Mark Twain (Author of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn) edit data Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist. He is noted for his novels Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), called "the Great American Novel", and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876). Twain grew up in Hannibal, Missouri, which would later provide the setting for Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. He apprenticed with a printer. He also worked as a typesetter and contributed articles to his older brother Orion's newspaper. After toiling as a printer in various cities, he became a master riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River, before heading west to join Orion. He was a failure at gold mining, so he next turned to journalism. While a reporter, he wrote a humorous story, "The Celebrat Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist. He is noted for his novels Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), called "the Great American Novel", and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876).

Twain grew up in Hannibal, Missouri, which would later provide the setting for Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. He apprenticed with a printer. He also worked as a typesetter and contributed articles to his older brother Orion's newspaper. After toiling as a printer in various cities, he became a master riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River, before heading west to join Orion. He was a failure at gold mining, so he next turned to journalism. While a reporter, he wrote a humorous story, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," which proved to be very popular and brought him nationwide attention. His travelogues were also well-received. Twain had found his calling. He achieved great success as a writer and public speaker. His wit and satire earned praise from critics and peers, and he was a friend to presidents, artists, industrialists, and European royalty. However, he lacked financial acumen. Though he made a great deal of money from his writings and lectures, he squandered it on various ventures, in particular the Paige Compositor, and was forced to declare bankruptcy. With the help of Henry Huttleston Rogers, however, he eventually overcame his financial troubles.

Twain worked hard to ensure that all of his creditors were paid in full, even though his bankruptcy had relieved him of the legal responsibility. Born during a visit by Halley's Comet, he died on its return. He was lauded as the "greatest American humorist of his age", and William Faulkner called Twain "the father of American literature". SparkNotes: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: Context The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain Table of Contents Plot Overview Mark Twain was born Samuel Langhorne Clemens in the town of Florida, Missouri, in 1835. When he was four years old, his family moved to Hannibal, a town on the Mississippi River much like the towns depicted in his two most famous novels, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884). Clemens spent his young life in a fairly affluent family that owned a number of household slaves. The death of Clemens’s father in 1847, however, left the family in hardship.

Clemens left school, worked for a printer, and, in 1851, having finished his apprenticeship, began to set type for his brother Orion’s newspaper, the Hannibal Journal. But Hannibal proved too small to hold Clemens, who soon became a sort of itinerant printer and found work in a number of American cities, including New York and Philadelphia. While still in his early twenties, Clemens gave up his printing career in order to work on riverboats on the Mississippi. Clemens eventually became a riverboat pilot, and his life on the river influenced him a great deal. Perhaps most important, the riverboat life provided him with the pen name Mark Twain, derived from the riverboat leadsmen’s signal—“By the mark, twain”—that the water was deep enough for safe passage. Life on the river also gave Twain material for several of his books, including the raft scenes of Huckleberry Finn and the material for his autobiographical Life on the Mississippi (1883). Clemens continued to work on the river until 1861, when the Civil War exploded across America and shut down the Mississippi for travel and shipping.

Although Clemens joined a Confederate cavalry division, he was no ardent Confederate, and when his division deserted en masse, he did too. He then made his way west with his brother Orion, working first as a silver miner in Nevada and then stumbling into his true calling, journalism. In 1863, Clemens began to sign articles with the name Mark Twain. Throughout the late 1860s and 1870s, Twain’s articles, stories, memoirs, and novels, characterized by an irrepressible wit and a deft ear for language and dialect, garnered him immense celebrity. His novel The Innocents Abroad (1869) was an instant bestseller, and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) received even greater national acclaim and cemented Twain’s position as a giant in American literary circles. As the nation prospered economically in the post–Civil War period—an era that came to be known as the Gilded Age, an epithet that Twain coined—so too did Twain.

His books were sold door-to-door, and he became wealthy enough to build a large house in Hartford, Connecticut, for himself and his wife, Olivia, whom he had married in 1870. Twain began work on Huckleberry Finn, a sequel to Tom Sawyer, in an effort to capitalize on the popularity of the earlier novel. This new novel took on a more serious character, however, as Twain focused increasingly on the institution of slavery and the South. Twain soon set Huckleberry Finn aside, perhaps because its darker tone did not fit the optimistic sentiments of the Gilded Age. In the early 1880s, however, the hopefulness of the post–Civil War years began to fade. Reconstruction, the political program designed to reintegrate the defeated South into the Union as a slavery-free region, began to fail. The harsh measures the victorious North imposed only embittered the South. Concerned about maintaining power, many Southern politicians began an effort to control and oppress the black men and women whom the war had freed. Meanwhile, Twain’s personal life began to collapse. His wife had long been sickly, and the couple lost their first son after just nineteen months.

