Presentation on Huckleberry Finn by Mehwish Ali Khan
1. "All modernAmerican
literature comes from one
book by MarkTwain called
Huckleberry Finn"
Ernest Hemingway
Mark Twain &
The Adventures
of Huckleberry
Finn
2. •Born Samuel Langhorne
Clemens , on November 30, 1835
in Florida , Missouri , in a slave
owning family.
•Family later moved to river town
of Hannibal.
•Apprenticed as river boat pilot.
•Began using pseudonym Mark
Twain (meaning two fathoms)
when writing political reports as
journalist for a Virginian
newspaper.
4. Historical Context of Huckleberry
Finn
Commonly named among the Great American
Novels, the work is among the first in
major American literature to be written in
the vernacular
Set in pre-Civil War years
40-50 years before 1885 publication
Satirizing a Southern society, Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn is, among other things, an
often critical look at deep-rooted attitudes,
particularly racism.
5. Hypocrisy of “Civilized”
Society
Society’s laws (Miss
Watson and Widow
Douglas) vs. higher
values (Huck and Jim)
Rules and precepts that
reflect faulty logic
Civilized vs. Natural
A “just” society that
condones slavery
Unsteady justice is
blinded by cowardice,
prejudice, and a lack of
common sense
Seemingly good
characters are slave-
owners
6. MATURATION AND
DEVELOPMENT Bildungsroman
A moral coming of age story.
being open-minded is a quality that
Huck represents, as a child, which
allows for his development and
maturation.
Huck’s relationship with Jim assists
his progression throughout the
novel
Huck’s experiences and
apprehension about society help
lead to his maturity
8. Mockery of Religion
A theme Twain focuses on quite heavily in this
novel is the mockery of religion.
Throughout his life, Twain was known for his
attacks on organized religion.
Huck Finn's sarcastic character perfectly situates
him to deride religion, representing Twain's
personal views.
In the first chapter, Huck indicates that hell sounds far
more fun than heaven.
9. Freedom
importance of
individual thinking
and ideas
escaping an illogical
and oppressive
society
slavery vs. liberty
outcasts labeled by
citizens (mob
mentality) are
arguably the only
truly free characters
10. Symbols
The Mississippi River
a source of freedom
The Land Real vs. Ideal (the
river)
Raft:tool for escape
safe place
As Huck puts it: "Other
places seem so cramped
and smothery, but a raft
don't. You feel mighty
free and easy and
comfortable on a raft."
Money
separates the civilized
from the “outcasts
11. Literary and Artistic Movements:
REALISM and REGIONALISM
Attack upon Romantics and
Transcendentalists
pragmatic, democratic, and
experimental
goal was to report the world with
HONESTY
12. Realism is a style of
writing, developed in the
19th century, that attempts
to depict life accurately, as
it really is, without
idealizing or romanticizing.
Regionalism is literature
that emphasizes a specific
geographic setting and that
reproduces the speech,
behavior, and attitudes of
the people who live in the
region.
13. Scholar Shelley Fisher
Fishkin
says Huck Finn is "the
greatest anti-racist novel by
an American writer."
“Something new happened in
Huck Finn that had never
happened in American literature
before. It was a book…that
served as a Declaration of
Independence from the genteel
English novel…
14. …[It] allowed a different kind
of writing to happen: a clean,
crisp, no-nonsense, earthly
vernacular…it was a book that
talked. Huck’s voice,
combined with Twain’s satiric
genius, changed the shape of
fiction in America, and
African-American voices had
a great deal to do with making
it what it was.” - Dr.
Shelley Fishkin, 1995
15. In celebrating the centenary of
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
, we celebrate not only a book
but also our national writer,
our American idiom, and
ourselves. It was, of course, not
always thus.
16. According to Tom Lowery, Kamiak
High School
“Up until Twain and Huck, every American
author was simply mimicking British
authors…Twain finally says, in effect…screw
this…I am going to write about TRUE
AMERICAN CHARACTERS…scars and all…with
AUTHENTIC American accents…and it’s YOUR
problem if YOU can’t understand the dialects.
I’m going to put them in authentic settings
and believable story lines and tell the REAL
story of what happened during that time…not
some romanticized crap like The Last of the
Mohicans or that other drivel that had been
passed off as AMERICAN literature up to that
time.”
17. Is Huck Finn racist?
In1957, the NAACP (Nat’l Assoc. for the
Advancement of Colored People) charged Huck
Finn with containing racist slurs (the “N” word
appears over 200 times).
Charges of racism have followed the book ever
since.
Jim is seen by many as a stereotypical and
demeaning portrayal of African Americans.
Very controversial and highly censored because
of the racial implications dealt with in the Novel
18. John Wallace, 1982
"The reading aloud of Huck Finn in our classrooms
is humiliating and insulting to black students. It
contributes to their feelings of low self-esteem and
to the white student's disrespect for black people. .
. . For the past forty years, black families have
trekked to schools in numerous districts
throughout the country to say, 'This book is not
good for our children' only to be turned away by
insensitive and often unwittingly racist teachers
and administrators who respond, 'This book is a
classic.'"
19. Today, the NAACP’s stance on
Huck Finn is “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.”
21. In 1905, New York's Brooklyn Public
Library also banned the book due to
bad wordsWhen, Twain replied:
I am greatly troubled by what you
say. I wrote 'Tom Sawyer' & 'Huck
Finn' for adults exclusively, & it
always distressed me when I find
that boys and girls have been
allowed access to them. The mind
that becomes soiled in youth can
never again be washed clean. I
know this by my own experience, &
to this day I cherish an unappeased
bitterness against the unfaithful
guardians of my young life, who not
only permitted but compelled me to
read an unexpurgated Bible through
before I was 15 years old. None can
do that and ever draw a clean
sweet breath again on this side of
the grave
22. Mark Twain’s
reply is
Ihave no race
prejudices, and I think
I have no color
prejudices or caste
prejudices nor creed
prejudices. Indeed I
know it. I can stand
any society. All that I
care to know is that a
man is a human being-
-that is enough for me;
he can't be any worse.
23. “My books are water; those of the
great geniuses is wine. Everybody
drinks water.”
— Mark Twain, Notebook
