Huckleberry Finn

Huckleberry Finn

Mark Twain

The Novel

A. Immediate Success

Despite financial crisis of post Civil WarTook years to write, with long interruptionsWritten for adults, popular with childrenBecame a classicPublished in at least 27 languages

B. Banning the Book

Attacked for its – Indecency

RacismBigotry

History leading up to Huck Finn

Missouri wanted into the Union 1818

The country had grown from 13 colonies/states to 22.

There were 11 slave states and 11 free states. Both factions had equal representation in the Senate. The House had more representatives (105 votes to 81) because the free states had more population.

New York Representative James Tallmadge . . .

Proposed an amendment to ban slavery in Missouri even though there were more than 2,000 slaves living there.

The country was again confronted with the volatile issue of the spread of slavery into new territories and states.

"How long will the desire for wealth render us blind to the sin of holding both the bodies and souls of our fellow men in chains?"

Asked Representative Livermore from New Hampshire.

200 years of slavery

The South's economy was dependent upon black slavery, and 200 years of living with the “peculiar institution” had made it an integral part of Southern life and culture. The South demanded that the North recognize its right to have slaves as secured in the Constitution.

Henry Clay – ‘the great pacifier’

Maine also wanted into the Union. Clay reached a compromise (The Missouri Compromise) and admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine a free state, thus delaying the inevitable conflict.

The balance of power in Congress was maintained.

The Missouri Compromise of 1820

As states were accepted into the Union a fear arose over the balance of power–

Who would have more power in the Senate –

Slave states or free states?

b. Missouri Compromise Repealed in 1854

The Missouri Compromise was repealed by the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act and declared unconstitutional in the 1857 Dred Scott decision.

c. Dred-Scott Decision 1857

all blacks -- slaves as well as free -- were not and could never become citizens of the United States.

Supreme Court Justice Roger B. Taney

News article from 1857

A free booklet, presenting the

Historical”“Legal”and “physical” differences

between the negro and white forcibly presented

Dred Scott (1799-1858)

The Supreme Court ruled seven to two that no person of African ancestry could claim citizenship.

Case closed!

Justice Taney’s position:

The framers of the Constitution, he wrote, believed that blacks "had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit. He was bought and sold and treated as an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic, whenever profit could be made by it."

Continued . . .

Referring to the language in the Declaration of Independence that includes the phrase, "all men are created equal," Taney reasoned that "it is too clear for dispute, that the enslaved African race were not intended to be included, and formed no part of the people who framed and adopted this declaration. . . ."

Frederick Douglass commented:

"my hopes were never brighter than now."

For Douglass, the decision would bring slavery to the attention of the nation and was a step toward slavery's ultimate destruction.

d. Lincoln’s House Divided Speech

"A house divided against itself cannot stand,"

Courageous but not P.C. in 1858 from a newby senator!

Lincoln’s speech 1858

“Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Convention. If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it.

We are now far into the fifth year, since a policy was initiated, with the avowed object, and confident promise, of putting an end to slavery agitation.

Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only, not ceased, but has constantly augmented.

In my opinion, it will not cease, until a crisis shall have been reached, and passed.

Matthew 12:25

"A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

Lincoln continues . . .

“I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free.

I do not expect the Union to be dissolved -- I do not expect the house to fall -- but I do expect it will cease to be divided.

It will become all one thing or all the other.”

A moderate becomes firmly grounded

Stephen Douglas would twist Lincoln's meaning and paint him as a warmonger and radical abolitionist. But as part of Lincoln's legacy, the House Divided Speech marked the point at which Abraham Lincoln, local politician, firmly planted his stake in the ground on a highly-charged national issue.

The 16th President

Abraham Lincoln

Feb. 12, 1809 to April 15th, 1865Elected in 1860, reelected in 1864

The Civil War

1861 - 1865

Lincoln Assassinated

April 15th, 1865<><><><>

Image from Harper’s Weekly

April 1865

Lincoln at Ford’s Theater

14th amendment (1867)

Passed to give freed slaves citizenship and civil liberties. Most southern states refused to ratify this amendment so it was imposed by further legislation. The 1867 Reconstruction Act allowed readmission to the Union by southern states after they ratified the 14th Amendment.

