1. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

2. By Mark Twain

3. The name Mississippi roughly translated from Native American folklore means "Father of Waters." The translation comes from the Chippewa words "mici zibi" meaning "great river" or "gathering in of all the waters" and the Algonquin word "Messipi".
The river’s approximate length at 2,350 miles.

5. Introduction:
Mark Twain described the major theme of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as
“A sound heart and a deformed conscience come into collision and conscience suffers defeat.”
“A sound heart” is a good heart.
“A deformed conscience” is a conscience influenced by the laws of society and a sense of duty toward those laws.

6. Themes: Death and rebirth
Coming of age (Huck’s rite of passage) – the hero’s journey
The nature and significance of human traits such as gullibility, ignorance, & innocence
Loneliness and isolation; the quest for freedom, the role of women and the concept of family

7. Conflicts:
Major Conflict: Huck’s struggle with his “deformed conscience.” The novel also includes the following conflicts which are common to many other pieces of literature:

8. The conflict between the individual and society (man vs. society)
The conflict between the emotional and the rational (Romanticism vs. Realism)
Appearance vs. Reality (hypocrisy and phoniness)
Ignorance vs. Enlightenment (Superstition as a method of explaining and understanding)
Tolerance vs. prejudice
Man’s inhumanity to man (regardless of race)

9. Major Symbol: The River
In Huck Finn, the river symbolizes life’s journey, and it becomes symbolic of Huck’s natural virtue. The current determines the direction of the raft as well as Huck’s life.
There is a major contrast between life on the river and life on the shore because life on the river (uncivilized) is peaceful and easy, yet not totally without danger; however, life on the shore (civilized) can be cruel, authoritarian, hypocritical, and reflective of the “Damned Human Race.”
Life on the raft is paradoxical. Even though they are confined to a small space on the raft, Huck and Jim experience greater freedom on the raft (mrgunnar.net).

10. Satire:
At the beginning of this unit, we discussed read and discussed the essay, “The Damned Human Race,” in which Twain utilizes satire to reveal human follies.
Satire is a style of writing using humor and hyperbole to ridicule some aspect of human behavior.
The purpose of satire is to call attention to flawed human behavior or to initiate change.
In Huck Finn Twain satirizes the following human behaviors:
Greed, racism, Southern chivalry and aristocracy, human nature, lack of altruism, hypocrisy, romanticism, “religious” people (not religion), innocence, etc. (mrgunnar.net).

11. Point of view: ____________ Style: __________________

14. He was most fifty, and he looked it
  He was most fifty, and he looked it. His hair was long and tangled and greasy, and hung down, and you could see his eyes shining through like he was behind vines. It was all black, no gray; so was his long, mixed-up whiskers. There warn't no color in his face, where his face showed; it was white; not like another man's white, but a white to make a body sick, a white to make a body's flesh crawl -- a tree-toad white, a fish-belly white. As for his clothes -- just rags, that was all. He had one ankle resting on t'other knee; the boot on that foot was busted, and two of his toes stuck through, and he worked them now and then. His hat was laying on the floor -- an old black slouch with the top caved in, like a lid.

16. Her sister, Miss Watson, a tolerable slim old maid, with goggles on, had just come to live with her, and took a set at me now with a spelling-book. She worked me middling hard for about an hour, and then the widow made her ease up. I couldn't stood it much longer. Then for an hour it was deadly dull, and I was fidgety. Miss Watson would say, "Don't put your feet up there, Huckleberry;" and "Don't scrunch up like that, Huckleberry -- set up straight;" and pretty soon she would say, "Don't gap and stretch like that, Huckleberry -- why don't you try to behave?" Then she told me all about the bad place, and I said I wished I was there. She got mad then, but I didn't mean no harm. All I wanted was to go somewheres; all I wanted was a change, I warn't particular. She said it was wicked to say what I said; said she wouldn't say it for the whole world; she was going to live so as to go to the good place. Well, I couldn't see no advantage in going where she was going, so I made up my mind I wouldn't try for it. But I never said so, because it would only make trouble, and wouldn't do no good.
   Now she had got a start, and she went on and told me all about the good place. She said all a body would have to do there was to go around all day long with a harp and sing, forever and ever. So I didn't think much of it. But I never said so. I asked her if she reckoned Tom Sawyer would go there, and she said not by a considerable sight. I was glad about that, because I wanted him and me to be together.

18. Our papers have one peculiarity--it is American--their irreverence
Our papers have one peculiarity--it is American--their irreverence They are irreverent toward pretty much everything, but where they laugh one good king to death, they laugh a thousand cruel and infamous shams and superstitions into the grave, and the account is squared. Irreverence is the champion of liberty and its only sure defense. -Mark Twain's Notebook