We discussed in class how in romanticist stories will often feature the idea of 'the childhood'. In that context one's 'childhood' refers to a period of time in one's youth before the world or culture or whatever has corrupted them. Children are supposedly innocent and pure and possess some sort of wisdom that is lost with age. This idea is still alive and thriving in culture, just look at arguments about censorship or ratings regarding movies or videogames or even books like Huck Finn.
Mark Twain is a realist of sorts: his books are very real but as Twain as Huck says in the beginning of the text, there are "stretchers." You don't want you're writing to be too real, since it might become quite boring.
All of that being said, Twain is attacking romanticism throughout Huckleberry Finn. Huck is about 12 or 13 at the start of the novel and has had some real experiences (discount the "stretching" in Tom Sawyer). His father is an abusive drunk, he's found treasure, and other adventures. He might be scared of ghosts but that is not a feature specific to children in the text as Jim and others are also superstitious. We do see him struggle with his conscious, but it's not so much a specific feature of children as a specific feature to Huck. This is since he's telling the story and has access to his own internal monologue.
On page 39, after a drunk Pap attempts to murder Huck and passes out, Huck calmly acquires the gun and points it at Pap. He waits to potentially murder his father and although it was raised in class that he didn't pull the trigger and there's no way of knowing if he actually would have if he needed, I believe he absolutely would have. Huck doesn't cry later (or at least, how he tells it) about it or think too much about it. He did what was in his best interest in terms of survival. At his next opportunity he escapes the cabin, fakes his death, and steals most if not all of the food, abandoning his alcoholic father. All of this is done rationally and with great cunning. Huck isn't traumatized and he doesn't even flinch or look back, he just leaves.
It could be argued that this is all because Huck's life has already been extraordinary and he's had other experiences. Well, having experiences does not imply a former innocence and if we look to Hadleyburg, it's clear that Twain doesn't believe these experiences have corrupted Huck. In Hadleyburg the town's lack of experience led to it's corruption, but even then it was not corrupted forever. Though they were humiliated, in the end they are vigilant to make sure the same thing never happens again.
Later in the novel, Huck watches Boggs get murdered and observes the subsequent lynch mob. Afterwards, he sneaks into the circus. Again, he doesn't cry or melt down or anything, he goes on with his life.
He is traumatized by some of the things he saw in the midst of the Grangerford feud, but it seems that what he saw there would traumatize anyone, child or adult.
Huck may be naive at times, perhaps in realizing how much Jim really understands, but then again Jim has spent most of his life fooling people in order to survive the hierarchy of the period. He does appear to not understand certain activities (like pretending to be robbers with Tom) or jokes (Buck's joke on pg 111) but he's definitely savvy and arguably the most aware character.
Huck has actually read Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain. Although, we don't know if he read it after his own adventure or before. Either way, I think that fact alone demonstrates a profound level of awareness.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
The Three Wilkes Sisters
The nieces of the recently "diseased" Peter Wilkes interested me for some reason or another. While they are generally good and easily lovable, I feel that they are more significant than what Huck portrays. Or, maybe just Hare-lip?
Mary Jane, the eldest, is first described by the young man on his way to Rio as a red-head. When Huck sees her for the first time, he says despite her unfortunate hair color, she was the most "awful" beauty. I think that Twain was evoking sympathy from his readers for her unfortunate hair color as a sort of "poor, ugly orphan" and then as incredibly beautiful in order to win the audience to her side and contrast her with the disgust of how the King plans to rob this unfortunate beauty. She is beautiful and helpless at this point, the typical damsel in distress, only she has no idea. She is quick to welcome the King as her uncle, insists that Huck be treated with kindness for he is a stranger and foreigner, and obedient to Huck when he tells her his plan. She does what she is told and has unyielding kindness.
She, and her two sisters, are also very caring of their slaves, not wanting their "family" to be split up. I think the morality of this is hard for the reader to cipher. On the one hand, she does not want the slaves to be sold and hugs and cries with them and honestly misses them. On the other hand, the are SLAVES and her slaves. Maybe she doesn't have any say in what they are but can only blindly love them and be as kind to them as possible? I'm not sure if she is just stupid and kind. I don't know where to place her.
The "Hare-lip" as Huck refers to her, questions Huck's stories and seems pretty intelligent and harder to convince. She is not so welcoming as Mary Jane and gets scolded for it. She surprisingly obeys Mary Jane in apologizing the most beautiful apology to Huck after she has made him, a stranger, feel uncomfortable. Is this what women are supposed to do: obey and be a good hostess? Was Twain suggesting the silliness in that by shedding light on her inquisitive nature? More so, does the Hare-lip obey Mary Jane because of the power she holds being the oldest and being "handsome?"
