2 – Discuss the meaning of the “A Psalm of Life”, “The Tide
Falls”, “The Chambered Nautilus” and “Old Ironsides”.
3 – List the elements of American Gothic literature and give
examples of these elements in The Scarlet Letter and "The Fall of the House of Usher"
4 – Be able to discuss the following questions as connected
to the literature of the Romantic Period:
5 - Be able to discuss the meaning of Fuller's essay "Woman in the 19th Century"
Huck Finn Geography
HUCKLEBERRY FINN
Huckleberry
Finn, published in 1885, is considered not only a great book, but according to
Ernest Hemingway (and many critics), it is the foundation of American
literature. It is the first novel to
address uniquely American problems such as slavery and the hypocrisy of
American Society (particularly of the Southern Gentile Tradition). It is the first novel to have as its narrator
a true American: an uneducated homeless boy of the lower class who has been
raised for most of his life by no one and who owns nothing but his own
ingenuity. In fact it is the naivety of
the narrator that allows Mark Twain to condemn society. Huck Finn, while a liar, a thief, a minor
conman (or con-boy), a rapscallion, a dirty waif, and a prankster, is
ironically the most honest and good person in the book. Fortunately Huck’s lack of sophistication
limits his ability to be anything but true to heart. It is his redemption. The novel, a biting satire, employs all three
types of irony we’ve discuss to create humor, plus it employs devices such as
the use of allusion as a way to mock past literature for Huckleberry Finn is a
novel in the school of realism. Twain believed that literature had to have
characters and situations that could be found in the real world and to address
real world problems (and Twain does entertain scenes with events that mimic and
mock real events that happened in his day).
This idea of realism is one of the reasons the novel contains four types
of dialect and discusses ideas such as slavery and freedom. Twain opposed and absolutely hated romantic
literature: literature where unlikely things happened such a fantastic escapes,
magic, and Robin Hood-like heroes. He
pokes fun at these types of novels, perhaps too much fun. Twain also uses his mockery of Romanticism to
address the absurd nature of American idealism.
Huck Finn has been called vulgar and has been banned in high schools and
in libraries since its publication.
Beware you will encounter the “N” word regularly. Twain used it for a reason. It should shock you and it should make you
think.
Unit Learning Goal: Students
will demonstrate knowledge of nineteenth century foundation works of American
Literature by analyzing satire in Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and relating one of its main
themes to another text and issue of the time.
TEXTS:
“Historical and Context of the transition from Romanticism
to Realism”; selected poetry by Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson; excerpts from
The Narrative of the Life of Frederick
Douglas; “The Gettysburg Address”, “The Emancipation Proclamation”,
“Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address”; The
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Learning OBJECTIVES:
By the end of the novel students will be able to
1)
Define realism, satire, dialect, antihero,
unreliable narrator, irony (situational, dramatic, and verbal), episodic plot,
romanticism, dramatic foils, hyperbole, motif, picaresque novel, parable,
sarcasm, simile, metaphor, oxymoron, allegory, euphemism, bildungroman
2)
Pick out examples of symbols, irony and dialect
3)
Example the meaning of at least one major symbol
4)
Discuss how Huck is both an unreliable narrator
and an antihero
5)
Discuss how Huckleberry Finn, the novel, fits
both a bildungsroman and picaresque novel
6)
Give examples of and discuss the following
motifs in the book: superstition, parodies of previous literature (romantic
novels and Shakespeare), the adopting of personas (or reinventing self),
childhood games, religion, lies and cons, death, and perhaps one or two others
that I will bring up in class
7)
Be out to pick out and example five – ten
allusions
8)
Outline the plot according to the six elements
9)
Break up the book into three sections or three
movements (and briefly explain each movement)
10)
Break up the book into 9 episodes
11)
Give a list of characters in the book with a
brief description of each and their general purpose in the novel
12)
Compare and Contrast Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer
13)
Discuss the idea of and the historical reference
of Family Feuds
14)
Discuss the different types of conflict found in
Huckleberry Finn
15)
Discuss how Mark Twain uses allusions to back up
his major themes and develop his characters
16)
Keep a
list of Huckleberry Finns stories and pranks
17)
Discuss how Huckleberry Finn is honest in
dishonest world
18)
Briefly explain the following themes: Racism and
Slavery, Intellectual and Moral Education, The hypocrisy of society (appearance
vs. reality), conflict between the individual and society, the quest for freedom
(both freedom away from society and freedom within society), superstition vs
religion, death and rebirth, coming of age and the hero’s journey, the concept
of family, the role of the outsider, the nature and the significance of the
following traits: gullibility, ignorance, and naivety, tolerance vs.
prejudice.
19)
Define and use various vocabulary words that
appear in the book
20)
Develop a project based on some aspect of the
novel.
21)
Answer study questions as you read.
Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses
by Mark Twain
"The
Pathfinder" and "The Deerslayer" stand at the head of Cooper's novels
as artistic creations. There are others of his works which contain parts
as perfect as are to be found in these, and scenes even more thrilling.
Not one can be compared with either of them as a finished whole. The
defects in both of these tales are comparatively slight. They were pure
works of art.
--Professor Lounsbury
The five tales reveal an
extraordinary fullness of invention. ... One of the very greatest
characters in fiction, Natty Bumppo... The craft of the woodsman, the
tricks of the trapper, all the delicate art of the forest were familiar
to Cooper from his youth up.
--Professor Matthews
Cooper is the greatest artist in the domain of romantic fiction in America.