C. The Setting of Huck Finn – The Antebellum South

The story is set in 1852 in antebellum (pre war) Missouri

Twain lives in the Post-war era of Reconstruction

Rebuilding the nationThe South rejects integration

a. Jim Crow Laws

Post Civil War Reconstruction enforced integration –

“We’ll make you integrate!”

The Jim Crow Laws stripped away this forced integration

“No, you can’t!”

a. Jim Crow Laws

A.M.E. Church

In Philadelphia in 1816 African-Americans formed a new Wesleyan denomination, The African Methodist Episcopal Church

The A.M.E. . .

Launched a major missionary effort after the war and was a leading source of resistance to Jim Crow Laws.

a. Jim Crow Laws

No person or corporation shall require any white female nurse to nurse in wards or rooms in hospitals, either public or private, in which negro men are placed.

Alabama

a. Jim Crow Laws

The schools for white children and the schools for negro children shall be conducted separately.

Florida

a. Jim Crow LawsIt shall be unlawful to conduct a

restaurant or other place for the serving of food in the city, at which white and colored people are served in the same room, unless such white and colored persons are effectually separated by a solid partition extending from the floor upward to a distance of seven feet or higher, and unless a separate entrance from the street is provided for each compartment.

Alabama

II. The Author

Samuel Clemens

1835-1910

Mark Twain

Twain’s Family

A. Hannibal, the model for St. Petersburg

St. Petersburg

The fictional town where Huckleberry Finn begins

B. Missouri

A slave state

In Missouri, most slaves worked as domestic servants, rather than on the large plantations that most slaves experienced further south. Clemens’ family owned slaves. This domestic-style slavery is what Twain describes in Huckleberry Finn, even when the action occurs in the deep South.

The river

The Mississippi River is the perfect plot element!

The story progresses from one adventure to another as the characters move further down river

C. Twain will use his characters, and humor, to make a point

Twain uses satire to expose the social ills of his day.

He uses the vernacular of an unschooled boy and an ignorant-yet-wise slave to make fun of religious hypocrites – especially those who support oppression of African-Americans!

An important note from the author . . .

Notice“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 AUTHORPer G.G., CHIEF OF ORDNANCE”

Twain is using irony, saying one thing but meaning the opposite of its literal definition.

He is using this irony humorously, covering this declaration of the book's seriousness in a joke.

III. The Characters

The two most important characters

HUCK

JIM

A. Huckleberry Finn

• The protagonist of the novel• The narrator of the novel• A classic “Noble Savage’ character• Huck’s society was hypocritical, unjust, blind,

and ignorant• This is the statement Samuel Clemens is

making to the world through satire. The negative aspects of Huck’s character come from his exposure to civilization.

2. Huck’s Conflict

Between what society says is right and what his moral conscience says is right

Twain uses an ignorant boy to make his point – the world is wrong!

B. JIM

• An escaped slave

• Probably the best developed character in the novel

• The best father figure in the book

C. The Duke and Dauphin

Two criminals who take advantage of Huck

The Duke of Bridgewater (the Dauphin will call him ‘Bilgewater’)

"Dauphin" was the title given to heirs to the French throne.

The Dauphin, son of Louis XVI, the executed French king. The Dauphin is called “the king”

“Tar and Feathers,” Ch. 33

Directions: Cover the victim in hot tar oilApply feathers

The oil burns, cuts off oxygen to skin, removes skin with it when it is peeled off (if the victim is still alive)

The modern version

“Riding a Rail,” Ch. 33

The victim/s is placed on a rail and paraded through and out of town. Townsmen stand on either side so they don’t fall off.

The crotch is damaged or split to cause severe injury so the person can never walk normally again.

