I only just got around to reading this a little while ago, despite the fact that it's been sitting on my shelf at home for several years. I think when I first got it (it was a Christmas present), I was not quite ready for it - I couldn't read the language like it should, nay, has to be read.
This is about the best you could hope for from a story with no particular aim but to remain consistent and follow one or two main characters (although Huck is the focus, his friend Jim also plays a pretty big role in the story). Essentially a collection of short stories about a young boy getting into mischief in 1800s America, beginning in the South (I'm not certain of the state and to be honest it matters little to me) and heading down the Mississippi towards New Orleans. Huck and his friend struggle with morals, education, scams, feuds and pirates along their way. The style of almost all of the writing in the book is such that it is written in several dialects, so you need at least a basic knowledge of "Deep South" stereotypical accents; from which it's not too difficult to work out what's being said, indeed you soon don't notice you're reading a book that's written in different dialects.
For those interested, the book lists the following as dialects used: Missouri Negro, the extremist from the backwoods South-Western dialect, the ordinary 'Pike County', and four modified varieties of this last one, from the author's knowledge of such dialects.
The total amorality of Huck (and, less so, Jim) makes for some truly... interesting adventures and situations. Right near the end, when they meet up with good ol' Tom Sawyer again, things take an even stranger turn, but the ending is about as happy as you could reasonably expect. Actually, the author is incorrect in implying there is nothing to be learned from reading this book; you do get to learn just how simple life was not too long ago (not always in good ways, mind), and at times I couldn't help but be envious of Huck's adventures.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Mac Diva
A weird review. How can someone just leap right over the most important pathological aspect of American culture? Which, incidentally, is what Clemens wrote the book to examine. People are being advised to ignore the theme of the book.
2 - Dwaine AKA Scooter AKA D.J.
What is the theme of the book, anyway?
3 - Mac Diva
I believe the theme of the book is that society denied the humanity of slaves, and, to an extent, abused children. But, according to the reviewer, it is okay to ignore that. So, no harm done, eh?
4 - HW Saxton Jr
By the by,the state is Missouri.
5 - jadester
the theme of the book is Huckleberry deciding to go rafting up the Mississipi
i advised people to "ignore the theme of the book" because, as the author himself has written:
"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 Author"
the racism is there because racism was rampant in the part of the world the book is set in at the time the book was written. The book is not actually *about* racism, it's about Huck and Jim trying to find their way in the world.
6 - Mac Diva
Lord. (Rolling eyes heavenward.) He probably thinks the Constitution is about how nice ink on parchment looks.
For persons other than Jon Downs: Clemens was being tongue-in-cheek. To say that a novel lacks a theme (an impossibility) or to confuse the plot with the theme is something a person as smart and savvy as he was would never do.
7 - Mac Diva
I've located a good analysis of the theme of Huckleberry Finn. I recommend the source as a good research tool for literature, though I hope most Americans know the theme of this important novel without prompting.
To be enslaved is to be removed from the human race and made into a thing. A child, dominated by adults, one of them abusive and corrupt, is also dehumanized without much recourse. So, both Huck and Jim are being denied their freedom in what was supposed to be the most free society in the world. They run away in hope of regaining what has been taken from them.
8 - Eric Olsen
As the fine analysis quoted say, you are both right: it IS a boy's (literally and figuratively from the racism angle) adventure story AND an indictment of slavery and racism. Simply by depicting Jim as the most human and sympathetic character in the story, Twain worked to topple those pillars of hypocrisy and injustice.
9 - Mac Diva
I'm not going to let him get away it, Eric. I kept dropping hints that he needed to do some research since he obviously hadn't a clue. Even Saxton threw him one, by mentioning the well-known fact that Clemens' novels are usually set in Missouri. (Hannibal, to be exact.) He is wrong, not just about Huckleberry Finn, but about what a book review is. Any elementary or junior high school English teacher worth her salt would give this entry a D.
10 - HW Saxton Jr.