Twain also made a number of poor investments and financial decisions and, in 1891, found himself mired in debilitating debt. As his personal fortune dwindled, he continued to devote himself to writing. Drawing from his personal plight and the prevalent national troubles of the day, he finished a draft of Huckleberry Finn in 1883, and by 1884 had it ready for publication. The novel met with great public and critical acclaim. Twain continued to write over the next ten years. He published two more popular novels, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889) and Pudd’nhead Wilson (1894), but went into a considerable decline afterward, never again publishing work that matched the high standard he had set with Huckleberry Finn. Personal tragedy also continued to hound Twain: his finances remained troublesome, and within the course of a few years, his wife and two of his daughters passed away. Twain’s writing from this period until the end of his life reflects a depression and a sort of righteous rage at the injustices of the world.

Despite his personal troubles, however, Twain continued to enjoy immense esteem and fame and continued to be in demand as a public speaker until his death in 1910. The story of Huckleberry Finn, however, does not end with the death of its author. Through the twentieth century, the novel has become famous not merely as the crown jewel in the work of one of America’s preeminent writers, but also as a subject of intense controversy. The novel occasionally has been banned in Southern states because of its steadfastly critical take on the South and the hypocrisies of slavery. Others have dismissed Huckleberry Finn as vulgar or racist because it uses the word nigger, a term whose connotations obscure the novel’s deeper themes—which are unequivocally antislavery—and even prevent some from reading and enjoying it altogether. The fact that the historical context in which Twain wrote made his use of the word insignificant—and, indeed, part of the realism he wanted to create—offers little solace to some modern readers.

Ultimately, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has proved significant not only as a novel that explores the racial and moral world of its time but also, through the controversies that continue to surround it, as an artifact of those same moral and racial tensions as they have evolved to the present day. More Help Mark Twain: Author of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn | Study.com Mark Twain: Author of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Watch short & fun videos Start Your Free Trial Today Instructor: Christina Boggs Chrissy has taught secondary English and history and writes online curriculum. She has an M.S.Ed. in Social Studies Education. Add to Add to Add to Want to watch this again later? Log in or sign up to add this lesson to a Custom Course. Custom Courses are courses that you create from Study.com lessons. Use them just like other courses to track progress, access quizzes and exams, and share content. Teachers Organize and share selected lessons with your class. Make planning easier by creating your own custom course. Students Create a new course from any lesson page or your dashboard. From any lesson page: Click "Add to" located below the video player and follow the prompts to name your course and save your lesson.

From your dashboard: Click on the "Custom Courses" tab, then click "Create course". Next, go to any lesson page and begin adding lessons. Edit your Custom Course directly from your dashboard. Personalize: Name your Custom Course and add an optional description or learning objective. Organize: Create chapters to group lesson within your course. Remove and reorder chapters and lessons at any time. Share your Custom Course or assign lessons and chapters. Teacher Edition: Share or assign lessons and chapters by clicking the "Teacher" tab on the lesson or chapter page you want to assign. Students' quiz scores and video views will be trackable in your "Teacher" tab. Premium Edition: You can share your Custom Course by copying and pasting the course URL. Only Study.com members will be able to access the entire course. You're probably familiar with Mark Twain as the prolific author of the novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Beyond the books he's written, how much do you really know about him? This lesson explores the life of Mark Twain.

The Man Behind the Book Few writers are as iconic or well-loved as Mark Twain, author of American classics like Roughing It, The Prince and the Pauper, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and of course, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. One of the reasons that Mark Twain is such an engaging author is because he includes a bit of himself in his writing. Much of what Twain writes about comes from his personal experiences growing up during the mid-1800s. Early Life Mark Twain was born on Nov. 30, 1835, in the small town of Florida, Missouri. But ''Mark Twain'' was his pen name, not his actual name. He was known by family and friends as Sam, short for Samuel Longhorn Clemens. Clemens' family moved to Hannibal, Missouri, when he was just four years old. This proved to be a formative event in his life because it placed him right on the banks of the Mississippi River, which would become an important aspect of his classic work, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Another childhood experience that would influence his work was his exposure to slavery. Both his father and uncle owned slaves in Missouri.

As a result, Clemens spent much of his childhood playing around slaves' quarters, giving him an invaluable chance to learn, listen, and observe. In 1857, Clemens embarked on a short career as a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River. His dream of navigating the muddy Mississippi was cut short in 1861 when the Civil War divided the country in half. Clemens joined the Confederate Army but abandoned within a few weeks. Unable to pilot riverboats, he headed out West and landed in Nevada in search of adventure, and of course, fortune. Although he was unlucky as a silver prospector in the Nevada Territory, he proved to be a pretty good writer. When working on the river, he commonly heard the phrase mark twain being uttered by riverboat men. This phrase means that the water is at least 12 fathoms (2 feet) deep and is safe enough for a boat to go through. It was at a local Nevada newspaper that he first debuted his pen name ''Mark Twain.'' Picture of Mark Twain taken in 1871 Writing Career Throughout the 1860s, Clemens wrote for various newspapers and began to make a name for himself as an author.