The girls act as they are "supposed" to act, fishing for compliments at dinner, giving the money to her "uncle," mourning at the uncle's tomb at night. Actually, they seem to go above and beyond what they are supposed to do, becoming exaggerations of women in society and appropriate behavior according to discourse. I guess these characters are just another example of the strangeness of roles in society and how when done to the utmost extreme, one can get duped out of a lot of money and give a lot of love and kisses to a complete rapscallion stranger.
Mary Jane, the eldest, is first described by the young man on his way to Rio as a red-head. When Huck sees her for the first time, he says despite her unfortunate hair color, she was the most "awful" beauty. I think that Twain was evoking sympathy from his readers for her unfortunate hair color as a sort of "poor, ugly orphan" and then as incredibly beautiful in order to win the audience to her side and contrast her with the disgust of how the King plans to rob this unfortunate beauty. She is beautiful and helpless at this point, the typical damsel in distress, only she has no idea. She is quick to welcome the King as her uncle, insists that Huck be treated with kindness for he is a stranger and foreigner, and obedient to Huck when he tells her his plan. She does what she is told and has unyielding kindness.
She, and her two sisters, are also very caring of their slaves, not wanting their "family" to be split up. I think the morality of this is hard for the reader to cipher. On the one hand, she does not want the slaves to be sold and hugs and cries with them and honestly misses them. On the other hand, the are SLAVES and her slaves. Maybe she doesn't have any say in what they are but can only blindly love them and be as kind to them as possible? I'm not sure if she is just stupid and kind. I don't know where to place her.
The "Hare-lip" as Huck refers to her, questions Huck's stories and seems pretty intelligent and harder to convince. She is not so welcoming as Mary Jane and gets scolded for it. She surprisingly obeys Mary Jane in apologizing the most beautiful apology to Huck after she has made him, a stranger, feel uncomfortable. Is this what women are supposed to do: obey and be a good hostess? Was Twain suggesting the silliness in that by shedding light on her inquisitive nature? More so, does the Hare-lip obey Mary Jane because of the power she holds being the oldest and being "handsome?"
The girls act as they are "supposed" to act, fishing for compliments at dinner, giving the money to her "uncle," mourning at the uncle's tomb at night. Actually, they seem to go above and beyond what they are supposed to do, becoming exaggerations of women in society and appropriate behavior according to discourse. I guess these characters are just another example of the strangeness of roles in society and how when done to the utmost extreme, one can get duped out of a lot of money and give a lot of love and kisses to a complete rapscallion stranger.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Lies and Identity
Kind of building on the previous post, while Huck Finn doesn't really have clear-cut cases of mistaken identity like in The Prince and the Pauper and Puddinhead Wilson, but it does have a lot of instances of Huck lying about his identity. If anyone asks him his name, he makes one up on the spot along with a plausible backstory to go with it; it's pretty impressive that he's able to come up with these stories on the fly like that. I'm not really completely sure of why Huck lies so extensively; it obviously has to do with the fact that he doesn't want to be found (since he faked his death and is traveling with a runaway slave and all) but he pulls it off so naturally that it's obvious that he's had a lot of experience in creating believable alibis. That aspect probably has a lot to do with Pap, since we see how Huck lies about why he's sleeping with the gun (he tells his father that he heard someone outside, when he was really trying to find a way to defend himself from Pap's drunkenness).
Anyway, it's amusing that it gets to a point where even Huck can't keep track of his lies, like when he asks Buck to spell his name for him and writes it down in case someone else asks. However, there are times when lying has come in handy, like when he made up a story about his family having smallpox so that the slave hunters wouldn't get near the raft and find Jim. Huck just takes on identities to fit whatever is going on around him, and despite the "moral reprehensibility" of lying, Huck uses this particular skill to save Jim on more than one occasion, and I think that protecting a friend is far more important than always telling the truth.
Anyway, it's amusing that it gets to a point where even Huck can't keep track of his lies, like when he asks Buck to spell his name for him and writes it down in case someone else asks. However, there are times when lying has come in handy, like when he made up a story about his family having smallpox so that the slave hunters wouldn't get near the raft and find Jim. Huck just takes on identities to fit whatever is going on around him, and despite the "moral reprehensibility" of lying, Huck uses this particular skill to save Jim on more than one occasion, and I think that protecting a friend is far more important than always telling the truth.