From a young boys perspective (which I was the first time I read it)the book is
an adventure story,first & foremost and
a good one at that.Re-reading again as
an adult,the themes running throughout
the book that seemed most prevalent were
those of: Alienation(It is because of Huck and Jim's respective social issues:
Po'White and Black Slave,that they bond)
Social Status(Huck had about as much of a chance of getting ahead as Jim did in
the extremely class conscious Antebellum
south),Friendship(proving family is not
neccessarily who you are born of,rather
more of who you get along with and need
in your life to fill roles & for various
other reasons),An Indictment on Racism:
(I know that some people may not agree given the liberal use of the "N" word and all but Twain was capturing a time period where the word was common in the
vernacular of the day,so much so it was
not even necessarily meant as derogatory
by many using it,it was just a learned behavior.Jim comes across as a Morally,
Spiritually and Philosophically better
off person than many others in the book.
Anyway,this is how I saw the book.I am
relying on memory as it's been at least
15 or 20 years since I've read anything
by Twain/Clemens.This is what I remember
getting out of the book personally.You
may get a completely different meaning
out of it as obviously,Mr.Downs did.The
above was a very strange review,indeed.
11 - Rodney Welch
Why is it no one ever remembers Emmeline Grangerford when they discuss this book -- or, indeed, any of Mark Twain's black humor at all? Emmeline just makes a brief appearance: she's the dead teenage poet who sounds like a role model for Sylvia Plath. Huck's description of her is hilarious:
They had pictures hung on the walls -- mainly Washingtons and Lafayettes, and battles, and Highland Marys, and one called "Signing the Declaration." There was some that they called crayons, which one of the daughters which was dead made her own self when she was only fifteen years old. They was different from any pictures I ever see before -- blacker, mostly, than is common. One was a woman in a slim black dress, belted small under the armpits, with bulges like a cabbage in the middle of the sleeves, and a large black scoop-shovel bonnet with a black veil, and white slim ankles crossed about with black tape, and very wee black slippers, like a chisel, and she was leaning pensive on a tombstone on her right elbow, under a weeping willow, and her other hand hanging down her side holding a white handkerchief and a reticule, and underneath the picture it said "Shall I Never See Thee More Alas." Another one was a young lady with her hair all combed up straight to the top of her head, and knotted there in front of a comb like a chair-back, and she was crying into a handkerchief and had a dead bird laying on its back in her other hand with its heels up, and underneath the picture it said "I Shall Never Hear Thy Sweet Chirrup More Alas." There was one where a young lady was at a window looking up at the moon, and tears running down her cheeks; and she had an open letter in one hand with black sealing wax showing on one edge of it, and she was mashing a locket with a chain to it against her mouth, and underneath the picture it said "And Art Thou Gone Yes Thou Art Gone Alas." These was all nice pictures, I reckon, but I didn't somehow seem to take to them, because if ever I was down a little they always give me the fan-tods. Everybody was sorry she died, because she had laid out a lot more of these pictures to do, and a body could see by what she had done what they had lost. But I reckoned that with her disposition she was having a better time in the graveyard.
12 - Mac Diva
A great passage. The kind of thing that makes a person who writes say: "He makes it look so easy." And, he did.
13 - jadester
"I'm not going to let him get away it, Eric. I kept dropping hints that he needed to do some research since he obviously hadn't a clue. Even Saxton threw him one, by mentioning the well-known fact that Clemens' novels are usually set in Missouri. (Hannibal, to be exact.) He is wrong, not just about Huckleberry Finn, but about what a book review is. Any elementary or junior high school English teacher worth her salt would give this entry a D. "
it's a good job i didn't go to elementary schiool then huh? seeing as how i'm not american, and don't live in america. And you think i am the only one who should "do some research"
i evidently stand corrected on this book, tho i think people should be careful of over-analysis. A novel can, in fact, lack a moral, a motive and essentially a plot - in as much as a novel can be written with the author not really having an idea about how it will end, just writing it as it comes to him or her. i count this as not having a plot, as having a plot implies a book has been planned, and "stream-of-consciousness" books are not exactly planned
Also, note i was "reviewing" the book, not writing some scholarly essay or such on it. If you look hard enough, you can find any theme in any fiction book.