In 1870, he married Olivia Langdon and one year later the couple moved to Hartford, Connecticut. While living in Connecticut, Clemens penned some of his most significant novels, including Roughing It, The Gilded Age, Life on the Mississippi, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. In his writing, he often took a biting and sarcastic view of the world around him. Nevertheless, during the late 1880s and into the 1890s, Clemens faced financial ruin. His publishing company went under and he made a number of poor investments. He was forced to move his family from Hartford, Connecticut, and embark on an international tour that lasted nearly a decade.Clemens continued to write until he passed away, in 1910 at the age of 74. The Author and the Book The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn mirrors a great deal of Clemens himself. Life along the Mississippi River inspired numerous adventures for Clemens, both real and imaginary. Though Huck does not venture West to Nevada, Clemens' general spirit of adventure is captured by his title character. × Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Search eText, Read Online, Study, Discuss.

Use of a Child Protagonist Hello everyone, I just finished reading Huckleberry Finn, and in a few weeks, we are required to write a paper about it. It's a literary analysis, and my teacher assigned me the following question: In Huckleberry Finn, the protagonist (Huck Finn) is a child. Why did Mark Twain decide to use a child as opposed to an adult protagonist? Any ideas? -Desmond Tacoma, WA Posted By sousa95 at Wed 13 Apr 2011, 12:27 AM in Huckleberry Finn || 0 Replies 15 major events in huck finn hey sorry to ask this but can you please tell me 15 major events spread out across the book and what chapters theyre in? I know its a lot of work but I desperately need this. Again sorry for all the work. Posted By jacksfacts123 at Tue 15 Mar 2011, 1:26 AM in Huckleberry Finn || 0 Replies "huck finn" edited...despicable!

I can't remember the last time I was so infuriated at the re-working of a classic...THAT IS HEINOUS! A classic that made its mark by displaying the social and moral fabric of American society like no other book--it's arguably THE "Great American Novel," and certainly ranks up there for that honor--with the highs AND lows of America, the good ideas at work AND the ugliness and hypocrisy within...the claim of "All men are created equal" and the enslavement and demeaning treatment of an entire race and the removal and in some cases extinction of another... A book that ATTACKS racism and bigotry... And they take out the "N-word" and "Injun" to make it more pallateable? Well, while we're at it, why not change around some of the work from the 1920s and 1930s? I'm a Jew but, hey, I just can't handle it and any future kids someday just would be better off not having to face the "K-word," right? And we can just rewrite those books that have Anti-Semetic characters to soften the blow--no problem!

After all, why have Shylock suffer all the slings and arrows and terrible treatment and slanders in The Merchant of Venice when we can just PC it up and make it perfectly clear those nice, virtuous Venetians were perfect Christians in that day and age and didn't subjugate Shylock or the Jews at all! We don't need THAT! Who needs cold, cruel details and an actual reason for one of the first complex Jewish characters in literature to do what he does when we can just nice it up and clear the Venetians' names and make Shylock a flat character and be SURE no one EVER need see he had ANY reason to act badly. Shakespeare...he was less evolved, less civilized, right? Same with Twain! After all, THEY know better than Twain what Twain meant to get across--why should Jim and his people have to face such terrible language and provide them with reasons for what they do and how we should feel about them and their white masters when "slave" works just fine! After all, "slave" gets it AL across, right?

No need to throw in a word that was far more derogatory and insulting and humiliating for them, no need to make us feel uncomfortable that we treated them not only as slaves, but less than human, and called them as such! And hey--while we took over the "Native American" lands, we were at least SURE we didn't "insult them" by calling them "injun" while sending them on a Trail of Tears and destroying their society and way of life, rioght? NO REASON we should have to face the problems of race today, because in American society today race relations are 100% perfect and utpoian and everyone loves everyone in a perfect. totally-PC America where nothing bad ever happened and no bad things EVER happen! Mr. Twain...on behalf of my generation and all of us who actually still read and still are able to think before we act, all of us who aren't afraid to look into the past to see the darker side of our pasts and even ourselves, I apologize. Your words haven't fallen on deaf ears--its just that "sivilized world" that has it all wrong.

Posted By Lord Macbeth at Wed 5 Jan 2011, 3:37 AM in Huckleberry Finn || 89 Replies mark Twain and "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" I am writing an essay on mark Twain and "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and I need to write on how Mark Twains life experiences influenced certain parts of the book. I need a quote from each of the sections to prove this. Any help would be great. I already used all the quotes from the book I'm allowed now I need to use articles, etc. Here is the sections. I need quotes that prove that something in twains life influenced him to write about a certain thing in the book and quotes that provide evidence that my statement is the truth.

