Analysis of Huckleberry Finn

SymbolismA. The river is the most important symbol in the novel.

1. Rivers always change, always move2. Huck is like the river – always changing, always moving. 3. Twain wants his readers, and America, to be like a river.

Part 1: setup, chpts 1-15Boy’s adventure taleTom Sawyer as SO-CALLED “Romantic”

Part 2: theme introduced, chpts 16-31; 16 and 31 are especially important

Moral ProgressHuck slowly develops a real relationship with Jim

Huck as an AUTHENTIC RomanticHuck embraces river

“raft”=“home,” “free and easy and comfortable” Huck rejects shore

“other places”=“cramped up and smothery

Part 3: theme problematized, chpts 32-endBoy’s adventure tale, again, this time EITHER to placate readers OR to skewer themMoral Regress

Huck backslides under Tom’s influenceTom’s Innocent Boyhood “Romanticism” becomes Tom’s Dangerously Adult Sentimentalism

Instead of “romantical” meaning the natural, the private, and the lofty ideal, it means... the artificial, the public, and the nitty-gritty realInstead of “romantical” having to do with something substantive, it becomes nothing but....“style,” the “right,” the “regular” (the way society does it, even if society is corrupt)

HF, 3 PART STORY

I. Theme and Structure• Mark Twain described novel he wanted to

write as one wherein “A deformed conscience and sound heart collide, and conscience suffers defeat.”

I. Theme and Structure• In Part II, Huck rejects society’s norms and determines

right and wrong using his inner conscience. • Because he listens to his “sound heart,” Huck sees Jim

in a new light. Jim goes from aa. “Pet” – an amusement, to ab. “Person” – a man, to ac. “Pal” – a friend and an equal

I. Theme and Structure• Twain introduces Tom in Part I to show what

Huck is not in Part II and should not be in Part IIIBecause• Tom = “deformed conscience” / static, whereas• Huck = “sound heart” /dynamic

I. Themes and Structure• Most of humanity is, by its nature, foolish,

hypocritical, and violent.1. Huck sees this as he journeys down the river2. The reader should be increasingly repulsed

QuestionDid Twain succeed in his project to write a moral book?

If no, then how do we interpret Part III?If yes, then how do we interpret Part III?

Mark Twain famously quipped:

Everything human is pathetic. The secret

source of humor itself is not joy but sorrow.

How true today?

Why are “fails” funny?

HF as a depiction of a series of “fails,” or a social satire1. Satire – ironic storytelling aimed to improve 2. Using ironic situations, Mark Twain criticizes the

ethical shortcomings of persons who calls themselves members of “civilized society.”

3. Three types of irony:1) Verbal-say one thing, mean another2) Situational-expect one thing, encounter another3) Dramatic-characters are oblivious, reader is well-aware

o In part I, how does life with the Widow Douglas and Miss Watson represent Convention?

o In part II, how does the River represent the opposite of Convention, a Romantic safe-haven for Huck and Jim?

o In part II, how does the Town/Shore infect or haunt the River? In what persons, places, and events?

o In part III, how is Tom’s plan to free Jim, which Tom calls “romantical,” really a parody, or caricature, of the Authentically Romantic?

HF as Authentically ROMANTIC?

HF as Dangerously Sentimental, NOT ROMATNIC?