A Road to Freedom A Tentative Comment on Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

四川广播电视大学 张敏子 



 
【Abstract】
Mark Twain is a great American realistic writer. Adventures of Huckleberry finn is one of his greatest novels.The author of this thesis tries to focus on the analyzing the powerful artistic charm of this great novel——the theme of freedom.
【Key words】 adventure pursuit freedom


1Introduction Mark twain is a great American realistic novelist in the 19th century.He was considered as the father of modern American literature and Pioneer of American Humor.Mark Twains work has an immortal artistic charm and vitality because of his unique absorbing of American reality,his wide use of American reality,his presenting of native American material,his wide use of American vernacular,all of which shaped the worlds view of America and had a profound impact on the development of American literature. At the peak of his writers career,Twain contributed his masterpiece Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to American literature and international literature as well.Huckleberry Finn has been praised over one hundred years of its existence for its remarkable originality.Enerst Hemingway said:“All American literature comes from a book called Huckleberry Finn.[1]”The greatness of Huckleberry Finn is just because Mark Twain provides us with a nations life and spirit through the description of a 14-year old boys experience.The book gives literary form to many aspects of the national destiny of the American people.Moreover,the theme of the travel and adventure is characteristically American,and in Twains day it was still a reality of everyday life.The country was still very much on the move,and in the novel is moving with it .Therefore Hucks movements embody a burning desire to escape from the constrictions of a civilized society.Such a desire is ,of course,not uniquely American,but during the 19th century Americans took it and made it of their own.

2A Challenge to American Civilization
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is the sequel to Adventures of Tom Sawyer.While American critics warmly welcomed the latter,the former was regarded as a rebels novel.
Tom,and Hucks personality in both books are considered as rebellious.Tom dares to consort with Huck,the outcast,responsibly testfies in court against the murderous Injun Joe and bravely saves Becky and himself from the cave.Generally speaking,he becomes a spokesman for genteel respectability,because his final insistence is that if Huck joins his gang,Huck must return to the constricting care of Widow Douglass.He told Huck,“Huck,we cant let you into the gang if you aint respectable,you know.”[2]In Tom Sawyeryoung Huck has become something of a hero to the inhabitants of the little river village because of his help to Tom Sawyer in tracking down Injun Joe.He has been adopted by Widow Douglas,washed,dressed in clean clothes,and sent to school.With Tom he shared the incredible wealth of one dollar a day for each of them derived as income from the treasure they had discovered in The Adventure of Tom Sawyer.But Huck is not happy.First,Huck mentions that Widow Douglas wanted to “sivilize”[3]him.In contrast ,Huck wants to escape and be "free and satisfied”[4]Furthermore,the novel ends with Huck planning“to light out”for a different territory because Aunt Sally plans to “sivilize”him.The conflict between society and the individual becomes a major theme as the novel develops.That is why the theme——pursuit of freedom runs through the whole lines.Leo Marx believes that in this book freedom specifically means freedom from society and its imperatives.
Pap,Tom,and the Widow,that apparently illassorted crew,all represent aspects of bondage and aspects of civilization from which Huck flees.Avoiding being killed by Pap,Huck fleets from Pap to save his quite literal life.He runs to Jacksons Island,where he discovers Jim,Miss Watsons runaway slave.The two escape the searching group by floating down the Mississippi River on a raft for heading to free states,so the journey begins. Hucks journey ranges over the length of the great River and cuts through the center of the whole nation.As it does so,it gains its scope by embracing all levels of society,It is a real world of hard characters:kind Widow,starchy spinster,confidence men,and feuds.They are hard in a way that D.H.Laurence described as typical of the frontier American“isolate,stoic,a killer”[5] So Huck,not yet fourteen,has to struggle for a knowledge of adult society.Huck is more than a footloose wanderer,he is escaping from respective forms of bondage imposed by society,and Hucks freedom comes gradually from his radical criticism of his society.”So we have here a journey undertaken,at conscious level,a quest.”[6] To speak of the journey as a quest ,the stages in the movement toward freedom,we refer to the fact that Huck,episode by episode ,is divesting himself of illusions .In other words,it means bondage.Toms lies,the lies of Sunday shool,all the lies that society tells to justify its values and extenuate its conduct,are the bonds for Huck;the discovery of reality,as opposed to illusion,means freedom.