Characters Pap Huck Jim Themes bonds of friendship truth (lieing can end up bad) danger of alcohalism Race Relations similar origins (Huck and Jim) positive outlook on everything/enjoy each other (Huck and Jim) black society needs help from whites Thanks, ty Posted By tysingleton34 at Tue 1 Jun 2010, 10:43 PM in Huckleberry Finn || 1 Reply What Shakespeare quotes are in Huckleberry Finn? Posted By cpl at Sun 24 Jan 2010, 9:43 PM in Huckleberry Finn || 1 Reply What does the "texas" mean in Ch11 Hello all, I chapter 11 Huck is trying to convince Jim to land on the shipwrecked steam boat they are happening to drift upon at night in the middle of a storm. To convince Jim to land on it he referes to a "Texas" and a "Pilot-House". I thought perhaps the "texas" was referring to the name of the vessel, but that doesn't make much sense in the context of the wording. What is the "Texas" referring too?

regards, Rick Posted By RickP330 at Tue 26 May 2009, 5:22 PM in Huckleberry Finn || 2 Replies need help on this please the huckleberry finn adventures hi i really need help on this assignment i tried to do it but couldnt need to write one page on the followying things chapter12-18 1.)Huck wishes he could write fitting tribute for Emmaline Grangerford but he is unable to . Mimickiing Emmaline's style write a poem about her death 2.) Imagine your are report for a tabloid newspaper.

Write an article for your newspaper about the death of wilks and the two set of brothers you dont hve to do these for me but can u please give me some suggestions wat i can write about poem doesnt have to page long but needs to be good and 2nd is page long thank you Posted By fighta22122 at Thu 21 May 2009, 5:31 AM in Huckleberry Finn || 0 Replies Hey I have an assignment in which I have to explore the following question: From what perspective is Racism seen in Huckleberry Finn? And I am not sure what to write about. Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions?

Posted By Paulo1913 at Tue 14 Apr 2009, 10:57 PM in Huckleberry Finn || 3 Replies Im writing an essay on how Twain satirizes the institutions of religion, education and slavery...I have a lot of examples for religion, but really need help with finding examples for education and slavery...thanks for the help Posted By essaywriter at Sun 5 Apr 2009, 2:17 PM in Huckleberry Finn || 1 Reply i have a quiz over the 2 chapters and i hardly understand the book as it is. can someone help me ASAP. it is just over 10 and 11! please help me! i would appericate it Posted By same_mae at Tue 17 Mar 2009, 12:49 AM in Huckleberry Finn || 0 Replies SparkNotes: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: Themes, Motifs & Symbols The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.

Racism and Slavery Although Twain wrote Huckleberry Finn two decades after the Emancipation Proclamation and the end of the Civil War, America—and especially the South—was still struggling with racism and the aftereffects of slavery. By the early 1880s, Reconstruction, the plan to put the United States back together after the war and integrate freed slaves into society, had hit shaky ground, although it had not yet failed outright. As Twain worked on his novel, race relations, which seemed to be on a positive path in the years following the Civil War, once again became strained. The imposition of Jim Crow laws, designed to limit the power of blacks in the South in a variety of indirect ways, brought the beginning of a new, insidious effort to oppress. The new racism of the South, less institutionalized and monolithic, was also more difficult to combat. Slavery could be outlawed, but when white Southerners enacted racist laws or policies under a professed motive of self-defense against newly freed blacks, far fewer people, Northern or Southern, saw the act as immoral and rushed to combat it.

Although Twain wrote the novel after slavery was abolished, he set it several decades earlier, when slavery was still a fact of life. But even by Twain’s time, things had not necessarily gotten much better for blacks in the South. In this light, we might read Twain’s depiction of slavery as an allegorical representation of the condition of blacks in the United States even after the abolition of slavery. Just as slavery places the noble and moral Jim under the control of white society, no matter how degraded that white society may be, so too did the insidious racism that arose near the end of Reconstruction oppress black men for illogical and hypocritical reasons. In Huckleberry Finn, Twain, by exposing the hypocrisy of slavery, demonstrates how racism distorts the oppressors as much as it does those who are oppressed. The result is a world of moral confusion, in which seemingly “good” white people such as Miss Watson and Sally Phelps express no concern about the injustice of slavery or the cruelty of separating Jim from his family. Intellectual and Moral Education By focusing on Huck’s education, Huckleberry Finn fits into the tradition of the bildungsroman: a novel depicting an individual’s maturation and development.

As a poor, uneducated boy, for all intents and purposes an orphan, Huck distrusts the morals and precepts of the society that treats him as an outcast and fails to protect him from abuse. This apprehension about society, and his growing relationship with Jim, lead Huck to question many of the teachings that he has received, especially regarding race and slavery. More than once, we see Huck choose to “go to hell” rather than go along with the rules and follow what he has been taught. Huck bases these decisions on his experiences, his own sense of logic, and what his developing conscience tells him. On the raft, away from civilization, Huck is especially free from society’s rules, able to make his own decisions without restriction. Through deep introspection, he comes to his own conclusions, unaffected by the accepted—and often hypocritical—rules and values of Southern culture. By the novel’s end, Huck has learned to “read” the world around him, to distinguish good, bad, right, wrong, menace, friend, and so on.

