Huckleberry Finn

Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) 1835-1910

Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) 1835-1910

"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." -Mark Twain, Introductory Note to Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

“All modern American literature comes from one book written by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn…it’s the best book we’ve had…There was nothing before. There has been nothing so good since.” -Ernest Hemingway

It deals with a series of adventures of a very low grade of morality; it is couched in the language of a rough dialect, and all through its pages there is a systemic use of bad grammar and an employment of rough, coarse, inelegant expressions. It is also very irreverent. . . . The whole book is of a class that is more profitable for the slums than it is for respectable people. -St. Louis Globe-Democrat, March 17, 1885

The Brooklyn Public Library followed suit in 1905, removing it from the children's room because Huck was a liar who "not only itched, but scratched," was dirty, used terrible grammar, and "said 'sweat' when he should have said 'perspiration.'"

Over the years the novel has been declared "unfit for children" on a number of counts, but the indictment that has proven most persistent began in 1957, when the NAACP charged that Huck Finn contained "racial slurs" and "belittling racial designations."

Since then, the book has been called "racist" for both the pervasive use of the word "nigger" and a portrayal of blacks that some people consider stereotypical and demeaning.

Although state NAACP organizations have supported various protests against the book, the NAACP national headquarters' current position paper states: You don't ban Mark Twain-you explain Mark Twain! To study an idea is not necessarily to endorse the idea. Mark Twain's satirical novel, Huckleberry Finn, accurately portrays a time in history-the nineteenth century-and one of its evils, slavery.

“I have finished the story & didn’t take the chap [Tom] beyond boyhood. I believe it would be fatal to do it in any shape but autobiographically... By & by I shall take a boy of twelve & run him on through life (in the first person) but not Tom Sawyer—he would not be a good character for it.”

Chap. 1 introduces the major themes of the novel: a. the individual versus society b. the illusions of conventional religion c. the significance of money and property d. the ideals of chivalry and of Southern life e. the power of superstition and of ideas about death f. Huck’s “search” for a family g. Huck’s moral development

Four Distinct Sections • Section I (Chapters I–XVI) ends with the raft passing Cairo in the fog. • In section 2 (Chapters XVII–XVIII) Huck and Jim leave the river. • In the third section (Chapters XIX–XXX) Huck and Jim return to the river, drifting south under the domination of the Duke and the Dauphin. • The fourth section (Chapters XXXI–XLIII) culminates with the incidents at the Phelps’ farm.

Huckleberry Finn