10 Facts About 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'

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ARTICLE OF THE WEEK #7

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10 Facts About 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'

By Joy Lanzendorfer

IMAGE CREDIT:

NYPL

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.

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." NYPL

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."



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3. IT TOOK TWAIN SEVEN YEARS TO WRITE THE NOVEL.

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.

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."

University of Virginia

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.



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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."

NYPL

6. 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.

7. THE BOOK IS FREQUENTLY BANNED.

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."



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8. 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,

S. L. Clemens

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Possible response options:

1. Choose any passage and respond.

2. What are your first impressions of Huck Finn? What do you think about his character? What questions do you still have about Huck? How would you describe Huck Finn to someone who is interested in reading the book?



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