14 - Dirtgrain
In addition to some of the points made in comments above, I add the following. In chapter 31, Huck has a major dilemma: write and inform Ms. Watson of Jim's location (Jim was coincidentally locked up in a shed at Tom Sawyer's aunt's house), thus going along with what he had been taught by civilized people to be the correct action; or try to help Jim become a free man. Huck chooses the latter when he says, "Alright then, I'll go to hell." He had this huge contradiction in his mind, reflecting the contradictions in society. Religious and moral teachings of the day taught him that turning Jim in was the right thing to do (even though slavery, as we all know and Twain knew, was counter to the real message of the Bible). By choosing compassion, humanity and friendship over the ill teachings of society and culture, Huck thought he was committing evil--that he would go to hell. I think Twain's main goal in the book was to point out this contradiction--along with other contradictions. By the way, Ernest Hemingway said that The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was the greatest American novel--except for the last eleven chapters. Twain didn't know how to wrap up the novel after Huck's major decision. He took some time off and came back to it over a year or two later. Many feel these last chapters, rich with satire (extremely ridiculous satire), weaken the main point about Huck's dilemma.
The book is a satire of many things (the opening warning sets the tone for this satire and is an example of Twain's self-deprecating humor): romantic literature (e.g., of Sir Walter Scott, and of the type written by James Fenimore Cooper (see Twain's essay, "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses" which is hilarious), Twain was a confessed realist which is seemingly at odds with the chosen genre of satire in this case); religion; American society and culture and the people of the South (e.g., ridiculous crowd scenes, gullibility of the masses, the Grangerfords and Shepherdsons). The last eleven chapters go overboard in the criticism of romantic literature, as Tom Sawyer resurfaces and concocts some absurd methods by which Jim can be broken out--despite the fact that they could easily release him. These absurd methods are based on romantic stories that Tom has read (much like Don Quixote doing ridiculous things according to the Arthurian legends that he read about). In one scene, Tom insists that Jim needs a rock to make markings on (a literary staple of romantic adventure stories). Tom and Huck can't lift it, so they have Jim leave the shack and carry the rock back into it. Apparently Jim is too stupid to realize that he can just run away (or maybe there is something here about the power that Tom, a white boy, has over Jim--Tom somewhat forces Jim to go along with his crazy plans).
The controversy about the book does relate to the use of the n-word, but it also relates to the portrayal of Jim, which involves a lot of stereotypes (of the Mr. Bojangles sort, and of the scared, "wide-eyed Negro" sort). At times Jim is like a father figure to Huck, and he acts like a man. At other times, Jim is led around like a little kid (of course, his situation as an escaped slave limited his power and explains to some degree why Huck (or the King and the Duke) at times was in control). The question becomes, "although many slaves were uneducated, does this mean that they were as unintelligent as Jim is portrayed at times in the book?" See the writings of Frederick Douglass if you answer that a lack of education equals unintelligence.
The book has been banned for its racist language in many places across the country. I don't agree with censorship (in this case, I don't think we should try to erase the past or ignore it). But there are contradictions evident. In my school, we would not be teaching a book that had the f-word in it as many times as Huck Finn has the n-word in it (around 200 times). What is worse, the f-word or the n-word? Of course it depends on whom you ask, but there are teachers who read the text out loud and say the n-word numerous times when they wouldn't dare do so if it were the f-word. Ultimately, I believe in "sticks and stones. . ." Even if a book had the f-word in it 200 times, I wouldn't hesitate to teach it if it were a great piece of literature with powerful message. By the way, due to the inflammatory and offensive nature of the n-word, I tell my students not to say it out loud (the substitute "n-word" for it). This may seem ridiculous, but a substitute teacher at Ann Arbor Pioneer High School was fired for using the n-word in front of his class (he had been a long-term substitute, and his lesson was about the word and its uses in our society--he played rap music that used the word as well), even though he was trying to teach a lesson with a positive, anti-racist message. An African American parent who had been in the class (it was National African American Parent Involvement Day) claimed that hearing the word caused him pain, and he didn't want his daughter to experience the same thing.