His moral development is sharply contrasted to the character of Tom Sawyer, who is influenced by a bizarre mix of adventure novels and Sunday-school teachings, which he combines to justify his outrageous and potentially harmful escapades. The Hypocrisy of “Civilized” Society When Huck plans to head west at the end of the novel in order to escape further “sivilizing,” he is trying to avoid more than regular baths and mandatory school attendance. Throughout the novel, Twain depicts the society that surrounds Huck as little more than a collection of degraded rules and precepts that defy logic. This faulty logic appears early in the novel, when the new judge in town allows Pap to keep custody of Huck. The judge privileges Pap’s “rights” to his son as his natural father over Huck’s welfare. At the same time, this decision comments on a system that puts a white man’s rights to his “property”—his slaves—over the welfare and freedom of a black man. In implicitly comparing the plight of slaves to the plight of Huck at the hands of Pap, Twain implies that it is impossible for a society that owns slaves to be just, no matter how “civilized” that society believes and proclaims itself to be.

Again and again, Huck encounters individuals who seem good—Sally Phelps, for example—but who Twain takes care to show are prejudiced slave-owners. This shaky sense of justice that Huck repeatedly encounters lies at the heart of society’s problems: terrible acts go unpunished, yet frivolous crimes, such as drunkenly shouting insults, lead to executions. Sherburn’s speech to the mob that has come to lynch him accurately summarizes the view of society Twain gives in Huckleberry Finn: rather than maintain collective welfare, society instead is marked by cowardice, a lack of logic, and profound selfishness. Motifs Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, and literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes. Childhood Huck’s youth is an important factor in his moral education over the course of the novel, for we sense that only a child is open-minded enough to undergo the kind of development that Huck does. Since Huck and Tom are young, their age lends a sense of play to their actions, which excuses them in certain ways and also deepens the novel’s commentary on slavery and society.

Ironically, Huck often knows better than the adults around him, even though he has lacked the guidance that a proper family and community should have offered him. Twain also frequently draws links between Huck’s youth and Jim’s status as a black man: both are vulnerable, yet Huck, because he is white, has power over Jim. And on a different level, the silliness, pure joy, and naïveté of childhood give Huckleberry Finn a sense of fun and humor. Though its themes are quite weighty, the novel itself feels light in tone and is an enjoyable read because of this rambunctious childhood excitement that enlivens the story. Lies and Cons Huckleberry Finn is full of malicious lies and scams, many of them coming from the duke and the dauphin. It is clear that these con men’s lies are bad, for they hurt a number of innocent people. Yet Huck himself tells a number of lies and even cons a few people, most notably the slave-hunters, to whom he makes up a story about a smallpox outbreak in order to protect Jim. As Huck realizes, it seems that telling a lie can actually be a good thing, depending on its purpose.

This insight is part of Huck’s learning process, as he finds that some of the rules he has been taught contradict what seems to be “right.” At other points, the lines between a con, legitimate entertainment, and approved social structures like religion are fine indeed. In this light, lies and cons provide an effective way for Twain to highlight the moral ambiguity that runs through the novel. Superstitions and Folk Beliefs From the time Huck meets him on Jackson’s Island until the end of the novel, Jim spouts a wide range of superstitions and folktales. Whereas Jim initially appears foolish to believe so unwaveringly in these kinds of signs and omens, it turns out, curiously, that many of his beliefs do indeed have some basis in reality or presage events to come. Much as we do, Huck at first dismisses most of Jim’s superstitions as silly, but ultimately he comes to appreciate Jim’s deep knowledge of the world. In this sense, Jim’s superstition serves as an alternative to accepted social teachings and assumptions and provides a reminder that mainstream conventions are not always right. Parodies of Popular Romance Novels Huckleberry Finn is full of people who base their lives on romantic literary models and stereotypes of various kinds.

Tom Sawyer, the most obvious example, bases his life and actions on adventure novels. The deceased Emmeline Grangerford painted weepy maidens and wrote poems about dead children in the romantic style. The Shepherdson and Grangerford families kill one another out of a bizarre, overexcited conception of family honor. These characters’ proclivities toward the romantic allow Twain a few opportunities to indulge in some fun, and indeed, the episodes that deal with this subject are among the funniest in the novel. However, there is a more substantive message beneath: that popular literature is highly stylized and therefore rarely reflects the reality of a society. Twain shows how a strict adherence to these romantic ideals is ultimately dangerous: Tom is shot, Emmeline dies, and the Shepherdsons and Grangerfords end up in a deadly clash. Symbols Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts. The Mississippi River For Huck and Jim, the Mississippi River is the ultimate symbol of freedom. Alone on their raft, they do not have to answer to anyone. The river carries them toward freedom: for Jim, toward the free states; for Huck, away from his abusive father and the restrictive “sivilizing” of St.