A tiny sub-plot

The Duke and King pose as heirs to an estate and sell a family of slaves –

The mother is sent to New Orleans and her sons are sent to Memphis

Making a point: even nice people sell their slaves

D. Tom Sawyer

• Huck’s very selfish, civilized friend• The protagonist of Tom Sawyer• Tom is a literary ‘foil’ to Huck Finn• Twain uses Tom to scorn literary romanticism• Tom insists on doing ‘right’ things that the

reader knows are wrong. Twain uses Tom’s character to scorn civilization!

E. The Widow Douglas and Miss Watson

• Two wealthy sisters • Widow Douglas wants to civilize Huckleberry• Miss Watson is a religious hypocrite

Twain uses these characters to scorn religious hypocrisy and notions of proper society

F. Pap

Pap is the town drunk. He is illiterate, cruel, a racist, and disgusting

Pap wants Huck’s money (for alcohol)

Pap is angry that Huck is getting educated

1. Pap Finn’s purpose in the novel

Twain uses irony: Pap believes Blacks are incapable of intelligence and should not vote.

Through Pap, Twain scorns the Jim Crow Laws of the 1880s

G. The Grangerfords and the Shepherdsons

Twain presents them as the best of society in the slave states – thus making fun of the ‘best’

The Grangerfords are in a feud with the Shepardsons, though no one can remember the cause of the feud or see any real reason to continue it.

Emmeline Grangerford

This deceased character had morbid fascinations. She is probably written in to poke fun at author Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson 1830-1886

wrote about death

Dying, by Emily Dickinson

I heard a fly buzz when I died;The stillness round my form

Was like the stillness in the airBetween the heaves of storm.

H. The Phelps family

Aunt Sally, Uncle Silas, and their children

Twain uses these characters to make fun of bigotry towards blacks

Definition of a ‘bigot’

Aunt Sally is a bigot! A bigot is a person who is utterly intolerant of any differing creed, belief, or opinion.

IV. Literary Devices in Huckleberry Finn

A. Use of Humor and Irony 1. Irony- saying one thing but meaning the

opposite of its literal definition. 2. The irony is used humorously to cover the

serious issues addressed in the book.

Irony for fun

Most of the ironic situations stem from Huck’s youth and gullibility. An example of irony is given when Tom tells Huck of his new gang. Huck says, “But Tom Sawyer he hunted me up and said he was going to start a band of robbers, and I might join if I would go back to the widow and be respectable.”

More irony

The gap between the thing or words expected and the thing that actually happens, or is said, creates humor when presented just right.

When the Widow says grace, Huckleberry views it as "grumbling." Huck thinks the nice clothes she gives him are stifling. He thinks Heaven is dull and would prefer to go to Hell if his friend Tom is there.

B. Stock Characters

1. The Widow Douglas and her sister, Miss Watson

a) Represent society – what’s wrong with it!

They are artificial, Huck is sincere

b) Religion

They are hypocrites

Twain’s superstition and pessimism show through clearly in Miss Watson

There Is not one sincere Christian in the book!

From The Bible According to Mark Twain

“His own intellectual development from the fundamentalist Presbyterianism of the Hannibal Sunday school to a Deism molded by Thomas Paine’s The Age of Reason and later modified by the evolutionary determinism of Darwin and his followers places Mark Twain . . .

Cont.

In the mainstream of the nineteenth-century conflict between science and religion. Hence, these writings also form an important literary reflection of that conflict, which in some respects continues today.”

The Bible According to Mark Twain, p. xvi

“church” in Huck Finn

Tom Sawyer tells Huck all about angering genies . . .

"Why, whoever rubs the lamp or the ring. They belong to whoever rubs the lamp or the ring, and they've got to do whatever he says. If he tells them to build a palace forty miles long out of di'monds, and fill it full of chewing-gum, or whatever you want,

and fetch an emperor's daughter from China for you to marry, they've got to do it -- and they've got to do it before sun-up next morning, too. And more: they've got to waltz that palace around over the country wherever you want it, you understand."

"Well," says I, "I think they are a pack of flat-heads for not keeping the palace themselves 'stead of fooling them away like that. And what's more -- if I was one of them I would see a man in Jericho before I would drop my business and come to him for the rubbing of an old tin lamp."