Identity in Huck Finn
I'm having trouble relating mistaken identity to the characters and plot of Huck Finn. I know that there are a lot of instances where Huck takes on a different identity to fool strangers on land. Huck uses the alias of "Sarah Mary Williams" and "George Jackson". By being Sarah Willaims, Huck is able to learn priceless information about his hometown and how the town is dealing with his faked death. Without doing this he wouldn't have known that his father was a suspect and had disappeared, or that Jim was being hunted. The identity of George Jackson allowed Huck to experience the "perfect family" that he had always wanted. Huck was taken into the Grangerfords family and treated as one of their own. Through the eyes of George Jackson, Huck saw how it was to be in a family dynamic but unfortunetly also witnessed the death of this family. Without becoming George Jackson he wouldn't have been able to see that even the "perfect family" has it's struggles and imperfections. Huck isn't the only character to adopted false personas. The king and the duke take on different identities to fool the townspeople into watching their comedy show and to fool the Wilks family.
I don't think that these cases of mistaken identity are the same as the ones in The Prince and the Pauper or Pudd'nhead Wilson. I'm not sure what Twain was exactly trying to accomplish by having Huck use so many different aliases. Why couldn't Huck use one alias during all his adventures? In The Prince and the Pauper and Pudd'nhead Wilson, mistaken identity is part of the main plot and is the basis of the story. But this isn't the same for Huck Finn. Why did Mark Twain put this into the story? Aren't the characters safe when they are so far from their home town?
I don't think that these cases of mistaken identity are the same as the ones in The Prince and the Pauper or Pudd'nhead Wilson. I'm not sure what Twain was exactly trying to accomplish by having Huck use so many different aliases. Why couldn't Huck use one alias during all his adventures? In The Prince and the Pauper and Pudd'nhead Wilson, mistaken identity is part of the main plot and is the basis of the story. But this isn't the same for Huck Finn. Why did Mark Twain put this into the story? Aren't the characters safe when they are so far from their home town?
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Punishment
Twain's Pudd'nhead Wilson is rooted in the relationship within dichotomies, as we pointed out in class today. I found there to be further relationships between the dichotomies that sometimes resulted in a conflict of ideas. Such an example is the punishment of of 'Tom' given to him when he was a white man, and then the punishment after we became an enslaved man. This conflict is thus related to the dichotomy of white and black.
The reader knows that there are both blacks and whites and Twain also knows then when Tom asks the question of why there "were niggers and whites made?" (117). The dichotomy is presented and fortified within the novel. Now, when 'Tom' is punished for the murder of his uncle, he is at first given the sentence of life imprisonment (225). However, when the creditors claimed that since he was not really 'Tom' but a black slave given to Judge Driscoll, he was then property of the estate. The shift in punishment confuses the notion of justice under law. For a murder crime, the just (as in lawful) punishment would be the life sentence. Any murdering man would then have to be punished according to this law for committing the crime. However, 'Tom' loses the justness of this punishment, this written law of punishment, because he is a slave, a black man. This implies that slaves were not even considered men, for even if they committed the crime, their punishment was not within the realms of law. Where is the justice in that? In other words, slaves were purely property and completely void of justice of the constitution. Twain even admits that if Tom "were white and free" then he would have to be punished. But, he was a black slave and had to be dealt with by other means because he was outside of the requirements for just law (226).
'Tom's' actual punishment then is to be sold down the river. But, I am hesitant to call it a punishment because he is only sold as a means to equal out the debt of an estate. It is more of a business transaction. This transaction is a dangerous one, because Tom faces a fate worse than the punishment within man's law. No, he has to be sold down the river like an inanimate object merely bought to better the white man's situation. That is the scariest punishment a once free man could ever receive: to become not even human. The dichotomy of white and black is more like the dichotomy of human and object.
The reader knows that there are both blacks and whites and Twain also knows then when Tom asks the question of why there "were niggers and whites made?" (117). The dichotomy is presented and fortified within the novel. Now, when 'Tom' is punished for the murder of his uncle, he is at first given the sentence of life imprisonment (225). However, when the creditors claimed that since he was not really 'Tom' but a black slave given to Judge Driscoll, he was then property of the estate. The shift in punishment confuses the notion of justice under law. For a murder crime, the just (as in lawful) punishment would be the life sentence. Any murdering man would then have to be punished according to this law for committing the crime. However, 'Tom' loses the justness of this punishment, this written law of punishment, because he is a slave, a black man. This implies that slaves were not even considered men, for even if they committed the crime, their punishment was not within the realms of law. Where is the justice in that? In other words, slaves were purely property and completely void of justice of the constitution. Twain even admits that if Tom "were white and free" then he would have to be punished. But, he was a black slave and had to be dealt with by other means because he was outside of the requirements for just law (226).
