What Critics Have to Say
In Mark Twain’s book, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twain is able to “dispel the conventional morality and the conventional wisdom of its own time and ours” (Burg Pg. 299). Burg also states “...the central theme of Huckleberry Finn is a quest for freedom” (Burg Pg. 299). This is shown by Jim and Huck both trying to escape society and the grip of slavery.
Twain also is able to make great use of regional speech and dialect. We can see this as Huck speaking with a southern accent and also conveying the sense that Huck is uneducated. Leland Krauth, a professor at the University of Colorado Boulder insists that “Twain reshapes the tradition of Southwestern humor by writing within it as a Victorian” (Krauth Pg. 370). Twain was born to Victorian parents but that didn’t stop him from incorporating unique dialect for each of his characters.
Mark Twain is also known for his wit and satirical commentary. This wit and satire can be seen in the short story The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County. S. J. Krause states, “For his ‘Jumping Frog’ blends the political satire perfect in Down East humor with the frame-work and oral techniques perfect in Old Southwestern humor” (Krause Pg. 563). Twain is able to use humor not only for the entertainment of the audience but also as a tool to call out social normalities of the time such as slavery, superstitions, and morality. Twain is also able to include this wit as he incorporates a story within a story. Krause also states, “At the level of story movement, the ‘Jumping Frog’ has the same complexity as that of its multiple point of view” (Krause Pg. 564). Mark Twain is able to provide more and more complex detail into his stories within a story without overwhelming the reader or dragging them down with unimportant details.
Mark Twain was the master of using realism. Making him able to capture the authentic voice of the characters in his novels. This technique adds a layer of authenticity to the stories. Twain is able to write about realistic events and characters in his writing instead of romanticizing them or the events. This effect is able to let the audience connect with the plot and storyline better because the audience is able to picture how they would fit into their everyday life. Twain also focused on the present in his writings with him having the narrator in first person making the narrator not know everything but only know what the characters know. This helps convey a sense that while we the reader are reading the story we are finding out all the details at the same time as the characters and narrator is too. Clemens put into his stories the different struggles that black people and people living in the lower class were living with. For example in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn the slave Jim is given help in gaining freedom from Huck by escaping to go live in the north with his already free wife and child. Another example is how Huck’s father is known as the town drunkard and how he lives out in the outskirts with no one nearby, in a tiny little rink-a-dink shack, and how when he goes into town he is unexpected by the townspeople. Twain also presents some complex ethical choices into his writing. The biggest in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is Huck helping Jim get his freedom. Huck was taught that helping black slaves run away or even talking to blacks was extremely wrong even to the point of it being called a “sin”, however this doesn’t stop him from helping Jim whom he became friends with escape the chains of slavery. Another part of the story where Huck goes against the social normalities of slavery are when he decides to write a letter to Miss Watson, Jim’s owner, and give her information of where Jim is. Huck’s choice is driven by the pressure to do what the culture and society seems as right and what he feels is morally correct. Huck decides to tear up the letter and never send it and continues to help Jim.
Over the years Mark Twain has stood the test of time with critics still today giving him high praise for his focus on realistic ideals, and for his ability to blend entertainment with insight to very real human choices, some of which he faced personally, granting him a place whose works even today continue to resonate with all audiences.
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Works Cited
Burg, David F. “Another View of Huckleberry Finn.” Nineteenth-Century Fiction, vol. 29, no. 3, 1974, pp. 299–319. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2933172. Accessed 16 Feb. 2024.
Krauth, Leland. “Mark Twain: The Victorian of Southwestern Humor.” American Literature, vol. 54, no. 3, 1982, pp. 368–84. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2925849. Accessed 16 Feb. 2024.
Krause, S. J. “The Art and Satire of Twain’s ‘Jumping Frog’ Story.” American Quarterly, vol. 16, no. 4, 1964, pp. 562–76. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2711149. Accessed 16 Feb. 2024.
Ornstein, Robert. “The Ending of Huckleberry Finn.” Modern Language Notes, vol. 74, no. 8, 1959, pp. 698–702. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/3040390. Accessed 16 Feb. 2024.