"How you talk, Huck Finn. Why, you'd have to come when he rubbed it, whether you wanted to or not."

"What! and I as high as a tree and as big as a church? All right, then; I would come; but I lay I'd make that man climb the highest tree there was in the country."

"Shucks, it ain't no use to talk to you, Huck Finn. You don't seem to know anything, somehow -- perfect saphead."

I thought all this over for two or three days, and then I reckoned I would see if there was anything in it.

I got an old tin lamp and an iron ring, and went out in the woods and rubbed and rubbed till I sweat like an Injun, calculating to build a palace and sell it; but it warn't no use, none of the genies come.

So then I judged that all that stuff was only just one of Tom Sawyer's lies. I reckoned he believed in the A-rabs and the elephants, but as for me I think different. It had all the marks of a Sunday-school.

“church” in Huck Finn cont.

So I slid out and slipped off up the road, and there warn't anybody at the church, except maybe a hog or two, for there warn't any lock on the door, and hogs likes a puncheon floor in summer-time because it's cool. If you notice, most folks don't go to church only when they've got to; but a hog is different.

C. Serve as Foils

A literary foil is “a character whose personality and attitude is opposite the personality and attitude of another character.”

Per Twain’s philosophy –

The hypocrisy of the sisters make Huck’s naturalistic qualities seem better than the qualities found in society

2. Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn

a) Foils

Tom’s romanticism acts as a foil for Huck’s naturalism. The reader will prefer Huck’s simplicity and sincerity. Huck makes Tom seem more comical. Tom makes Huck seem more practical.

3. Jim

a) As a foil to Huck

Huck is ignorant, immature, and inconsiderate. Jim acts as a foil to Huck as he balances out Huck’s bad qualities. Jim provides adult wisdom, sincere humanity, and a voice of reason to balance Huck’s immaturity, inconsiderate nature, and thoughtlessness.

Jim continued

Jim’s story provides the plot! Jim motivates the characters and moves the action.

C. Narration

Huck is our narrator, in the dialect of a young southern boy.

V. The Theme of Huckleberry Finn

A. Society tends to corrupt true morality, freedom, and justice, which exist in nature.

Huck must follow his own conscience. Society stifles your conscience

Society is corruptTwain doesn’t think you need religion to be

moral

B. Realism

In the beginning note, Twain tells us that his characters will all speak in dialects – regional or ethnic variants of English. We call this ‘vernacular.’ This makes the book more believable. This is part of the story’s realism – a non-romantic, or idealistic, picture of the world.

C. Making a Statement with a Bad Word

“Ni - - er”This word is from a corrupt, racist

society. We need to remember that Twain condemns slavery

(and this word) in his mockery of civilization.

D. Poking fun at Romanticism

Through the character of Tom, Twain also pokes fun at romantic (non-realistic) literature.

Tom insists that all his make-believe adventures be conducted "by the book.“ Tom gets many of his ideas from fiction. In particular, Tom tries to imitate romantic (that is, not realistic) novels. Twain scorns these romantic novels!

Tom Sawyer’s Gang (romanticism)

"Now, we'll start this band of robbers and call it Tom Sawyer's Gang. Everybody that wants to join has got to take an oath, and write his name in blood."

Everybody was willing. So Tom got out a sheet of paper that he had wrote the oath on, and read it.

Continued . . .It swore every boy to stick to the band, and

never tell any of the secrets; and if anybody done anything to any boy in the band, whichever boy was ordered to kill that person and his family must do it, and he mustn't eat and he mustn't sleep till he had killed them and hacked a cross in their breasts,

Cont. which was the sign of the band. And nobody

that didn't belong to the band could use that mark, and if he did he must be sued; and if he done it again he must be killed. And if anybody that belonged to the band told the secrets, he must have his throat cut, and then have his carcass burnt up and the ashes scattered all around,

Continued . . .and his name blotted off of the list with blood

and never mentioned again by the gang, but have a curse put on it and be forgot forever.

