essimistic Vision on Life
A Pessimistic Vision on Life
—on The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Thesis Statement:
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is put on marks of Twain’s pessimistic vision of life of his time.
Outline
Ⅰ. Introduction:
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is put on marks of Twain’s pessimistic vision of life of his time, which will be explored in this paper from the following three aspects - the way Twain creates a helpless and almost isolated protagonist; the exposure of religion and social training godlessly and hopelessly abused by people which makes the hope of life spiritually and morally entrusted to nowhere, and the unchangeable cruelty of human race represented by a social majority which leaves the prospect of a benevolent society minimal.
Ⅱ. Body:
A. Brief introduction to pessimism and pessimistic vision.
B. An indication of Twain’s pessimistic vision of life is his failure to make either Huck, the protagonist, a true hero in the real sense or make the protagonist’s adventure any form of true independence.
1. Huck starts his journey with a pretended death, which is symbolic of a pessimistic vision on life.
2. Huck’s journey is not a successful one because in the end he has to set out another journey under almost the same circumstances, which indicates another failure.
3. Huck’ response to the invasion from the outside world is compromising and passive, which is evidence to the author’s lack of confidence in openly challenging the society.
people’s evil motivations, which denies people a supposedly noble existence.
D. Twain’s pessimistic views on life release by examining the dark side of the society through examples of violence, greed, foolishness and racism.
Ⅲ. Conclusion:
When looking back, one finds a society in which evil outweighs the good. Twain asserts his personally pessimistic vision through the opening notice by denying the intention of a writer.
Synopsis
The understanding of literature is nothing if it does not take the mentality of its author into consideration. This paper deals with Mark Twain’s pessimistic vision on life in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The evidences and detailed analysis that reflect Mark Twain’s mentality is presented from three aspects: (1) The way Twain creates a helpless and almost isolated protagonist. (2) The exposure of the nature of religion and social training which makes the hope of life rootless. (3) The unchangeable cruelty of human race represented by a social majority that leaves the prospect of a benevolent society minimal. Therefore, Twain’s pessimistic views on life are traced down despite his humor in the book. By observing the frustration and checked depression with reality of the writer, readers can get a better understanding of the nature of artistic creativity in literature appreciation.
内容提要
如果脱离了对文学品作者的正确诠释，对文学作品的理解也无从谈起，本文所讨论的是作家马克•吐温在《哈克贝利•费恩历险记》一书中的悲观主义情绪。论证主要从以下三方面进行：一是作家将主人公哈克塑造为一个较为孤立无助的形象；二是作家对人们对社会教育和宗教信仰的错误对待进行嘲讽，由此流露出人们道德，精神世界的无所依托；三是作家通过描写社会大众的无知，麻木，表现出对温情、慈爱世界的不抱希望。由此，可以在其诙谐的作品中找到作者马克.吐温的悲观主义生活思想。通过了解作家极力控制的失落及失望情绪，读者能对作家创作作品时的心理状态有更好的把握，从而达到更好地赏析文学作品的目的。
Key words: mentality pessimistic vision entrust appreciation
关键词： 心理状态 悲观情绪 依托 赏析
A Pessimistic Vision on Life
—on The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
In literature, not all pessimistic visions on life on the part of the writer necessarily are conveyed by tragic-story-telling approach or depiction full of sadness and desperation. The author who creates the inspiring American canoe is reasonably and safely not equally convinced and inspired, compared with his readers, by his own work for he himself is the creator of all the characters and plots. Well aware of the difference between the duty of a man and that of a writer, there are chances that the author, unintentionally or deliberately for some particular purposes, covers his emotion and inner conflict. According to Freud1, the author of a book should have a strong “sense of reality”, which allows the possibility of curbed of depression behind his artistic work. Among the few who tastes bitterness of life but still manages to present the real world in pleasant and facetious tone is Mark Twain. In writing The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, he by no means intended the public to digest it without some degree of discomfort. It is the job of a social critic and satirist to stir the people up a bit, to peck at their consciences, to expose their eyes to the truth through a work accessible and funny enough so as not to turn people away. But more than this, in the work he creates and beneath the content described in some particular tones, he inevitably sewed in it traces of a philosophy on life, the one of a humorous writer as well as a man beleaguered by pessimism. The great American humorist winning hearts and minds of the world, with whom he laughs as well as flings serious doubts on life and civilization, was indeed obsessed with frailness of human race and suffered from personal tragedies for all his living years. By reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, people happily applaud his success in bringing all the spirits of American through—love for fun and commitment to democracy, under which one feels also strongly his extreme yet suppressed sadness:
