The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885) by Mark Twain (Edexcel A-Level History): Revision Notes
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885) by Mark Twain
Introduction and historical context
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was published in 1885 by Samuel Clemens, who wrote under the pen name Mark Twain. The novel appeared 20 years after the end of the American Civil War (1861–65), during a period of significant change for black Americans.
The timing of the novel's publication is crucial to understanding its context. While slavery had been abolished, the period between the Civil War and 1885 saw the emergence of new forms of racial oppression through Jim Crow Laws and vigilante violence.
Post-Civil War developments
Between 1865 and 1870, black Americans gained important civil rights through three constitutional amendments:
- Thirteenth Amendment (1865): Abolished slavery throughout the United States
- Fourteenth Amendment (1868): Granted all Americans "equal protection of the law"
- Fifteenth Amendment (1870): Gave all black American adult males the right to vote, matching the rights of white men
Despite these legal advances, black Americans faced severe discrimination and intimidation in the former Confederate states. Vigilante groups like the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan attacked black Americans and destroyed their property. After the Reconstruction period ended in 1877, southern state governments began passing Jim Crow Laws, which legally discriminated against black Americans.
Setting and background
The novel is set in Missouri, a slave state before the Civil War that did not officially join the Confederacy. During the war, Missouri experienced internal conflict between federal and Confederate supporters. The story takes place in the fictional town of St Petersburg, Missouri, on the banks of the Mississippi River.
Huckleberry Finn serves as a sequel to Twain's earlier novel, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876). At the end of Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn (a poor boy with an alcoholic father) and Tom Sawyer (a middle-class boy) discover stolen gold. As a result, Huck receives money placed in a bank and is adopted by Widow Douglas.
Synopsis of the novel
Opening situation
The novel is written in Missouri dialect and begins where Tom Sawyer ends. Huck Finn lives with his new family but feels uncomfortable with his changed circumstances of cleanliness, church attendance and school. His drunken father, Pap, reappears and harasses him.
Judge Thatcher and Widow Douglas attempt to gain legal custody of Huck. However, a new judge in town believes in parental rights and even takes Pap into his own home to reform him. This attempt fails completely. Pap continues to bother his son, who has learned to read and begun tolerating the widow's efforts to improve him. Enraged by these changes, Pap kidnaps Huck and holds him in a cabin across the river from St Petersburg. Huck escapes by faking his own death.
Meeting Jim on Jackson's Island
The core of the story begins when Huck encounters Jim, an escaped slave, on Jackson's Island in the middle of the Mississippi River. This meeting marks Huck's first step towards overcoming society's prejudice that black people are merely uneducated, superstitious slaves and possessions.
Jim asks Huck not to reveal that he has run away. Despite Huck's uncertainty about the legality or morality of helping a runaway slave, he does not turn Jim in for two reasons:
- He has little respect for authorities
- He does not want to be alone again
However, Huck struggles with his conscience, believing that by not turning Jim in, he is breaking society's and religion's rules. At this stage, Huck has not moved far beyond his society's racist views.
The journey on the raft
Although Jackson's Island provides temporary safety, Huck and Jim must leave after Huck discovers that a reward has been offered for Jim's capture. They travel on a log raft they captured during a storm, aiming to reach the free states where slavery is prohibited.
During their journey, they encounter various characters:
- Men searching for escaped slaves: Huck experiences a brief moral crisis about concealing Jim but decides to lie, telling the men his father is on the raft suffering from smallpox. The men, terrified of disease, quickly leave
- A band of robbers
- Two southern "genteel" families engaged in a bloody feud
- Scammers who eventually sell Jim back into slavery
The rescue attempt
Huck discovers that Jim is being held captive on Silas and Sally Phelps' farm and resolves to free him. The Phelps family mistakes Huck for their visiting nephew, Tom Sawyer. Huck maintains this deception. When the real Tom Sawyer arrives and learns about Jim's captivity, he pretends to be his own younger brother, Sid.
Tom creates an elaborate, unnecessarily complicated plan to free Jim, based on prison and adventure novels he has read. The plan includes rope ladders, snakes and mysterious messages. Although Huck believes Tom's plan will get them killed, he agrees to participate.
Resolution
During the escape, a pursuing farmer shoots Tom in the calf. Huck must fetch a doctor. Because Jim refuses to leave the injured Tom, he is recaptured and returned to the Phelps' farm.
At the farm, Tom reveals that Jim has actually been a free man all along. Miss Watson, Jim's owner, had died two months earlier and freed Jim in her will. Tom had planned the entire escape as a game.
Huck's changing perspective on race
Gradual transformation
Huck's view of black Americans transforms gradually throughout the story rather than changing instantly. Each adventure with Jim brings Huck closer to realising that something is wrong with society's view of black people. However, Huck finds it difficult to escape society's influence on his thinking.
Initially, Huck is torn between:
- Following his conscience and what feels right
- Feeling he has behaved badly according to society's standards
At the beginning, Huck believes society is correct but chooses to ignore societal expectations and do what feels right, regardless of what society believes.
