the novel. For example, in the beginning of the novel, Huck is meant to be civilized by Miss Watson -- but instead he is climbing out the window to play at being pirates with Tom. When Pap arrives, Huck is supposed to hand over the money that he won from the previous book -- but money does not mean anything to Huck, so it is in the hands off the Judge, who will not give to Pap. When Huck runs away from Pap, he teams up with Jim, the runaway slave -- and instead of turning Jim in to the authorities, he helps to hide him (even though there are moments of a "crisis" of conscience in which he thinks he is doing wrong but is actually doing right -- an instance of an inversion within an inversion). And even at the end of the novel, when Huck is supposed to be more mature and more in command of his surroundings (and therefore should easily be able to free Jim from the Phelps farm), he hands over control to Tom who has just arrived. Marx criticizes this ending as being unrealistic, considering what Huck has gone through and how he has come of age. But it is consistent with Twain's overall aim, which is to make Huck the embodiment of the crucial inversion -- an idea that means Huck always does the opposite of what he ought or of what we think he ought to do -- and usually he is right to do so. Therefore, the purpose of the following essay is to examine where and why Marx's argument against the novel fails.
While Marx sees the novel as a quest or as a bildungsroman, in which Huck...
Examining the difficult process that Huck has when he finally determines not to turn Jim in can be especially helpful in this. In addition, readers of this opinion can discuss the effects of Twain's own divergence from society when contemplating the ways in which his articulation of his nonstandard views into text affected society. Thus, while two sides clearly exist in this debate -- one stating that Twain's novel advocates
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn To dream of freedom is a sensational idea but experiencing freedom is as rare as the New Year eve among common days. While freedom is a great aspiration, it is not a dream that belongs to physical slaves alone. Huck and Jim; the characters painted by Mark Twin in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn depict that a person can long for freedom whether he belongs to a
Furious that his son had learned how to read and write, Pap considers that Huck wants to prove that he is smarter than his father. As a result, Huck receives several beatings and is kidnapped by Pap. During his stay on Jackson's island, Huck learns that Jim has a lot of knowledge from observing the nature and its laws, along with tons of superstitious beliefs: "Some young birds come along...
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. The Works Cited two sources in MLA format. Reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn For all voracious readers who have an insatiable thirst for serious, entertaining, enthralling and mature reading, popular names like William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens and Mark Twain are not only familiar but also all-time favorites of many. After The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain introduced another thought-provoking yet highly gripping
Huck Finn In Mark Twain's Huckeberry Finn, the title character and escaped slave Jim bond together in their mutual quest for freedom. Neither knows where they are headed, but they do know where they have been and what they are running from. Both have endured a different type of slavery. Jim escapes from the actual legally sanctioned and racialized form of slavery; whereas Huck Finn is running from an abusive father
Huckleberry Finn and What Makes an American What Makes Twain's Huckleberry Finn American? "Those canonic ideals -- self-government, equal opportunity, freedom of speech and association, a belief in progress, were first proclaimed during the era of the Revolution and the early republic and have developed more expansive meanings since then," these are the basic core ideals which make something truly American (Kazin & McCartin 1). The freedom to live as we want,
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