Scholars recognize in Twain a man divided in outlook between comic and tragic perceptions of existence. Throughout his career Twain looked back yearningly to his happy youthful days on the Mississippi, finding in his memories spiritual rejuvenation and inspiration. At the same time he was deeply pessimistic about the future. His longing for an idealized past as a haven from an increasingly hostile present is evident in most of his fictions .2
In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twain molded one of the greatest works in American canon. One inevitably finds a Twain adventurous and humorous and apart from that, a heart full in pain, tortured by appalling reality, and striving between hope and despair. Referred to by Twain himself as a book where a sound heart and deformed conscience come into collision while conscience suffers a defeat, this novel is actually an exposure of a whole civilization of the 19th century America and the inner mentality of its author through Huck Finn’s idyllic cruise. And by this peculiar description, one feels an overtone that there might be cases that a sound heart contradicts conscience and the sound heart in the end does not gain victory. Most often taken as an ideal for freedom and democracy which continuously encourages American generation, it is in fact an evident escape form earthly contend on the part of Twain himself, who has been observing all kinds of hypocrisy and finally was fed up with it. Beneath the seemingly amusing words lies a soul finding little hope in human race and its society.
Twain’s genius in this piece of literary work renders the world a chance to reflect upon as well as predict human life and by appreciating stories in his book, one should pay special attention to details which reveal the author’s mentality which in return adds to one’s understanding in the literature and the creator of it. Although chapters involving the Mississippi River, the idyllic and dream-alike days on it, Jim’s final freedom and Huck’s brave decision to start another journey have all been taken as symbols which embody such glorious spirits of the American nation, be it consciously or not, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is put on marks of Twain’s pessimistic vision of life of his time, which will be explored in this paper from the following three aspects—the way Twain creates a helpless and almost isolated protagonist, the exposure of religion and social training godlessly and hopelessly abused by people which makes the hope of life spiritually and morally entrusted to nowhere, and the unchangeable cruelty of human race represented by a social majority which leaves the prospect of a benevolent society minimal.
Before everything, a look at the concept on “pessimism and pessimistic vision”3 is necessary. It is a tendency toward the value or doctrine that the world is wholly evil, corrupt and that man’s sojourn in it is a preparation for some other existence. From the rough definition about pessimism, two main tendencies of pessimistic vision can be concluded as the tendency to look on the dark side of things and the tendency to believe that the evil in life outweighs the good. People with pessimistic visions on life always doubt and disbelieve things universally accepted or taken for granted by others and lack confidence and hope in what others invest heavily for the potential prosperous return, either materially or spiritually. According to the understanding above, a man with pessimistic vision on life is likely to find little virtue in human race and feel powerless and unnecessary in fighting against the malevolence.
In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twain creates a boy and a negro on run, who witness all kinds of disasters inflicted by and upon human beings and suffer from the inflictions severely. Besides the strong sense of humor derived from Twain as an author which is most admired by people, his personal perceptions on his society-typically the pessimistic complex, is extraordinarily evident in the way he molds Huckleberry Finn, the protagonist of the novel and his fateful voyage for freedom, specifically, Huck’ pretended death to start the journey, his compromising reaction to the outside world, and the unfulfilled journey itself.
