Huckleberry Finn and How to Read Literature like a Professor
Four aspects of the Quest: Mark Twain's the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The quester: Huckleberry Finn must escape a stultifying life at the Widow Douglas's and the wrath of his drunken father Pap. Huckleberry is joined by the runaway slave Jim, who is also trying to escape being sold 'down South' by Miss Watson, the Widow Douglas' sister.
A place to go: The two questers must head up the Mississippi, to the North (Jim states he wants to go to Illinois) where Huckleberry can be free of civilizing influences and Jim can be a free man.
A stated reason to go there: If Huck does not escape then Huck will remain under the thumb of the Widow and Jim will be sold to cruel masters in the deep South.
Challenges and trials: Huckleberry and Jim must survive the risks posed by getting involved with the warring clans of the Grangerfords and the Shepherdsons, the pursuit of the lawmen who believe that Jim may have murdered Huck, and the antics of two fake Shakespearean charlatans.
The real reason to go: Self-knowledge about Huckleberry and Jim's roles in their society. Huckleberry has always existed on the margins of society, because of his class. Even at the beginning of the novel he intuitively senses the falseness of piety and middle-class morality, embodied by the religious drawings of the bloodthirsty Grangerford's dead daughter. Unlike the civilized Miss Watson, Huck instinctively treats Jim like an equal, and his only qualms about allowing Jim to seek freedom come from socially learned ideas about race. Huck's boyhood idol Tom Sawyer behaves cruelly to Jim and Tom uses Jim at the end of the novel to play a childhood prank. Huckleberry learns that freedom is only possible on a raft, away from civilization. This is why, at the end of the novel, he vows to head for uncharted territories, and to never write again. Jim learns the true meaning of friendship as well as gains his freedom.
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,
" (Henry James, p.45) Winterbourne knew that Daisy was basically a very innocent person and it was her innocence that was responsible for her disposition. Huck Finn was also guided by his innocent and generous heart. He tries to seek answers to moral issues through his own heart than any ill-guided dictates of the society. The most enlightening moment for him comes when he is torn between returning Jim to Miss
The slave economics of the plantation system do as well: the economics of the South explain why being a personal slave of a woman like Miss Watson in a more genteel area of the country is not as 'bad' as being a plantation slave in the deep South. The prospect of being sold further down South is what makes Jim so fearful. The politics of a corrupt political system
Asher, Emma, Huck Finn, they all have a mentor at some point in their lives. Huck is guided by Jim, who although described like a child who needs constant guidance (like all the slaves were thought to be in that time), is often sounding like the voice of reason. Asher is helped to follow his love for art by his mother first, then the Rebbe steps in and brings
Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" is a classic that intertwines child innocence, and adventure together like the meandering Mississippi River upon whose shores the adventures take place. When reading such a novel that also interplays social classes and nuances of the period, a variety of literary critical styles can be used to fully understand the scope of style, tone and content. The novel starts off where "The Adventures
Huckleberry Finn's violent, alcoholic father, after Finn escapes from the Widow, is an extremely negative paternal force of socialization. Finn, rather than be integrated into society like Emma, must leave society and find his own values, rather than the hypocritical values imposed upon him by others. The most fundamental of these values are his friendship with Jim, an escaped Black slave, who is his truest friend in the novel.
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