3Hucks Three Major Decisions
To return to the theme of the quest,Hucks voyage toward spiritual freedom is the counter pointed structurally by Jims search for quite literal freedom.This kind of relationship is complex,but the most obvious element is that any lies of society have to do with the enslavement of Jim. This is not primarily an antislavery novel,nor even a novel in which two innocents encounter a corrupt society,although it is partly that.First of all,however,it is a novel about a boy escaping from civilizationfrom a civilization in which slavery is only the most conspicuous cruelty.Twain referred to the book as a conflict between a sound heart and a deformed conscience,and Hucks conscience still belongs to the society. Jims function is quite literally to be Hucks moral burden.Jim may,and does disappear from Hucks view temporarily,but he always returns,and finally,by his constant presence,his constant decency,and his constant humanity he forces Huck to do something more than drift with the River.He forces Huck to come to grips with that part of himself belonging to the society,forces him to decide,forever,between two things,a normal frame of mind or a distorted soul. Huck makes his decision to free Jim from slavery on three separate but closely related occasions.The first decision is Hucks not revealing the secret of Jims flight for freedom;the second decision is Hucks not betrayal of Jims real identity;the third is Hucks final decision to help Jims runaway for freedom.
In a superficial sense,the three decisions are the same,but each means more than the one before,as Huck knows more about the society he has decided to oppose and because he sees more fully and clearly the implications of the decision and its possible consequences.In this sense,Huck gets more access to Freedom.

4The Freedom Imprinted with the Hallmarks of His Time
It is hard to measure Twains greatness,but one thing is clear;that his greatness developed because the time and the continent shaped him at their core.Only in relation to time and history we can explain his greateness. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is the story of a boy who will not accept the kind of freedom the world is unable to offer,and so flees from it ,one after another,to become to many readers a symbol of mans inevitable,restless flight.The theme of the whole novelthe pursuit of freedomhas a powerful artistic charm which is filled with the specific features of his times.Some readers might read the opening chapter casually.However,Mark Twain here specifically marked the time and place of the story.Place:Mississippi Vally;Time:40-50 years before.The book was finished between 18841885.Thus the story was supposed to take place between the years of 18261845,that is president Jacksons time
It is Huckleberry Finn that gives us a historical realist description of the ideals of those Americans at that time,their hopes and their potential dreams.We might see this through the character of our traditional hero Huck.As we know,literature is different from history.However,it is Mark Twain who has captured the American national life and soul that makes the book such a powerful artistic charm.
In a word,such kind of  pursuit of freedom is a pursuit of a new culture.That is a hot pursuit which comes from lower class Huck.It is also Mark Twains realization and condensation of the two major historical trends of the 19th century.That is the Western movement and the Southern antislavery system.
5.Conclusion
More than a century has elapsed ,in the process earthshakng changes have taken place over the past one hundred and more years.Now we have ushered in the first glimmer of light and hope in a new Millennium.However ,Mark Twain and his best works still enjoy an immortal charm.Unfortunately racial discrimination still remains a social problem in the United States ,no matter how much progress it has been made.Crime and violence still remain a burning issue of the presentday American society.Though the road to Freedom is full of twists and turns,in the long run,freedom will come to the people who are fighting for its realization.Lets hope for a real happy tomorrow—a world of real freedom,peace and exploitation of any kind!
NOTES:

[1]Bernard De Voto,“Mark Twains American,”Discussions of Mark Twain,P34
[2]Kenneth s.Lynn,Huckleberry Finn Text,Sources,and criticism,P8
[3]Ibid,P14 [4]Leo Mark,“Mr,Eliot,Mr.Trilling,and Huckleberry Finn,”Discussions of Mark Twain,P77 [5]Kenneth S.Lynn,Huckleberry Finn Text,Sources,and Criticism,P56 [6]Kenneth S.Lynn,Huckleberry Finn Text,Sources,and Criticism,P42 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary source: 1Kenneth S.Lynn,Huckleberry Finn Text,sources,and Criticism Secondary sources:
1American Literature,the Makers and Making,Volume 2 2Bernard de Voto,“Mark Twains America,”Discussions of Mark Twain 3Bernard de Voto,“Introduction,”The Portable Mark Twain 4The Norton Athology of American Literature.Vol.2
5Leo Mark,“Mr.Eliot,Mr.Trilling,and Huckleberry Finn,”Discussions of Mark Twain.
6Norton Anthology of American Literature.Vol.2
7Stuart Hutchinson,ed,Mark Twain Critical Assessments,Helm Information Ltd,1993
8General editor:Emory elliot Columbia Literary History of the United States Columbia University Press 1988
9Highlights of American Literature International Communication Agency 10Wenhu Fan A Guide to Famous Works of world Literature.Sichuan Arts & Literature Press 1987
11Robert/Edgar H.Schuster/Anthony Tovatt American Literature Themes & Writers Third EditionWebster Division,McGrawHill Book Company 1979
12Microsoft Encarta 1996 Encyclopedia CD
13Encyclopedia Britannica CD 1999(大英百科全书光盘版) 14《外国文学家评传》 15《美国作家论文学》三联书店1984

 
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