An indication of Twain’s pessimistic vision of life is his uncommon connection of Huck’s with death. He starts his journey with a faked death, which is very much symbolic in Twain’s pessimistic vision that life itself is somewhat meaningless. Huck has clearly noted the meaninglessness of life, and this fact is evident in his obsession with death. Huck is constantly preoccupied with death. In the first chapter of the novel, Huck, trapped in the Widow's grip, states: “I felt so lonesome I most wished I was dead”4. In addition, Huck often makes numerous references to death in general. For example, he hears an owl “who-whooing about somebody that was dead, and a whippowill and a dog crying about somebody that was going to die”. 5 Or, there are times when Huck suggests that on certain occasions being dead is much better than being alive, such as during Peter Wilks’s funeral when Huck comments: “Peter was the only one that had a good thing, according to my notion” .6 Huck's obsessive concern with death is the result of his desire for it. Indeed, throughout the novel, Huck, the boy the least infused with values of the “civilized” world and the seemingly most intuitive youth wishes for death more than once. Huck’s longing for death is usually the result of society invading his conscience, as when he reconsiders helping Jim to escape: “I got to feeling so mean and miserable I most wished I was dead”.7 Or, upon arriving at the Phelps’s farm, Huck comments on the lonesomeness which “makes a body wish he was dead, too, and done with it all.” 8 A few sentences later Huck states “I knowed for certain I wished I was dead.”9 Molded by Twain, Huck sees death as a means of gaining ultimate freedom. In order to escape from the bounds of civilization, Huck is forced to “take” his own life. It seems that Huck's faked death is more an expression of his own desire for death than of any real fear of being followed by Pap or the widow. This time Huck takes destiny into his own hands and makes his escape by a pretended death.
Besides, his failure to make either Huck, the protagonist, a hero in the real sense or make the adventure any form of true independence is another indicator of Twain’s lack of credence to the possibility of victory in Huck’s search for freedom. Huck’s journey is in essence a withdrawal or an escape from the mainstream society, which is filled with cruel and corrupted signs. Readers may hopefully celebrate his part from his rude pap and his escape on the Mississippi river. From Twain’s exceptionally earnest way in depicting the big river, everyone appreciates its serenity and holiness, and gets to know how important and precious such an easy life is for Huck, but the point is that happy days on the river and the very dream it bears on its flow-true independence and freedom, are short-lived and turned out not gained in the end. The novel ends as it begins. At the beginning of the novel, Huck fears being civilized by the Widow Douglas and in the end, Aunt Sally tries to adopt him and civilize him. The civilized world and its people remain the same for Huck after all - the same unacceptable and unbearable.
Huck’s decision to go for the rest territory is another cycle of recession from the world that he objects to but can never avoid. The instinctive boy steps into a circle he is incapable of walking beyond where human unhappiness and misfortunes prevail. Huck tells the reader he has to: “light out for the Territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she’s going to adopt me and sivilize me and I can’t stand it.”10 Once again, the reader finds the pattern repeat. Surely, Huck will escape the bonds of civilization in the Territory, but his escape will be short-lived. For, civilization, in the form of some Duke or Aunt, will catch up with him. Huck will continue to remain on run, always close to self-creation, but never actually able to attain it. Sensitive readers see in the arrangement for Huck’s potential repetitive journey for “freedom” a powerless creator- the one who struggles to despise the world which de deplores and fails to make any difference in the end but is fatefully forced to set out for another journey on the same starting point. The same intention and the almost same circumstances under which Huck escapes this time possibly suggest a similar engagement without a wanted result. The past evil remains past and still evil, and no evidence here emerges that things could turn for the better. Jim is acknowledged free by Miss Watson, while despite Jim’s “freedom, Huck’s attitude toward the white and the black remained the same. Initially, he considers Jim an inferior and at the end of the story, white people are still superior in his mind, “I knowed he was white inside, and I reckoned he’d say what he did say…”11
Twain’s pessimistic psyche also lies in the way he makes his protagonist passively respond to the invasion from the outside world. His most important character and the symbol of fearless exploration of “natural man” in the whole journey – Huck Finn, from the very beginning to the end, lies a way along the Mississippi river. The boy with the most intuition and empowered by his natural and sound heart, does not recognize his sounder heart than that of others and in fact, never devotes himself into a fighting against what he dislikes in an evident way. He begins his escape with a pretended death, invents multiple identities and assumes confusing names for himself. He is continuously good at making up all kinds of stories, which prove so functional and essential to depend his survival upon that his living may not exist otherwise. Huck’s lies in the novel have become classic, which have been excerpted on many occasions particularly for the purpose of appreciation. However, the lies seem the only weapon Huck could resort to and function as a passage of fleeing from the society without which the little boy and the slave cannot escape. What is worse is that Huck finally turns