Huck Finn and Picaresque Fiction

1. Huck Finnand Picaresque Fiction English 11 Honors: American Themes

2. Picaresque • The picaresque novel (Spanish: "picaresca", from "pícaro", for "rogue" or "rascal") is a popular sub-genre of prose fiction which is usually satirical and depicts in realistic and often humorous detail the adventures of a roguish hero of low social class who lives by his or her wits in a corrupt society.

3. Other Examples: PicarO (RoGue) Ignatius J. Reilly Raoul Duke Candide Don Quixote

4. Picaresque Novel: Huck Finn Mark Twain’s novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, is a picaresque novel: • episodic plot • a unifying theme of the river • characterization of Huck Finn as a rogue hero

5. Episodic Plot • The novel’s periodic plot is demonstrated by Huck’s many adventures in separate episodes having independent conflicts. • The conflicts that govern Huck’s encounters with people are very different and disconnected from one another. • the dishonest and devious king and the duke: involves two crooks • the Grangerfordfamily: involves a long-standing family feud between the Grangerford and Sheperdson families • Colonel Sherburn: involves a Colonel defending his honor

6. Unifying Theme: Mississippi River • Though episodic in nature, the story nevertheless holds together because of the river and the constant presence of Huck as narrator. • Every episode in the book takes place along the banks of the Mississippi River, as Huck and Jim travel down the mighty river, trying to find Cairo.

7. Unifying Theme: MississippI River • “The River gives the book its form. But for the River, the book might be only a sequence of adventures with a happy ending” (T.S. Eliot) • Water diction is used to purvey a sense of the unifying river in the book. • As Huck and Jim raft down the river from Jackson Island, Huck comments: “Two or three days and nights went by; I reckon I might say they swum by, they slid along so quiet and smooth and lovely” (129). • The river physically holds the story together and also underlies the whole novel.

8. Picaresque Hero • “The picaresque novel is a witty, satirical form that revolves around the exploits of a lower-class hero of dubious morals, often called a ‘rogue hero.’ This hero lives by his wits as he moves through the various strata of his society. The hero is constantly in and out of trouble but often uses his street-smarts to emerge from compromising situations.”(Gary Weiner)

9. Picaresque Hero: Dubious Morals • Huck can be characterized as having dubious morals through his actions and reasoning. • Huck justifies some of his immoral actions, such as stealing, by using his pap’s own actions as a precedent. • As Huck tells the reader during the preparations to help Jim escape from the Phelps residence, “Along during that morning I borrowed a sheet and white shirt off of the clothes-line […] I called it borrowing because that was what Pap always called it […]” (256).

10. Picaresque Hero: Social StRata • Rogue heroes travel ‘through’ various social classes • Through the episodes that Huck experiences, Twain presents the many levels of antebellum Mississippi valley American social classes. • Huck starts traveling with Jim, a runaway slave, down the Mississippi river, and eventually befriends him, a lower class individual.

11. Picaresque Hero: Trouble • Another facet of the picaresque hero is Huck’s constant entanglement with trouble. • Each episode that Huck experiences, embroils him in that conflict until he escapes to stumble into the next conflict. • In his attempts to escape from trouble, Huck often inadvertently stumbles into more trouble. 

12. Picaresque Hero: Street Smarts • Huck fulfills the fourth criterion for a rogue hero by using wits and practical knowledge of the world to avoid or escape from trouble. • Whenever Huck is tangled in a problem, he concocts a story for himself on the spot and manages his way out of trouble.

13. Conclusion • An episodic plot and Huck Finn as a rogue hero establish Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as a picaresque novel. • The plot consists of many episodes with separate and disconnected conflicts, all bound by the river. • Huck Finn can be characterized as a rogue hero, thus fulfilling all the necessary criteria for the picaresque novel.  • Dubious Morals • Social Strata • In and Out of Trouble • Street Smarts