Petersburg. Much like the river itself, Huck and Jim are in flux, willing to change their attitudes about each other with little prompting. Despite their freedom, however, they soon find that they are not completely free from the evils and influences of the towns on the river’s banks. Even early on, the real world intrudes on the paradise of the raft: the river floods, bringing Huck and Jim into contact with criminals, wrecks, and stolen goods. Then, a thick fog causes them to miss the mouth of the Ohio River, which was to be their route to freedom. As the novel progresses, then, the river becomes something other than the inherently benevolent place Huck originally thought it was. As Huck and Jim move further south, the duke and the dauphin invade the raft, and Huck and Jim must spend more time ashore. Though the river continues to offer a refuge from trouble, it often merely effects the exchange of one bad situation for another. Each escape exists in the larger context of a continual drift southward, toward the Deep South and entrenched slavery. In this transition from idyllic retreat to source of peril, the river mirrors the complicated state of the South.

As Huck and Jim’s journey progresses, the river, which once seemed a paradise and a source of freedom, becomes merely a short-term means of escape that nonetheless pushes Huck and Jim ever further toward danger and destruction. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Books on Google Play Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ( 5) Description This Prestwick House Literary Touchstone Edition includes a glossary and reader's notes to help the modern reader contend with Twain's language, allusions, and deliberate misstatements and malapropisms.The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain's sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, became an instant success in the year of its publication, 1884, but was seen by some as unfit for children to read because of its language, grammar, and "uncivilized hero." The book has sparked controversy ever since, but most scholars continue to praise it as a modern masterpiece, an essential read, and one of the greatest novels in all of American literature.Twain's satiric treatment of racism, religious excess, and rural simplicity and his accuracy in presenting dialects mark Huck Finn as a classic.

His unswerving confidence in Huck's wisdom and maturity, along with the well-rounded and sympathetic portrayal of Jim draw readers into the book, holding them until Huck's last words rejecting all attempts to "sivilize" him. About the author Mark Twain was born Samuel L. Clemens in Florida, Missouri on November 30, 1835. He worked as a printer for a time, and then became a steamboat pilot. He traveled in the West, writing humorous sketches for newspapers. In 1865, he wrote the short story, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, which was very well received. He then began a career as a humorous travel writer and lecturer, publishing The Innocents Abroad in 1869, Roughing It in 1872, and, co-authored with Charles Dudley Warner, Gilded Age in 1873. His best-known works are The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), Mississippi Writing: Life on the Mississippi (1883), and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884). He died of a heart attack on April 21, 1910.

My review 10 Facts About 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' | Mental Floss 10 Facts About 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' NYPL Like us on Facebook On its surface, Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a straightforward story about a boy and a runaway slave floating down the Mississippi River. But underneath, the book is a subversive confrontation of slavery and racism. It remains one of the most loved—and most banned—books in American history. 1. Huckleberry Finn First Appears In Tom Sawyer. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a sequel to Tom Sawyer, Twain’s novel about his childhood in Hannibal, Missouri. Huck is the “juvenile pariah of the village” and “son of the town drunkard,” Pap Finn. He wears cast-off adult clothes and sleeps in doorways and empty barrels. Despite this, the other children “wished they dared to be like him.” Huck also appears in Tom Sawyer, Detective, and Tom Sawyer Abroad, as well as the unfinished Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer Among the Indians. 2. Huckleberry Finn May Be Based On Twain’s Childhood Friend.

NYPL Twain said Huck is based on Tom Blankenship, a childhood playmate whose father, Woodson Blankenship, was a poor drunkard and the likely model for Pap Finn. “In Huckleberry Finn I have drawn Tom Blankenship exactly as he was,” he wrote in Autobiography . “He was ignorant, unwashed, insufficiently fed; but he had as good a heart as ever any boy had." However, Twain may be exaggerating here. In 1885, when the Minneapolis Tribune asked who Huck was based on, Twain admitted it was no single person: “I could not point you out the youngster all in a lump; but still his story is what I call a true story.” 3. It Took Twain Seven Years To Write The Novel. University of Virginia Huckleberry Finn was written in two short bursts. The first was in 1876, when Twain wrote 400 pages that he told his friend he liked “only tolerably well, as far as I have got, and may possibly pigeonhole or burn” the manuscript. He stopped working on it for several years to write The Prince and the Pauper and Life on the Mississippi.

In 1882, Twain took a steamboat ride on the Mississippi from New Orleans to Minnesota, with a stop in Hannibal. It must have inspired him, because he dove into finishing Huckleberry Finn. In August 1883, he wrote : “I have written eight or nine hundred manuscript pages in such a brief space of time that I mustn’t name the number of days; I shouldn’t believe it myself, and of course couldn’t expect you to.” The book was published in 1884. 4. Like Huck, Twain Changed His View Of Slavery. NYPL Huck, who grows up in South before the Civil War, not only accepts slavery, but believes that helping Jim run away is a sin. The moral climax of the novel is when Huck debates whether to send Jim’s owner a letter detailing Jim’s whereabouts. Finally, Huck says, "All right, then, I'll go to hell,” and tears the letter up. As a child, Twain didn’t question the institution of slavery. Not only was Missouri a slave state, his uncle owned 20 slaves.

