The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn— A

Mark Twain, pseudonym of Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835—1910), is an outstanding American writer and humorist who won a worldwide audience for his works.

Twin was born on November 30, 1835 in Florida, Missouri, of a Virginian family. He was brought up in Hannibal, Missouri. After his father's death in 1847, he left Hannibal at eighteen to work as an itinerant printer in New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Cincinnati. From 1857 to 1861, he worked on Mississippi steamboats, advancing from cub pilot to licensed pilot. After river shipping was interrupted by the Civil War, Twain headed west with his brother Orion, who had been appointed secretary to the Nevada Territory. Settling in Carson City, he tried his luck at prospecting and wrote humorous pieces for a range of newspapers. Around this time he first began using the pseudonym Mark Twain, derived from a riverboat term. Relocating to San Francisco, he became a regular newspaper correspondent and a contributor to the literary magazine the Golden Era. Twain began a literary exploration of his childhood memories of the Mississippi. They are his masterpieces —The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), life on the Mississippi (1883), and finally The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), on which he had been working for nearly a decade. His close associates in these years included William Dean Howells, Bret Harte, and George Washington Cable, as well as the dying Ulysses S. Grant, whom Twain encouraged to complete his autobiography, published by Twain's publishing company in 1885.

To face the reality of society of the United States, Twain created many long and short novels. These novels criticized the bourgeois politicians and satirized the oppression of racism. So there were many rich literary heritages in the world. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is such a works that twinkles the light of against the oppression of racism. Moreover, it has strong artistic charm. It is a sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, but they have different plot and different features. It is considered as Twin’s masterpiece, and also is one of the masterpieces of American literature.  

Twain is known as a local colorist, who preferred to present social life through portraits of the local characters of his regions. Unlike James and Howells, Mark Twain wrote about the lower -class people. Another fact that made Twain unique is his magic power with language, his use of vernacular. His words are colloquial, concrete and direct in effect, and his sentence structures are simple. His language is humorous, it is a remarkable feature.

Mark Twain spent eight years to write this novel. After published, many scholars, both abroad and at home, have acclaimed it. American novelist, Hemingway, regarded it as “the source of all modern American literature”. The poet, T.S.Eliot thought that this novel was the “new start of English”. He said the figure of Huck was eternal. He can compare favorably with the all kinds of famous literature figures.

In this novel, Mark Twain uses many dialects of South American, and colloquial language of black people. It is an innovation during that period. Although there are many criticisms on this novel, since it has been published, its poetry style and effective humorous attract thousands of people in different ages and stratum. This novel is praised for “One of the greatest American novel”. In this paper, I will analyze The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn mainly from characterization, humor and satire, vivid and colloquial language, combination of mood and scenery, and description of psychology.

The figures of The adventures of Huckleberry Finn are two homeless with different race and age. They are Huck and Jim. Huck is the central figure in novel. He comes from the very lowest level of society. He is a motherless and homeless outcast and his father is a drunkard who often hit him after drinking. The widow Douglas and her sister Miss Watson have sympathy for him and adopt him. Moreover, they make great effort to civilize Huck. However, Huck likes free life instead of civilize. He neither goes to church and has the elegant clothes, nor follows the graceful behaviors.

Huck is a wild boy who looks down upon the respectable society and can not stand civilize. But he is also a lovely boy who is curious, imaginative, clever, and pure as other children with same age. He changes his mind and overcome his prejudice against black people, and comes to accept Jim as a man and a close friend as well. In chapter15, Huck makes fun of Jim. Jim is very sad. After a while, Huck apologizes to Jim, which needs great courage.

Huck is a kindhearted boy. More important, although he is generally ignorant of book-learning, he has a sharply developed sensibility. Therefore, when he can not stand everything, he chooses to escape. Huck intends to seek free life in order to break away from his father’ hurt and widow’s civilize. He is very happy that he can float on the Mississippi River freely. To desire free is the most valuable quality in Huck’s character.

Jim is another important figure in this novel. He is black person who has wife and child. He is Miss Watson’s slave, and the one is really significant human character Huck meets in the novel. He works hard and is honest with his owner. His family leads peaceful life. However, his owner sells him, making Jim has to leave his family. He escapes from his owner to seek a Free State in which there is no exploiter and enslavement, and everybody is equal. Jim’s escape is the results of crucial slave system, which make readers have deep thinking. It tells us that the racial discrimination is the important social problem in that period of American. Jim regards Huck as his son, looking after him, helping him, and teaching him about the world around him. For example, when Huck returns to Jim, and Jim says, “……it’s too good for true, honey; it’s too good for true. Lemme look at you chile, lemme feel o’you.”