Jim's humanity and love for his family
Jim's love for his family affects Huck most powerfully, causing him to realise that a black man can love his family as much as a white man. This realisation is particularly significant considering the abusive nature of Huck's own father.
Jim becomes a father figure to Huck, sheltering him from disturbing features of their journey, including the death of Huck's father. Though Huck does not necessarily recognise this relationship consciously, it profoundly influences his developing understanding of race.
Rejecting social norms
From the point when Huck decides to help Jim escape from slavery, he no longer cares how much society might resent him for it. The decision feels right to him, and he commits to it. This action directly contradicts social norms—a white person was never expected to care about a black person, much less help one escape slavery.
By helping Jim, Huck has opened his mind to the view that slavery is wrong. He has taken a significant step in this direction, attacking the social norm of slavery specifically and racism generally.
Twain's message
Through Huck's transformation, Twain encourages readers to be like Huck and not accept racism simply because society accepts it. The novel challenges readers to question established social norms and follow their own moral compass.
The portrayal of race relations in the novel
Historical setting and context
The story of Huckleberry Finn is set during the time of slavery, before the Civil War. Black Americans in Missouri are regarded and treated by white people as inferior. As a young person, Huck Finn seems initially unaware of the degree of racial prejudice and racial discrimination but has adventures with Jim that gradually change his perspective.
The novel became a best-seller and has since become a major work of American literature. It is a standard text in many American secondary schools and appears in American classrooms with a frequency second only to Shakespeare.
Twain's literary techniques
Twain did not attempt to write an exposé on slavery or provide an accurate depiction of it. He needed to sell novels, making an outright attack on slavery, racist southern attitudes and Jim Crow Laws commercially unwise. Instead, he used irony, satire and subtlety to make his points.
For example, Jim is at the mercy of white characters in the novel, most of whom are morally inferior to him. Jim must follow Huck's schemes and "adventures", such as exploring the wrecked ship that causes them to lose their raft and supplies, and Tom and Huck's ridiculous escape attempt in the novel's closing chapters. Jim must also take orders from the duke and the dolphin, two of the more disreputable characters.
Characterisation of Jim
The novel provoked criticism both at the time of publication and since about how black Americans are characterised. Critics have particularly objected to:
- The negative characterisation of Jim
- The extensive use of the derogatory term "nigger" for black Americans, which appears throughout the novel
The novel was completed in 1884 when many black Americans were trying to develop a new life in American society after the abolition of slavery. In defence of Mark Twain, the author attempts to use the language and attitudes of a pre-Civil War slave state. His use of Missouri black dialect reinforces the idea that Jim is uneducated and lacking basic social skills.
However, although Jim is portrayed as a caricature of black Americans at the time, this does not mean Jim is not given opportunities to display his humanity and strong character. Nowhere in the novel is Jim's humanity more apparent than when he offers the ultimate sacrifice—his freedom—to save Tom's life.
Reactions and controversy
Initial reception (1885)
The use of dialect and the storyline caused controversy from the moment of publication. In 1885, Concord Public Library in Massachusetts banned the novel, claiming it was "vile trash, suitable for the slums". On 17 March 1885, the St Louis Globe-Democrat newspaper stated that the novel was irrelevant and used rough dialect and bad grammar.
20th-century criticism
The novel's depiction of race relations has created the greatest criticism. The black civil rights organisation, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), declared in 1957 that the novel contained "racial slurs" in the ways it depicted black characters.
Key term: The NAACP was created in 1909, mainly through the efforts of W.E.B. DuBois. Its aim was to campaign for civil rights for black Americans.
School bans
The regular use of the term "nigger" to describe black Americans has caused particular offence, especially to 20th-century readers. Since 1957, the book has been removed from reading lists in schools across the USA, including the Mark Twain Intermediate School in Fairfax, Virginia.
John Wallace, a school administrator there, was quoted in the Washington Post as saying that reading the text aloud was humiliating and insulting to black students. He claimed it contributed to:
- Feelings of low self-esteem in the black community
- White students' disrespect for black people
He argued the book was used by insensitive and unwittingly racist teachers who praised the book as a classic whilst disregarding the concerns of black families who believed the book was not good for their children.
Personal testimonies
Black American writer Margo Allen, in an article called "Huck Finn: Two Generations of Pain", described her negative experiences with the book at school. She stated that she hated the book but would hide the hurt and pain it caused her from her teacher and classmates.
Literary recognition
Despite all the criticism of racial stereotyping, Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has been accepted as a masterpiece of American literature, particularly as attitudes towards race relations changed following the success of the civil rights movement.
Key Points to Remember:
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was published in 1885, 20 years after the Civil War, during a period when black Americans had gained legal rights but faced severe discrimination through Jim Crow Laws
- The novel depicts Huck Finn's gradual transformation from accepting society's racist views to recognising the humanity and worth of Jim, an escaped slave
- Twain used irony, satire and subtlety rather than direct attack to criticise slavery and racism, partly for commercial reasons
- The novel has been controversial since publication due to its use of dialect and the derogatory term "nigger", leading to bans in many schools
- Despite criticism, the novel is recognised as a masterpiece of American literature that challenges readers to question social norms and reject racism