In Autobiography, Twain wrote , “I vividly remember seeing a dozen black men and women chained to one another, once, and lying in a group on the pavement, awaiting shipment to the Southern slave market. Those were the saddest faces I have ever seen.” At some point, Twain’s attitudes changed and he married into an abolitionist family . His father-in-law, Jervis Langdon, was a “conductor” on the Underground Railroad and housed Frederick Douglass . 5. Emmeline Grangerford Is A Parody Of A Victorian Poetaster. Huckleberry Finn parodies adventure novels, politics, religion, the Hatfields and the McCoys, and even Hamlet’s soliloquy. But most memorable may be Emmeline Grangerford , the 15-year-old poet. Emmeline is a parody of Julia A. Moore , the “Sweet Singer of Michigan,” who wrote bad poetry about death. So does Emmeline, according to Huck: “Every time a man died, or a woman died, or a child died, she would be on hand with her "tribute" before he was cold.

She called them tributes.” Along with bad poetry, Emmeline paints “crayons” of dramatic subjects, such as a girl “crying into a handkerchief” over a dead bird with the caption, "I Shall Never Hear Thy Sweet Chirrup More Alas." 6. A Penis Drawing Almost Ruined The Book. University of Virginia Twain, who ran his own printing press, hired 23-year-old E. W. Kemble to illustrate the first edition of Huckleberry Finn. Right as the book went to press, someone—it was never discovered who—added a penis to the illustration of Uncle Silas. The engraving shows Uncle Silas talking to Huck and Aunt Sally while a crude penis bulges from his pants. According to Twain’s business manager Charles Webster, 250 books were sent out before the mistake was caught. They were recalled and publication was postponed for a reprint. If the full run had been sent out, Webster said, Twain’s “credit for decency and morality would have been destroyed.” You can view Kemble’s original illustrations here. 7. Many Consider Huckleberry Finn The First American Novel.

“All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn,” Ernest Hemingway wrote in Green Hills Of Africa . “There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since." While this statement ignores great works like Moby-Dick and The Scarlet Letter, Huckleberry Finn was notable because it was the first novel to be written in the American vernacular. Huck speaks in dialect, using phrases like “it ain’t no matter” or "it warn’t no time to be sentimentering.” Since most writers of the time were still imitating European literature, writing the way Americans actually talked seemed revolutionary. It was language that was clear, crisp, and vivid, and it changed how Americans wrote. 8. The End Of The Book Is Often Considered A Cop Out University of Virginia A major criticism of Huckleberry Finn is that the book begins to fail when Tom Sawyer enters the novel. Up until that point, Huck and Jim have developed a friendship bound by their mutual plight as runaways. We believe Huck cares about Jim and has learned to see his humanity. But when Tom Sawyer comes into the novel, Huck changes. He becomes passive and doesn’t even seem to care when Jim is captured.

To make matters worse, it turns out that Jim’s owner has already set him free, and that Huck’s abusive dad is dead. Essentially, Huck and Jim have been running away from nothing. Many, including American novelist Jane Smiley , believe that by slapping on a happy ending, Twain was ignoring the complex questions his book raises. 9. The Book Is Frequently Banned. University of Virginia Huckleberry Finn was first banned in Concord, Massachussets in 1885 (“trash and suitable only for the slums”) and continues to be one of the most-challenged books. For example, it’s number 14 on Top 100 Banned/Challenged Books: 2000-2009 . The objections are usually over n-word, which occurs over 200 times in the book. Others say that the portrayal of African Americans is stereotypical, racially insensitive, or racist.

In 2011, Stephen Railton, a professor at University of Virginia, published a version of the book that replaced that offensive word with “slave.” Soon after appeared The Hipster Huckleberry Finn, where the word was replaced with “hipster.” The book's description says, “the adventures of Huckleberry Finn are now neither offensive nor uncool.” 10. Here’s How Twain Responded To Censorship. In 1905, the Brooklyn Public Library removed Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer from the shelves because, as librarian wrote Twain, Huck is “a deceitful boy who said 'sweat' when he should have said 'perspiration.'" Here’s Twain’s reply: DEAR SIR: I am greatly troubled by what you say. I wrote Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn for adults exclusively, and it always distresses me when I find that boys and girls have been allowed access to them.

The mind that becomes soiled in youth can never again be washed clean; I know this by my own experience, and to this day I cherish an unappeasable bitterness against the unfaithful guardians of my young life, who not only permitted but compelled me to read an unexpurgated Bible through before I was 15 years old. None can do that and ever draw a clean sweet breath again this side of the grave. Ask that young lady—she will tell you so. Most honestly do I wish I could say a softening word or two in defence of Huck's character, since you wish it, but really in my opinion it is no better than those of Solomon, David, Satan, and the rest of the sacred brotherhood. If there is an unexpurgated Bible in the Children's Department, won't you please help that young woman remove Huck and Tom from that questionable companionship? Sincerely yours, Emily Perlman - Twain's Purpose - Per 9 Kelly McKenna (10/09/2014 2:34pm) Mark Twain's purpose in writing The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is to show the culture and lifestyle during the time period of the book.