I don't know if the book is that great. I have taught it so many times that I think I am now biased--but I don't like the book that much. More than anything, I think it has been used as symbol of good-old American culture. Politicians often throw it out as their favorite book; I doubt many of them remember much about it. My favorite thing about the book is that it allows me to address several different controversies. This makes it a great book to teach.
15 - Mac Diva
Good post, Dirt. I hope you are putting it on your blog, too. The blogosphere is weighted very much to the Right. So, misinformation that misrepresents issues such as feminism, racism and progressive politics is rampant. Correctives are welcome.
Somebody needs to write an entry about literary techniques, I guess. Maybe it is because I've spent so much time in graduate writing classes and at writing conferences discussing methodology, but I thought the fact that all fiction is influenced by form was well-known. For example, so-called stream of consciousness and metafiction are planned and carried out purposely, which means there is plot inherent in them. Hopefully, no one will go away from this thead believing the blather that this, or any other novel, lacks a plot.
And, oh, I think most of us know Jon Downs is British. I can't see how that gets him off the hook for being too lazy to do even minimal research, though. What will be next? A blogger claiming he can't be expected to write in English because he's American?
16 - jadester
"And, oh, I think most of us know Jon Downs is British. I can't see how that gets him off the hook for being too lazy to do even minimal research, though"
excuuuse me, but you automatically assumed that i had been taught about and American author, when i have never made any such claim. Then again, isuppose if you expect everyone to be like you, you are bound to be disappointed. My apologies that our schools do not teach us about american authors.
17 - stacy
i think that The Adventures of Huckleberry finn's theme is about the rugged American Frontier life in the 1840's. much of what is in the story is from Mark Twains experience as a steamboat captain, a minor, and his life in the south. The man named Boggs in the story also helps to show that "anything Goes" when he gets shot by the sherrif for talking bad about him. The adventures they have down the river also provide examples of what frontier life was like. The Grangefords and the Shepardsons familly feuds also depict what the rugged frontier life was like.
18 - kaefi
hey u guys. i need to write an essay about this book pretty soon. I'm going to discuss the mother and father figures in huckleberry finn. Obviously miss watson and widow douglass and pap are those...but actually I want to prove that jim is kind of a father figure for huck too because he takes care of huck when pap is just drunk all the time. do you have any ideas where i could get more ressources about this paper?? or what's your opinion?? please help me!!!
19 - jadester
you're probably best off trying to ask Mac Diva; as i said, i didn't read it to study it. Maybe she'll see this and reply, otherwise you could try her blog site and see if her e-mail is around there somewhere.
20 - Dirtgrain
Write your own damn paper. Resources? Read the book. One piece of advice that I can give you without doing your work for you is to tell you to find an online version of the text (Bartleby has one, and so does Project Gutenberg). You can search the text for key words that relate to parenting. Search any terms that might bring up a relevant portion of the text.
21 - Mac Diva
Sure, Jim is a father figure, kaefi. But, not just because he takes care of Huck. He becomes the moral compass the boy mirrors himself on. Like Dirtgrain said, having a good idea is not enough. You need to support it with examples from the text and research.
22 - Shark
Just an FYI:
For the best version in print - go to Amazon and search:
"Huckleberry Finn
Victor Fischer editor"
It's heads above the rest.
23 - jadester
What MD just said is, of course, an important point. In fact, i dunno if it's exactly the same in the US, but my experience at school here in the UK is that with essay questions, there's usually a very wide range of "acceptable answers", as long as can support your answer with (for example) quotes from the text being studied. The idea is basically for you to convince the marker of your work that the view you present in your work is valid (even if they don't agree with it)
24 - dspracks
wow u motherfuckers havent brought up the fact that twain totally pussied out on the end of this book by freeing jim and suddenly making everything ok. this was a fantastic book up to the point where tom shows up an the actions at his aunts house take place. he got scared of what would happen when he published and threw together a poor ending.
25 - SFC SKI
"Twain's introductory warning about the dangers of finding motives, morals, or plots in his novel ironically proves the existence of each" Perfect, succinct point.
Great book, Mark Twain should be mandatory reading for anyone who takes themselves or their views too seriously.