Slavery and Racism in Mark Twain The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn a Stylistic Analysis (original) (raw)
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A Study on Racism and Slavery in Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
This paper aims to focus the racism and slavery in Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, even though Mark Twain is a comic writer who often treats his subject satirically but Huckleberry Finn also discussing slavery and racial decimation from one character to others and some palaces. Racism in contemporary world affairs is disguised, and it is what some refer to as symbolic racism, modern racism or aversive racism. But his best-known work, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, is a major American satire which is not vindictive, not loaded with invective, and not bitter. His targets, clearly defined, are made to look ridiculous but the irony is light and humour is strong. Thus, his most famous satirical novel vividly departs from the techniques most frequently associated with his satirical reputation.
2017
This qualitative dissertation is a part of a broader program of research that investigates intellectual freedom. The study focuses on developing understanding in three distinct, but related, research areas – the American historical and cultural narrative of race, the historical discourse of intellectual freedom, and the role The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn can play in adding to and perhaps changing these historic stories. By using historical narrative inquiry, data was examined from each story to find correlations among the discourses Where previous research centers on and develops the reasons why Huck Finn has been challenged, this research focuses on how the reasons for challenging the novel have changed over the last 131 years and provides a conduit for previously unheard voices as they add their stories to the established historical discourse on race and intellectual freedom. The theoretical framework of this research grew out of a study of Hannah Arendt’s political philosoph...
SLAVERY IN AMERICAN LITERATURE: TWELVE YEARS A SLAVE
Abstract KRÁLIKOVÁ, Lenka: Slavery in American Literature: Twelve Years a Slave [Master´s Thesis] University of SS. Cyril and Methodius in Trnava. Faculty of Arts. Department of British and American Studies – Supervisor: Mgr. Diana Židová, PhD. Degree of Professional Qualification: Master. - Trnava: FF UCM, 2016. 79 p. The main aim of my thesis is the answer to the following questions: How was slavery represented in literature, what was the purpose of the slave narrative in “Twelve years a slave” by Solomon Northup. The thesis has four parts. First part describes slavery in America from its beginning through the gradual development of the system until the abolition. The second part of the paper is description of the slave narrative and other slave narrators with their works. Biography of the author is the main topic of the third part. Last part of the thesis is the analysis of the novel from the point of view of the representation of slavery in the literature and its translations in the Middle European literature. Key words: Religion. Slavery. Slave Narrative. Rescue. Interpretation. American history.
How to Have Style in an Emergency: Huckleberry Finn and the Ethics of Fictionality
Cutting against the grain of historicist and identitarian readings of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, this essay focuses on the novel’s preoccupation with seeing and not seeing—its dramatizations of how subjects perceive, or fail to perceive, objects and bodies. Instead of reading the novel as a study of moral development that traces Huck’s growing appreciation for Jim’s humanity, I argue that Huckleberry Finn stages crises of representation, calling attention to the novel’s own inability to fully render objects, in particular, Jim’s body. I consider the strategies Twain provides the reader for animating or vivifying Jim as a character—and, more importantly, what Twain withholds from the reader in this respect—showing how the novel disrupts the smooth functioning of characterization, frustrating the reader’s longing to know Jim, to fully saturate his imaginary body and imbue him with the fullness of interiority. In this way, Twain draws attention to the ethical challenge of regarding persons out of perceptual reach and denaturalizes the notion that a literary character is a mimesis of a person. Ultimately, I reassess Huckleberry Finn’s representation of enslavement, showing how the novel calls into question the category of normative personhood and its centrality to ethical thought.
The Representation of Children and the Subject of Poverty in Mark Twains Writing
International Journal for Research in Applied Science and Engineering Technology (IJRASET), 2022
The events of "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" and its logical successor "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain are scientifically examined in this article using the literary studies idea of the unity of space and time. The piece examines the author's distinctive narrating style and distinct method of character movement. The heroes' significant role in the unification of space and time and their essential purpose are detailed in the work's plot.
Revisiting Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’s Jim from a Postcolonial Lens
World Journal of English Language
The postcolonial theory conflicts with the essentialism of individuality, identity, and nation. Within its scope, related concepts such as hybridity are advocated and adopted as a systematic approach for resisting the colonialism’s and colonization’s discourse. Appropriating and adapting a postcolonial textual analysis of Jim’s problem of slavery in Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, this paper expounds that even though racism and slavery, offshoots of cultural traditions and social systems, have created Jim’s identity as a slave; he dynamically uses the hybrid approach to hit back the racist system in his life. Besides the fact that identity pursuit is a complaint and a scorn against the racial system, it is a confirmation of identity confusion among people in contemporary societies.
Journal of the University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce, 2007
Consistency in writing style and narrative structure, as well as accuracy in the development and treatment of characters and themes, lie at the core of any truly remarkable novel. If irregularities or discrepancies surface, controversy ensues and the novel runs the risk of losing popular and critical acclaim. When at the beginning of the writing process the author has already an ending in mind, the task to structure and to expand the story will result in a more uniform text than if the characters are unleashed. By choosing the latter approach, an author may end up with a dead end, from which finding an adequate continuation and conclusion is a challenging task. In such a case only radical action will suffice, such as the introduction of additional characters or unpredictable events to disentangle the conflicts and to achieve an acceptable resolution. Such a dead end occurred during the writing process of one of the most celebrated and controversial novels of 19th-century American literature and a symbol of American culture: Mark Twainûs Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885). On the surface, the final episode, which resolves all conflicts and concludes the story, seems to provide a satisfactory ending. However, a close reading reveals a layer of flaws and questionable choices made by Twain underneath, as it never reaches the intensity and quality of the preceding build-up. This paper seeks to demonstrate that this great American novel must be critiqued for its inadequate ending, which is the result of a disjointed writing process and several inconsistencies. Keywords: 19th-century American literature, Reconstruction era, narrative structure, conclusion, satire, humor, writing process
2009
This thesis examines Mark Twain's use of the dialectic between the characters Huck and Jim to illuminate Jim's humanity in the classic novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Over the course of their adventure, Huck learns that Jim is a human being and not property. This realization leads Huck to choose to assist Jim in his escape from captivity, and risk eternal damnation according to his religious beliefs. Huck's decision is driven by the friendship that develops between him and his fellow fugitive on their adventure. Jim's kindness and stewardship also provide a stark contrast to the treachery of the characters on the banks of the river. Twain thus crafts a message that slavery and race discrimination are wrong without taking the tone of an abolitionist, combining an amusing children's story with a profound social message. Although definitive proof of his intention to do so has never been found, human friendship is the sliver of common ground Twain used to reach...
Culture marked: racist epithets in translations of Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
2011
Aquest projecte analitza com s’ha plasmat el terme cultural nigger a dues traduccions al castella de la novel•la Adventures of Huckleberry Finn de Mark Twain, amb l’objectiu d’estudiar de quina manera poden adaptar-se els elements culturals en una traduccio. En primer lloc, s’ofereix la contextualitzacio del terme original al text i a la cultura d’origen, seguida de la descripcio del terme traduit en el context de la cultura d’arribada. A continuacio, mitjancant l’analisi comparativa del mecanisme retoric de la repeticio i d’elements com ara determinants, adjectius i complements, emprats tant a l’obra original com a les dues traduccions estudiades, aquest projecte preten demostrar que la conservacio dels esmentats recursos estilistics a la traduccio pot facilitar la comprensio de les connotacions del marcador cultural nigger i de la seva funcio tematica al text d’arribada.