Huck and Jim are both kindhearted resister. To desire freedom connects them to each other. They build deep friendship during their adventures. This suggests that the writer hope the white and black people should get on well with each other. The slavery system must be canceled.

As we all know, Mark Twin is good at connecting humor and satire, which make readers feel the deep meaning of works in smiling. This novel describes life through a child. So, the whole works is full of many childish humor and satire. The writer describes Huck’s attitude to pray with a humorous way

“I say to myself, if a body can get anything they pray for, why don’t Deacon Winn get back the money he lost on pork? Why can’t the widow get back her silver snuffbox that was stole? Why can’t Miss Watson fat up?”

Huck’s words show a child’s naive and humorous, which makes readers can not help smiling. Meanwhile, it tells us that Jim express his dissatisfaction with pray. He hates this kind of thing. Besides, Huck wants to report Jim, but he doesn’t do like that. After he helps Jim escape from two men who arrest black people.

This description of psychology is very humorous, at the same time, it contains satire. Naturally, Huck thinks it is “right” to help people out of trouble. However, in that kind of slavery system society, it is really “wrong” to help a black people. Here, humor has deep meaning, and satire point to American’s racial discrimination. This view affects Huck’s attitude to black people. He himself wants to protect friend, but the social view does not allow him to do like that. The writer uses humorous way to describe Huck’s self-contradictory. It makes serious problem—racial discrimination look relaxed.

We feel sad after laughing from Twin’s humorous description. In order to cheat people, two swindlers would rather throw their self-esteem. Their comic behavior makes people both happy and sad. 

This novel is written in succinct language because its important figure is a thirteen-boy. Huck’s language is really very vivid, naive, and lively, which conform to figure’s character and has strong expression. In addition, in the novel, there is much life knowledge and useful experience, which makes works twinkle strong country atmosphere. For instance, when Jim is bit by a snack, he asks Huck to chop off the snack’s head and throw it away, and then skin the body and roast a piece of it. Then he eats it and says it will help cure him.

Mark Twin uses a great number of colloquial languages in this novel. From the beginning to the end, the narrator is Huck, a poor boy who is not educated. He dislikes civilized life. Huck said “I got into my old rags and my sugar-hogshead again, and was free and satisfied.” Well, can such an uneducated and uncontrolled wild boy speak elegant language?

Huck’s vivid and colloquial languages make readers feel real, natural, and interesting. It can be accepted by every people.

The combination of mood and scenery is a main feature in the novel. The writer does not separate two figures from social environment, but connects them closely. He combines figure’s mood with scenery on the Mississippi River. Using scenery to show mood, and on the contrary, using mood to describe scenery.

From Huck’s narration, we know after Huck gets freedom, the writer uses the “friendly squirrels” and “soft wind” to highlights Huck’s happiness and relaxed mood clearly.

“The star were shining, and the leaves rustled in the woods ever so mournful; and I heard an owl, away off, who-whooing about somebody that was dead, and a whippowill and a dog crying about somebody that was going to die; and the wind was trying to whisper something to me, and I couldn’t make out what it was, and so it made the cold shivers run over me.”

Here, we see “mournful woods” and “crying owl and dog”. It makes us feel different mood—sad and annoyed. So, the different mood can describe different scenery. When you are happy, no matter what you see is beautiful. While, when you are sad, no matter what you see is bore. Obviously, using scenery to show mood is a good way to portray figures’ mood. It makes figures more lifelike.

The adventures of Huckleberry Finn is the brightest star which illuminates in American literature. It has strong vitality as wild flowers in the nature. Although it describes a boy’s winding and adventurous journey, in fact, the volume of novel doesn’t belong to teenagers’ story, and many adults like it very much. For it recalls their childhood memory. Most of Huck’s views and experiences still belong to them.

Overall, Mark Twin’s The adventures of Huckleberry Finn is pretty great. In my opinion, there are not any works can compare with it. It is a wonderful works and can emit light in the literature forever.