to Tom for help and complied with his fantastic plan in order to save Jim out. Tom is motivated by nothing more than his own pleasure in having such an adventure and they took all the trouble to dig an underground passage for Jim and sent in even rats, spiders and snakes. As the action continues and Jim endures the prolonged escape, Huck, however, allows Tom to run the show in a utilitarian effort to minimize conflict. For Tom Sawyer represents the values of the society from which Huck is escaping and also a conformity to those values,11 the joint efforts to save Jim involving Huck and him is meaningless and deprives Huck of independence in the whole process of rejecting the value of the society. Twain knows for sure that against historical backgrounds of that time, Huck and Jim’s survival could be quite unlikely, even though the fake death of Huck start a voyage that enables him a rebirth and gives him a relief from the social constraint. Huck’s lies contain the reluctance or even an entire unawareness of the necessity to rebel and to defy the society in a loud and distinct voice. And for Twain, the creator of those tricks and wits in Huck’s lies, all the stuff is the result of being consciously aware of the tough reality, which makes a real confrontation with it quite impossible and unrealistic. The other side of the resourcefulness in Huck’s inventing and imagining stories is Twain’s insufficiency to initiate a wilder and more forceful challenge against the society which Twain finally chooses to satire under the cover of humor so as to finish a job of an author. Consequently, Huck has to lie his way down the river and finally “saves” Jim with Tom’s romantic and elaborate plan. Despite Huck’s little success over those fooled by his invented stories, he has never been made involved into any form of true rebel or fight, neither has he been given a clear idea of how evil the world they escape from in essence is. That Twain approves of Huck’s compromisingly nonviolent dealing with the outside world shows his silent comply with a deplorable society in concepting his novel, and the imperative behind that prevents him from taking a bolder stance for the protagonist-Huck, is Twain’s personal diffidence in openly challenging a hostile society.
As an important part of human progress, sincere religious belief and social training are great ingredients in shaping people’s conscience and function as spiritual symbols to prevent the whole society from evil. But both are severely attacked by Twain in the novel, which reflects his condemnation on civilization and on people’s moral motives that might be otherwise seen as noble and progressive.
At the very beginning of the book, Twain releases his questioning on religion through Huck’s monologue,
“I set down , one time, back in the woods, and had a long think about it. I say to myself, if a body can get anything they pray for, why don’t Deacon Winn get back the money he lost on pork? Why can’t miss Watson fat up? No, says I to myself, there ain’t nothing in it…it was too many for me… but I couldn’t see no advantage about it…”12
Such monologue well reveals Twain’s contemplations about the essence of religion and the implication of religious faith. Through Huck’s deliberation, readers feel a satire directed at religious superficiality and sentimentality. Although Twain allows the possibility of selflessness in Widow Douglas, he uses other characters for example, Miss Watson, to mock the intuitive notion of religious piety and that of duty. According to Ralph. Ellison13, Miss Watson’s everyday bible reading and self-deluded satisfaction with her religious belief can be safely viewed as the loudest lie on the earth. She lives comfortably with her selling Jim out. For Miss Watson, life is a moral certainty. Bible reading and daily prayers fill her smug world with assurances. She tells Huck that if he will pray every day he will get whatever he asks for, and when he prays for fish hooks without being able to ‘make it work’, she calls him a fool, yet it is Miss Watson, prattling of providential mercy, who treats nigger Jim severely, who despite her promise to him that would never sell him away from his wife and children, can’t resist the sight of a stack of money and agrees to sell him down the river. One finds little difficulty in arriving at the conclusion that if romanticism is a lie, religion is a monumental lovelessness, a terrible hypocrisy. Although there exist individuals like Widow Douglas who preys for spiritual gifts and do things beneficial to others, but it cannot prevent the existence of people like Miss Watson and when Jim is unfairly treated, the presence of such pious prayers as Douglas does not make any difference at all.
At Grangerford, Huck finds people with Bible and also with guns. The preachments people never or seldom practice appear useless and as “foolish” as Jim’s supersitition. And in this sense, civilized people do not behave in the civilized way at all. When Huck goes to church with Grangerfords, the minister preaches a sermon on brotherly love to a congregation made up of men armed to the teeth and panting to kill one another. “Twain’s most withering blast at lovelessness and hypocrisy is delivered by juxtaposing two chapters with a vengeance.” 14
Next Sunday we all went to church, about three mile, everybody a-horseback. The men took their guns along, so did Buck, and kept them between their keens or stood them handy against the wall. The Shepherdsons done the same. It was pretty ornery preaching - all about brotherly love, and such-like tiresomeness; but everybody said it was a good sermon, and they all talked it over going home, and had such a powerful lot to say about faith, and good works, and free grace, and preforeordestination, and I don’t know what all, that it did seem to me to be one of the roughest Sundays I had run across yet. 15
Such kind of religion is no more than a delusion, either to themselves or merely to others.