He shows his knowledge on slavery and the Mississippi River throughout the story. His purpose is also to show Huck's change in personality and desire to be himself on the raft and how the river allows him to be free. Mark Twain may have many other underlying reason for writing this book but I can't think of anymore reasons. Emily Rowley (10/09/2014 2:35pm) Mark Twain's purpose in writing the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was to share his childhood experiences and adventures. Through his experiences and adventures he displays how these are the things that help kids mature and learn from but also continue to stay imaginative and creative. The book also reveals problems within the world back then such as slavery and superior classes and how kids such as himself handle these conflicts. Kersten Coffey (10/09/2014 2:35pm) Twains purpose in writing the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is to give his readers insight on what life was like at this time. Twain is allowing the readers to get a "feel" of what slavery was like and how bad slavery was at the time he wrote this book.

Twain helps the reader gain a full understanding of what pre civil war life was like in the south. Julianne Conroy (10/09/2014 2:35pm) Mark Twain had specific motives when writing The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Throughout his novel Twain describes serious issues of the South prior to the civil war. Through a use of humor known as satire Twain pokes fun at major controversy's such as hypocrisy, slavery, war and flaws within all of us. Twain does a good job of portraying these issues and their seriousness while finding the humor in them because he lived throughout this time period. Chelsea Donohue (10/09/2014 2:35pm) Mark Twains purpose in writing The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was to use character dialogue as satire. Satire is the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.

Kelly Ann Egan (10/09/2014 2:36pm) Mark Twains purpose in writing The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was to point out all the imperfections in society that people try to cover up. Also to show another side of living that has more pros then the average life during that time period. Twain uses a lot of satire throughout the whole. Which helps him get his point across in a humorous way. Tyler Witte (10/09/2014 2:36pm) Mark Twains main purpose of writing The Adventures of Huck Finn is to inform the readers about the problems in society and to poke fun at some flaws with people within this society. One Example of this is Twains description of the Grangerford house. Where they have all of these beautiful paintings and rooms, and then describes the chips in the fake fruit. carly fernandez (10/09/2014 2:36pm) (New Message)Twain's purpose was to show a picture of the American south through his eyes. He makes fun of most of the people Huck encounters using satire.

Each person is representing a larger group of people and Huck represents Twain himself. Christina Haddican (10/09/2014 2:37pm) Mark Twain's purpose in writing The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is to poke fun at society. He does this through his use of satire which is seen in Pap's rant and through Huck's experience with the Grangerford's. Mark Twain uses his knowledge of the Mississippi River to give the reader an idea of what Missouri was like in the 1850's before the civil war. Alex Zoccali (10/09/2014 2:37pm) Mark Twain's purpose in writing The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was to educate readers about how life was like when he grew up in the American South and also what life is like living on the Mississippi River. Another motive of Twain in writing this novel was to poke fun at what he views as flaws in society by using satire.

farrah considine (10/09/2014 2:37pm) Mark Twain's purpose of writing the adventures of Huck Finn in my opinion was to spread awareness to future generations on the way people used to live in, how they reacted with one another. People used to speak derogatory and very harshly to one another and people were very racist towards one another, mostly African americans. Meaghan Gilbride (10/09/2014 2:37pm) I believe that Mark Twain's purpose in writing the novel is to reveal the problems and flaws he saw in society through the use of satire. I believe he uses the character Huck to show adventures that maybe he had dreamed of going on when he was a kid in Florida, Missouri. Twain also educates his audience with his knowledge of the American South and living life on The Mississippi river. Mike Shine (10/09/2014 2:37pm) Mark Twain's purpose for writing The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn was to tell about life on the Mississippi River and to tell about the American antibellum South.

Mark Twain wrote this book because he knows all about the mississppi river since he grew up on it. This book is mainly about Mark Twains childhood. emma leonard (10/09/2014 2:38pm) I think that Mark Twain's purpose of writing The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was because he wanted to share what he saw and thought of society. The way he does this is by using satire and pointing out all the flaws of society. He uses his knowledge on the Mississippi River to describe Huck's adventures and the people he meets in society. Alex Perez (10/09/2014 2:38pm) Mark Twain's purpose in writing The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was to tell people what the American Antebellum South was like. Mark Twain used his background of living in Mississippi to tell his story and incorporate satire in his work to show the audience how people acted during this time. Matthew McCahey (10/09/2014 2:39pm) I think that Mark Twain had some inspirations to his writing of Huck Finn.

The purpose of him writing the novel was he wanted to use satire to make fun of certain aspects of society in that time period. He describes Huck's adventures very creatively and some authors have pointed out that Huck Finn was the beginning of Modern American Literature.

Question: What author wrote "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn"?
Answer: Mark Twain