Mark twain “the adventures of huckleberry finn” Chapters 16-30

The aim of the lesson is to teach you to explain the role of episodes in revealing the psychological development of the character and to show how a single turn of phrase lends a peculiar tone to an episode and reveals both the character's and the author's attitude to the events.

1.Reproduce the information and sum it up in a sentence.

In the previous chapters, Huck debates the value of education. It never seems vital to him. He can't learn from books because he is well-tutored by Nature. But life as it is more than books and nature. The essence of man is revealed to him in the given chapters. It complicates his way from innocence to knowledge making him shun the human being because of his inhumanity. Huck hardly ever passes any direct judgement. Yet his attitude is felt in every turn of phrase. In a word, ...........................………………………….

2. Huck feels miserable because "his conscience goes to stirring him up hotter than ever" on account of his helping Jim to run for his freedom. Yet he "smartly dodges" the men who are looking for runaway slaves. After the raft is smashed by a steamboat, Huck finds himself with the Grangerfords, "a high-toned tribe", engaged in a deadly feud with another clan of the same kind. Huck is a bewildered witness to their killing each other in cold blood. Finding each other again Huck and Jim feel that "there is no home like a raft", but the home feeling is shattered by the intrusion of the two swindlers, the Duke and the Dauphin. Having witnessed a few incidents of small-town life, Huck and Jim, in the company of the Duke and the Dauphin, resume their journey down the Mississippi. ………………….

Enlarge upon the given summary (changing the colloquial expressions in the inverted commas into neutral style) by giving more emphasis to episodes of primary importance and bring it to an end (to be done at home in writing!!!).

3. In his description of the activity of the swindlers and their intended victims, Mark Twain presents some of the sharpest criticism of mankind. In the given chapters, the victims, by conscious choice rather than necessity, keep to their own innocence. They will accept life only on their own terms. They will not compromise their innocence or ignorance or conscience - call it what you like - even for the sake of common sense.

Mark Twain only seems to conform to typical American values. In fact, he mocked at the Americans' pseudo-patriotism, their confidence that the United States was the greatest nation on earth. Mark Twain's attitude towards society, especially its weaknesses, is quiet clear in the novel. We see his distaste for false holiness, stubborn ignorance, narrow-mindedness and excessive sentimentality. These are often emphasised in episodes that are less important for the development of the plot than for revealing the author's attitude.

What does the account of the practices of the Duke and the Dauphin tell us about the people who were taken in by them – both the participants and the observers?

4. Answer the given questions showing your understanding of the inner meaning the author ascribes to the events:

a) What makes Huck "feel so mean and miserable" while he and Jim are drifting on the raft towards Cairo?

b) How is Huck's basic decency revealed when it is contrasted to the behaviour of the men looking for runaway slaves?

c) What details of the family feud between the two families show that hatred eliminates the borderlines between chivalry and meanness, honour and crime, courage and stupidity?

d) What does the Boggs incident with Colonel Sherburn tell us about the ordinary man in a small town of that day? How do the people act in a mob that threatens Colonel Sherburn?

e) How does the circus episode in chapter 22 reveal that Huck, for all his knowledge of life, is still a child?

5. Mark Twain is able to hint at profound social facts through the mouth of a boy without violating the boy's point of view. In this respect, Huck's dialect is a marvel of artistry.

Show the great imagination of Mark Twain, who manages to give us details justifying the author's choice of Huck for his first-hand narrator. Provide examples of Huck's implicit judgement of the events and the people. Explain how the effect is achieved.

e.g., "They was as high-toned and well born and rich and grand as the tribe of Grangerfords." (p.99)

(The author uses cumulation and at the same time opposes these flattering epithets to the word "TRIBE" which denotes just a family, but implicitly suggests barbarism. This contrast lends an ironic colouring to the whole phrase.)

6. What is Twain’s attitude toward “sivilisation”?

7. What ideas expressed by the critics (see the list below) are vividly demonstrated in the chapters under discussion? Formulate them and illustrate by examples.

The critics to be studied:

1. Brander Matthews. Saturday Review. (pp.231-234)

2. Walter Besant. “My Favourite Novelist and His Best Book.” (pp.241-245)

3. Van Wyck Brooks. The Ordeal of Mark Twain. (pp.258-261)

4. Bernard de Voto. Mark Twain’s America. (pp.268-273)

5. Ralph Ellison. (pp.280-283)

6. Philip Foner. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. (pp.300-303)