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Huckleberry Finn

Huckleberry Finn. Children’s Fiction Outcast as Hero Pastoral Escape vs “sivilization” Huck and Jim. Children’s Literature. Juvenile fiction often inculcates moral teaching American fiction as juvenile: still a young nation whose literature reflects adolescence of the country

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Huckleberry Finn

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  1. Huckleberry Finn Children’s Fiction Outcast as Hero Pastoral Escape vs “sivilization” Huck and Jim

  2. Children’s Literature • Juvenile fiction often inculcates moral teaching • American fiction as juvenile: still a young nation whose literature reflects adolescence of the country • America as “innocent” • Idealism not reflected in the actual

  3. Outcast as Hero • Huck’s outcast status • Individualism vs. convention (Emerson) • Outcast challenges rule of law (“All right then, I’ll go to hell!”)

  4. Escape vs Civilization • Country vs. City • Pastoral vs. culture • Civilization is corrupt • Nature as the site of true freedom

  5. Huck and Jim • Two outcasts together • Original “buddy” plot – no sex plot • Portrait of equality?

  6. Realism and Social Critique • Linguistic Detail • Social Realism • Descriptive Realism

  7. Regionalism • No single United States • Post-Civil War: South as victim • West: Land of Promise • Northeast: represents “America” as a whole • Rural vs. City / Agrarian vs. Industrialization

  8. Huck Finn: the End • Reconstruction: 1865-1880 • 13th Amendment: No slavery in the U.S. • 14th Amendment: All persons born in the U.S. are citizens • 15th Amendment: Vote could not be denied American men on racial grounds

  9. Reconstruction, continued • 14th amendment: naturalization would produce a new class of anti-southern voters • New black vote would prevent white, pro-south politicians from winning office.

  10. Rise of Jim Crow • Local laws intended to deny federal amendments • “Grandfather Laws”: you can vote only if you can prove your grandfather did • “Literacy Laws”: you can vote only if you can prove your own literacy • “Poll Tax”: you must pay to vote

  11. The Legacy of Reconstruction • Federal Amendments vs. Jim Crow: which actually affected lives of black people? • Reconstruction a failure (recall duBois): blacks actually worse off after slavery than before • “Emancipation” and “Enfranchisement”: a fiction, only a theory • Huck Finn: written at the end of the Reconstruction period.

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