Everybody said it was a real beautiful oath, and asked Tom if he got it out of his own head. He said, some of it, but the rest was out of pirate-books and robber-books, and every gang that was high-toned had it.

Cont. Some thought it would be good to kill the

families of boys that told the secrets. Tom said it was a good idea, so he took a pencil and wrote it in. Then Ben Rogers says:

"Here's Huck Finn, he hain't got no family; what you going to do 'bout him?"

"Well, hain't he got a father?" says Tom Sawyer.

Continued . . ."Yes, he's got a father, but you can't never find

him these days. He used to lay drunk with the hogs in the tanyard, but he hain't been seen in these parts for a year or more."

They talked it over, and they was going to rule me out, because they said every boy must have a family or somebody to kill, or else it wouldn't be fair and square for the others.

Continued . . .

Well, nobody could think of anything to do -- everybody was stumped, and set still. I was most ready to cry; but all at once I thought of a way, and so I offered them Miss Watson -- they could kill her. Everybody said:

"Oh, she'll do. That's all right. Huck can come in."

Continued . . .Then they all stuck a pin in their fingers to get

blood to sign with, and I made my mark on the paper.

"Now," says Ben Rogers, "what's the line of business of this Gang?"

"Nothing only robbery and murder," Tom said. "But who are we going to rob? -- houses, or

cattle, or -- "

Cont.

"Stuff! stealing cattle and such things ain't robbery; it's burglary," says Tom Sawyer. "We ain't burglars. That ain't no sort of style. We are highwaymen. We stop stages and carriages on the road, with masks on, and kill the people and take their watches and money."

"Must we always kill the people?"

Continued . . .

"Oh, certainly. It's best. Some authorities think different, but mostly it's considered best to kill them -- except some that you bring to the cave here, and keep them till they're ransomed."

"Ransomed? What's that?"

Cont. "I don't know. But that's what they do. I've seen

it in books; and so of course that's what we've got to do."

"But how can we do it if we don't know what it is?" "Why, blame it all, we've got to do it. Don't I tell you it's in the books? Do you want to go to doing different from what's in the books, and get things all muddled up?"

VI. Black and White in 1885 (remember the novel is written in a

pre Civil War setting)

Although born and raised in Missouri, Twain vehemently opposed slavery. He witnessed the inhumane treatment of blacks and openly criticized the barbaric institution of slavery.

In an 1885 letter sent to Francis Wayland, dean of Yale University Law School, which was publicized in the New York Times, Twain sought reparations for former slaves:

"We have ground the manhood out of them, and the shame is ours, not theirs, and we should pay for it."

<><><><>Twain was an early pioneer in this movement as

the debate over compensating former slaves continues to rage into the 21st Century.

A. Goodness and Badness, Stock Types

Despite Twain’s hatred of racism, in chapter four, he allows Jim to tell us that Pap had two angels on either side of him, one good and one evil--a common literary convention familiar to any cartoon fan. One angel was black, one white. This would seem to be in keeping with an even more common literary convention:

. . . the identification of goodness with the color white and badness with the color black.

This convention is exemplified in everyday references to someone's "dark side."

B. Jim and Pap

When describing Pap, Twains refers to Pap's skin as "a white to make a body sick, a white to make a body's flesh crawl."

Throughout the novel, the most decent, the most moral character, is Jim. Jim is the best friend figure and the best father figure.

Twain purposely uses opposite expectations to make his point!

In Conclusion: Twain’s Realism

Huck learns to break away from society’s normsHuck develops his own conscienceHuck has a natural sense of right and wrong:

one who is alienated from society can figure out right and wrong more easily!

Society teaches that blacks are inferior and slavery is right. Huck discovers the opposite.

The climax of the story

Dover copy pages 161-62Huck writes a letter to Miss Watson. He will tell

her where Jim is. His conscience pricks him. Huck decides, “All right then, I'll go to hell!“

He resolves to "steal Jim out of slavery."

This is the climax of the story.