'Tom's' actual punishment then is to be sold down the river. But, I am hesitant to call it a punishment because he is only sold as a means to equal out the debt of an estate. It is more of a business transaction. This transaction is a dangerous one, because Tom faces a fate worse than the punishment within man's law. No, he has to be sold down the river like an inanimate object merely bought to better the white man's situation. That is the scariest punishment a once free man could ever receive: to become not even human. The dichotomy of white and black is more like the dichotomy of human and object.
Status Quo and Survival
We've talked about so much it's hard enough to keep it all straight; let alone choose something to elaborate on, but we survive. (Hey, that sounds a little like the title of this article...)
In most Twain's works, survival and the status quo often depend on one another to, well, survive (nailed the segue!).
Take a look back at The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg and it's plain that this is the case. The town hums along in its "vanity" over its intense honesty and incorruptible nature (or nurture) for about three generations until the stranger leaves the sack of gold. Since the town had kept itself free of "temptations," particularly through childhood, the presence of this new and real temptation upsets the social order. Now, it is true that the town was never really as honest as it claimed to be (Richards knew that Burgess was innocent but didn't stand up for him, etc.), but regardless the town still has the reputation and holds it dear (this reputation is part of their identity, no matter its validity). Also, whatever dishonesty is present in the town is quiet or out of sight for lack of better terms. The introduction of the gold/temptation eventually causes 19 of the town's respected citizens to lie, in violation of the town's reputation, and 18 of them are caught in the lie. The Richardses are fine to have not been caught, but the stranger creates and auction to reward them for being the most incorruptible of the prominent townspeople. The townspeople participate in the auction (possibly to celebrate the last shred of their reputation) and raise $40,000 for the Richardses. They do nothing to stop the auction although Mr. Richards does burn the check. After having spent years internalizing the town's reputation, Mr. and Mrs. Richards are unable to come clean for fear of humiliation and unable to live with the lie or the money. This situation ultimately leads to both of their deaths. The humiliation of the town as a whole tarnishes the town's reputation (upsetting the status quo) and kills arguably the worst among them* (renders them unable to survive).
[*"Worst" meaning they lied/violated the town's reputation the most, although they were the only ones with the opportunity to take the lies that far. That's why it also says "arguably"]
In The Prince and the Pauper, this again the case the status quo and survival are so closely linked. When Tom is the prince (and later king) at first he confesses the truth about how he came to be there, but his behavior is written off as "madness." Not by all though, towards the end of chapter 6 St. John voices his concerns about how the prince is acting differently and Sir Hertford immediately replies with, "thou utterest treason!" Saying the prince is an imposter upsets the status quo and thus if St. John were to speak up any further his own survival would be at stake. The differences bother him but he goes out his way to invent a rational for why he is 'wrong'*, that the prince can't be an imposter because an imposter would enjoy the high station of a prince and would never confess it and would be crazy to do so.
[*St. John inventing a rational is a sort of reverse of how the stranger in Hadleyburg allows everyone to reach the conclusion that they performed the deed instead of outright telling them. This seems like a form of... wait for it... INCEPTION!!! That sound is so much fun, but I digress...]
Since this post is getting quite long, rather than go into this theme in Pudd'nhead Wilson, I'll leave it open to the readers of this post. Here's a quick example/question: does Roxy play into the status quo of heredity and the one drop rule to attempt to make Tom rich and subsequently herself (her having no other means of support, this is her best way to survive)? And another (although it may be more aimed at general society of the time): as science rose to greater prominence, was it more or less bent to support the status quo or more specifically to rationalize racial ideas (ie eugenics)?
In most Twain's works, survival and the status quo often depend on one another to, well, survive (nailed the segue!).
Take a look back at The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg and it's plain that this is the case. The town hums along in its "vanity" over its intense honesty and incorruptible nature (or nurture) for about three generations until the stranger leaves the sack of gold. Since the town had kept itself free of "temptations," particularly through childhood, the presence of this new and real temptation upsets the social order. Now, it is true that the town was never really as honest as it claimed to be (Richards knew that Burgess was innocent but didn't stand up for him, etc.), but regardless the town still has the reputation and holds it dear (this reputation is part of their identity, no matter its validity). Also, whatever dishonesty is present in the town is quiet or out of sight for lack of better terms. The introduction of the gold/temptation eventually causes 19 of the town's respected citizens to lie, in violation of the town's reputation, and 18 of them are caught in the lie. The Richardses are fine to have not been caught, but the stranger creates and auction to reward them for being the most incorruptible of the prominent townspeople. The townspeople participate in the auction (possibly to celebrate the last shred of their reputation) and raise $40,000 for the Richardses. They do nothing to stop the auction although Mr. Richards does burn the check. After having spent years internalizing the town's reputation, Mr. and Mrs. Richards are unable to come clean for fear of humiliation and unable to live with the lie or the money. This situation ultimately leads to both of their deaths. The humiliation of the town as a whole tarnishes the town's reputation (upsetting the status quo) and kills arguably the worst among them* (renders them unable to survive).
