1. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
by Mark Twain
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
a basic introduction

2. About the Novel Published 1885; set 40 to 50 years earlier
Twain was a humorist
Keen eye for detail
Novel is rich in allusions
Written in the vernacular style
Uses slang, colloquialisms, Americanisms

3. Critical responses
Novel castigated for its “coarse fun” and “gutter realism”
The book sold 50,000 copies in the first months after its release
Critics generally agree it is a “work of unprecedented originality in American literature.”

4. What other critics say Louisa May Alcott: Little Women, Little Men
Ernest Hemingway; The Sun Also Rises, others
Lionel Trilling: American literary critic, short story writer, essayist, and teacher.
John Wallace: The most outspoken opponent to Huck Finn; a former administrator at the Mark Twain Intermediate School (Fairfax County, Virginia), who in 1982, while serving on the school's Human Relations Committee, spearheaded a campaign to have Huck stricken from school curricula

5. Louisa May Alcott
“If Mr. Clemens cannot think of something better to tell our pure-minded lads and lasses, he had best stop writing for them.”

6. Ernest Hemingway
“ … all modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.”

7. Lionel Trilling
“the style is not less than definitive in American literature”
sentences are “simple, direct, and fluent, maintaining the rhythm of the word-groups and the intonations of the speaking voice.”

8. John Wallace
“… the most grotesque example of racist trash ever written.”

9. The novel’s Major Flaw is its conclusion
According to Hemingway himself, “You must stop where … Jim is stolen from the boys. That is the real end. The rest is just cheating.”
According to Robert Spiller, “When Tom Sawyer joins them, the story loses it depth and returns to the level of the earlier book (Tom Sawyer).”

10. Major Themes and IDEAS civilization vs natural instincts
prejudice vs respect for human dignity
racism and slavery
hypocrisy
intellectual / moral education

11. Major Symbols
the Mississippi River
The raft

12. Use of Satire
It is important to understand Twain’s use of satire throughout the novel.
Twain targets the following:
a romanticized view of life
religion
greed
racism

13. USE OF IRONY Twain uses irony to enhance the various themes.
Irony is inherent in Huck’s point of view.

14. Sensitive issues Race / prejudice Offensive language
New edition of the book has removed offensive language
Does use of an offensive word of any sort in a literary work give it validity?

15. RETHINKING HUCK FINN
A classic, Mark Twain quipped, is “a book which people praise and don't read.” The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is the rare classic that is highly praised and widely read. Following World War II, it became required reading in most of the nation’s middle schools and high schools. It addressed many Cold War needs: More than any other major work of nineteenth-century American literature, its use of dialect and regional settings made it seem authentically and distinctively American. In addition, it spoke to the greatest contradiction in American history: the existence of slavery and virulent racial prejudice in a country dedicated to liberty and equality.