--Wilkie Collins
It
seems to me that it was far from right for the Professor of English
Literature at Yale, the Professor of English Literature in Columbia, and
Wilkie Collins to deliver opinions on Cooper's literature without
having read some of it. It would have been much more decorous to keep
silent and let persons talk who have read Cooper.
Cooper's art
has some defects. In one place in "Deerslayer," and in the restricted
space of two-thirds of a page, Cooper has scored 114 offenses against
literary art out of a possible 115. It breaks the record.
There
are nineteen rules governing literary art in domain of romantic fiction
-- some say twenty-two. In "Deerslayer," Cooper violated eighteen of
them. These eighteen require:
1. That a tale shall accomplish
something and arrive somewhere. But the "Deerslayer" tale accomplishes
nothing and arrives in air.
2. They require that the episodes in a
tale shall be necessary parts of the tale, and shall help to develop
it. But as the "Deerslayer" tale is not a tale, and accomplishes nothing
and arrives nowhere, the episodes have no rightful place in the work,
since there was nothing for them to develop.
3. They require that
the personages in a tale shall be alive, except in the case of corpses,
and that always the reader shall be able to tell the corpses from the
others. But this detail has often been overlooked in the "Deerslayer"
tale.
4. They require that the personages in a tale, both dead
and alive, shall exhibit a sufficient excuse for being there. But this
detail also has been overlooked in the "Deerslayer" tale.
5. The
require that when the personages of a tale deal in conversation, the
talk shall sound like human talk, and be talk such as human beings would
be likely to talk in the given circumstances, and have a discoverable
meaning, also a discoverable purpose, and a show of relevancy, and
remain in the neighborhood of the subject at hand, and be interesting to
the reader, and help out the tale, and stop when the people cannot
think of anything more to say. But this requirement has been ignored
from the beginning of the "Deerslayer" tale to the end of it.
6.
They require that when the author describes the character of a personage
in the tale, the conduct and conversation of that personage shall
justify said description. But this law gets little or no attention in
the "Deerslayer" tale, as Natty Bumppo's case will amply prove.
7.
They require that when a personage talks like an illustrated,
gilt-edged, tree-calf, hand-tooled, seven- dollar Friendship's Offering
in the beginning of a paragraph, he shall not talk like a negro minstrel
in the end of it. But this rule is flung down and danced upon in the
"Deerslayer" tale.
8. They require that crass stupidities shall
not be played upon the reader as "the craft of the woodsman, the
delicate art of the forest," by either the author or the people in the
tale. But this rule is persistently violated in the "Deerslayer" tale.
9.
They require that the personages of a tale shall confine themselves to
possibilities and let miracles alone; or, if they venture a miracle, the
author must so plausibly set it forth as to make it look possible and
reasonable. But these rules are not respected in the "Deerslayer" tale.
10.
They require that the author shall make the reader feel a deep interest
in the personages of his tale and in their fate; and that he shall make
the reader love the good people in the tale and hate the bad ones. But
the reader of the "Deerslayer" tale dislikes the good people in it, is
indifferent to the others, and wishes they would all get drowned
together.
11. They require that the characters in a tale shall be
so clearly defined that the reader can tell beforehand what each will
do in a given emergency. But in the "Deerslayer" tale, this rule is
vacated.
THEMES:
Major Themes: Mark Twain described the major theme of The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn as an irony: "A sound heart and a deformed conscience
come into collision and conscience suffers defeat." We can define the
"deformed conscience" as a conscience influenced by the laws of society
and a sense of duty toward those laws. The laws of society at the time
of Huck's journey considered people of African descent as property and,
therefore, less than human. Huck's struggle with his "deformed
conscience" represents a major conflict in the novel. Furthermore, the
novel is rich in common themes, themes that we will discover in many
other pieces of literature.
1. The conflict between the individual and society - Huck's struggle with his "deformed conscience"
2. The conflict between the emotional and the rational
3. Appearance vs. reality - hypocrisy and "phoniness"
4. Superstition - as a method of explaining and understanding
5. Tolerance vs. prejudice
6. Dehumanization - dehumanizing human beings to oppress them
7. Death and rebirth
8. Coming of age - the hero's journey
9. The role of the outsider
10. The nature and significance of the following human traits: gullibility, ignorance and naivete
Other
significant themes include: the feeling of loneliness and isolation;
the quest for freedom; romantic vs. real; implied vs. literal; the role
of women; the concept of family.
NOTES:
Picarsque
Novel: Usually a satirical novel which depicts in realistic detail the
adventures of a roguish hero of low social class who survives by his or
her wits in a corrupt society.
Bildungsroman: A novel whose
principal subject is the moral, psychological and intellectual
development of a youthful main character.
Episodic Plot: A
structure that features distinct episodes or a series of stories linked
together by the same character. Huck Finn can be broken up into 8 or 9
episodes.
Romanticism:
Work of literature that deal with
imagination, that represent ideals of life, these works often include
fantastic adventure stories, spiritual connections with nature, gothic
stories of the fantastic. Authors include: Sir Walter Scott, Fenimore
Cooper, Poe.
Realism:
Works of literature that depict life and people as they really appear. Hence Realistic.
Themes include corruption of society as a whole, racism.
Anithero:
A protagonist who doesn't fit the traditional description of a hero.
Persona:
An assumed identity or character.
Satire:
A work of literature that uses irony and hyperbole to attack and mock some aspect of society as a way to promote social change.