[*"Worst" meaning they lied/violated the town's reputation the most, although they were the only ones with the opportunity to take the lies that far. That's why it also says "arguably"]
In The Prince and the Pauper, this again the case the status quo and survival are so closely linked. When Tom is the prince (and later king) at first he confesses the truth about how he came to be there, but his behavior is written off as "madness." Not by all though, towards the end of chapter 6 St. John voices his concerns about how the prince is acting differently and Sir Hertford immediately replies with, "thou utterest treason!" Saying the prince is an imposter upsets the status quo and thus if St. John were to speak up any further his own survival would be at stake. The differences bother him but he goes out his way to invent a rational for why he is 'wrong'*, that the prince can't be an imposter because an imposter would enjoy the high station of a prince and would never confess it and would be crazy to do so.
[*St. John inventing a rational is a sort of reverse of how the stranger in Hadleyburg allows everyone to reach the conclusion that they performed the deed instead of outright telling them. This seems like a form of... wait for it... INCEPTION!!! That sound is so much fun, but I digress...]
Since this post is getting quite long, rather than go into this theme in Pudd'nhead Wilson, I'll leave it open to the readers of this post. Here's a quick example/question: does Roxy play into the status quo of heredity and the one drop rule to attempt to make Tom rich and subsequently herself (her having no other means of support, this is her best way to survive)? And another (although it may be more aimed at general society of the time): as science rose to greater prominence, was it more or less bent to support the status quo or more specifically to rationalize racial ideas (ie eugenics)?
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Only Children and Madmen Believe
While The Prince and the Pauper brings up very interesting questions about identity as defined by society it also causes the reader to think about, if they were in a similar situation, would anyone believe them? Would they be labeled as crazy by the majority, as what happened in the story? And if anyone did believe them, what kind of people would they be?
Twain tackles this question, at least in part, throughout the novel; out of all the people that Edward tells his real identity to, the only ones who immediately believe him are the little children that he meets in the barn and the former monk who declares himself an archangel. This fits hand in hand with the novel's overall theme of social identity, since children and madmen are considered to be outside of the social realm; children are deemed "too young to understand," and madmen are, well, mad. However, Tom and Edward's unique circumstances call into question whether the monk really is mad--after all, his story may be fantastic and unbelievable, but isn't it just as unbelievable as a prince and a pauper trading places? In that light, it's very possible that the man was telling the truth, even though Edward immediately decided that he was mad, which was how everyone else treated him.
The children, like the monk, accept that he is the king "because it was so, and that was the end of it," but they are definitely not crazy. I think that the difference lies in the fact that the children were not yet jaded to the world the way that Edward was through the weight of all the power given to him at such a young age, making him not as able to easily believe despite what had happened to him. If those children had met that monk and he had told them his story, I'm sure that they would have believed it all. But another question remains? What is "crazy"? What is "madness"? Where is the line between someone having a condition or just being someone that society doesn't want to deal with? Maybe we should ask the kids.
Twain tackles this question, at least in part, throughout the novel; out of all the people that Edward tells his real identity to, the only ones who immediately believe him are the little children that he meets in the barn and the former monk who declares himself an archangel. This fits hand in hand with the novel's overall theme of social identity, since children and madmen are considered to be outside of the social realm; children are deemed "too young to understand," and madmen are, well, mad. However, Tom and Edward's unique circumstances call into question whether the monk really is mad--after all, his story may be fantastic and unbelievable, but isn't it just as unbelievable as a prince and a pauper trading places? In that light, it's very possible that the man was telling the truth, even though Edward immediately decided that he was mad, which was how everyone else treated him.
The children, like the monk, accept that he is the king "because it was so, and that was the end of it," but they are definitely not crazy. I think that the difference lies in the fact that the children were not yet jaded to the world the way that Edward was through the weight of all the power given to him at such a young age, making him not as able to easily believe despite what had happened to him. If those children had met that monk and he had told them his story, I'm sure that they would have believed it all. But another question remains? What is "crazy"? What is "madness"? Where is the line between someone having a condition or just being someone that society doesn't want to deal with? Maybe we should ask the kids.
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