Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884 / 1885) (often shortened to Huck Finn) by Mark Twain is commonly accounted as one of the first Great American Novels. It is also one of the first major American novels ever written using Local Color Regionalism, or vernacular, told in the first person by the eponymous Huckleberry "Huck" Finn, best friend of Tom Sawyer and hero of three other Mark Twain books.

The book is noted for its colorful description of people and places along the Mississippi River, and its sober and often scathing look at entrenched attitudes, particularly racism. The drifting journey of Huckleberry Finn and his friend, runaway slave Jim, down the Mississippi River on their raft may be one of the most enduring images of escape and freedom in all of American literature.

The book has been popular with young readers since its publication, and taken as a sequel to the comparatively innocuous The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. It has also been the continued object of study by serious literary critics. Although the Southern society it satirized was already a quarter-century in the past by the time of publication, the book immediately became controversial, and has remained so to this day.

Contents

[hide]

* 1 Publication history

* 2 Plot summary

o 2.1 Life in St. Petersburg

o 2.2 The Grangerfords and the Shepherdsons

o 2.3 The Duke and the Dauphin

o 2.4 Jim's escape

o 2.5 Conclusion

* 3 Major Themes

* 4 Reception

* 5 Adaptations

o 5.1 Film

o 5.2 Stage

o 5.3 Literature

* 6 References

* 7 External links

[edit] Publication history

Mark Twain

Mark Twain

Twain initially conceived of the work as a companion to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer that would follow Huck Finn through adulthood. Beginning with a chapter he had deleted from the earlier novel, Twain began work on a manuscript he originally titled Huckleberry Finn's Autobiography. Twain worked on the manuscript off and on for the next several years, ultimately abandoning his original plan of following Huck's development into adulthood. He appeared to have lost interest in the manuscript while it was in progress, and set it aside for several years. After making a trip down the Mississippi, Twain returned to his work on the novel. Upon completion, the novel's title closely paralleled its predecessor's: "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Tom Sawyer's Comrade)".[1]

Unlike The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn does not have the definite article "the" as a part of its proper title. Writer Sara Baker has hypothesized that this absence represents the fundamentally uncompleted nature of Huck's adventures вЂ" while Tom's adventures were completed (at least at the time) at the end of his novel, Huck's narrative ends with his stated intention to head West.[2]

Mark Twain composed the story in pen on notepaper between 1876 and 1883. The 665 pages of the original manuscript contain voluminous and lengthy changes and amendments that provide insights into Clemens's creative process. Paul Needham, who supervised the authentication of the manuscript for Sotheby's books and manuscripts department in New York in 1991, stated, "What you see is [Clemens's] attempt to move away from pure literary writing to dialect writing". For example, Clemens revised the opening line of Huck Finn three times. He intially wrote, "You will not know about me," which he changed to, "You do not know about me," before settling on the final version, "You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer'; but that ain't no matter."[3] The revisions also show how Clemens reworked his material to strengthen the characters of Huck and Jim, as well as his sensitivity to the debate then current over literacy and voting.[4]

A later version was the first typewritten manuscript delivered to a printer.[4]

Huck Finn was eventually published on December 10, 1884, in Canada and England, and on February 18, 1885, in America. The American publication was delayed because someone defaced an illustration on one of the plates creating an obscene joke. Thirty-thousand copies of the book had been printed before the obscenity was discovered. A new plate was made to correct the illustration and repair the existing copies.[5]

[edit] Plot summary

Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.

вЂ" Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, "Notice", p. 1

[edit] Life in St. Petersburg

The story begins in fictional St. Petersburg, Missouri, on the Mississippi River. Two young boys, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, have each come into a considerable sum of money as a result of their earlier adventures (The Adventures of Tom Sawyer). Huck has been placed under the guardianship of the Widow Douglas, who, together with her sister, Miss Watson, are attempting to "sivilize" him. Huck appreciates their efforts, but finds civilized life confining. In the beginning of the story, Tom Sawyer appears briefly, helping Huck escape at night from the house, past Miss Watson's slave, Jim. They meet up with Tom Sawyer's self-proclaimed gang who plot to carry out adventurous crimes.

Huck's life is changed by the sudden appearance of his shiftless father, "Pap", an abusive parent and drunkard. Although Huck is successful in preventing his Pap from acquiring his fortune, Pap forcibly gains custody of Huck and the two move to the backwoods where Huck is kept locked inside his father's cabin.