The relentless efforts of the Grangerfords and Colonel Sherburn to follow their sense of duty results in their committing acts of cold-blooded murder without even realizing the gravity of their deeds. Looking deeper, however, we see that their sense of duty is not actually inspired by doing what they think is right for right's sake but by doing what they think is right for their honor's sake. In this way Twain reveals his the possibly disagreeable but hard truth that a person's sense of duty may ultimately be to the fear of god and the gratification of one's selfish hunger for honor.
Huck’s social training has resulted in nothing less than moral confusion. When confronted with the morality of “borrowing” other people's produce, Huck does not know whether to believe his father, who has taught him that it is no harm to borrow things or to obey the good widow, who says “borrowing warn’t anything but a soft name for stealing.”16 When he has to make decisions to save Jim, he is always trapped in similar dilemmas as to follow his heart or his head trained by the social value which in essence is evil and contradicting a sound heart. The irony contained here is Twain’s deliberate exposure of the disappointing fact that a trained and civilized world is basically contradicting and distorting one’s natural sense of right and wrong, which is essentially important for a healthy and humane society. In other words, a society with such dehumanizing training and values is, quite contrary to its idealized notion, the least humane and civilized. With the “civilized” and “holy” so much contaminated and distorted, Twain has demonstrated a soul completely with no hope and faith in the appalling reality under the label of civilization, which is so much rotted and corrupted as to shrink the social training and religious belief to nothing but a mean and selfish motivation.
Through overwhelming examples of violence, greed, foolishness and racism of the human race as a whole, Twain's pessimistic view of the spiritually paralyzed social majority are carried to the full. Conflict between these two upper class families, the Shepherdsons and the Grangerfords represents the unsolvable conflict between men and their fighting for years. Twain is telling a truth that people are more likely to be made enemies instead of friends. They get so much indulged into their own sentiments that they find no possibility in reducing negative emotions in themselves and trying to make peace with each other. People in both Shepherdson and Grangerford families are appearing kind and gentle in each community, while they behave extremely hostile to each other. The dispute between the two parties is endless and they both get involved and deeply trapped in the awful past. Well fed and well bred as they are supposed to be, they are so much disabled that they did nothing worthwhile to bring their disagreement to an early end. Instead, they are actively making things worse by devoting themselves and their families feverishly to the violent feud and never pondering over the dissolution of such enmity. Twain has humorously spoken out its senselessness and cruel consequence through the talk between Huck and Buck:
A feud is this way. A man has a quarrel with another man, and kills him; then that other man’s brother kills him; then the other brothers, on both sides, goes for one another; the the cousins chip in- and by- and –by everybody’s killed off, and there ain’t no more feud. But it’s kind of slow, and takes a long time. 17
Huck’s encounter with the “king” and the “duke” is another typical example as to disclose the absurdity between what people claim to be and what they really are. After the “feud family”, comes the “royal” one. The “king” and the “duke” with their ugly appearance make Huck and Jim’s journey an ordeal. The two guys come to Huck and Jim for a shelter but in the end, they conspired to sell Jim. Along the town, they went into misconducts and made money by doing every detestable thing they could think of. They even talked proudly of their past, peddling fake commodities, pretending to be doctors and so on. Since Huck decided not to lay them bare to keep peace on the raft, the two frauds put on a series of vile performances in the following days. They did Romeo and Juliet and collected a large sum of money under the name of charity. More absurd is what they gained besides money in the town.
For days, the two claimed noble men are obsessed with making up stories more than anything else so as to get money. Everything they are engaged in is malicious and money- motivated. There is nothing noble. Twain created the two frauds to expose a world full of cheating and conspiracy.
Twain’s pessimistic vision on life also reveals in bringing the townspeople innocence to a foolish and heartless extent. When Huck’s father abused him and beat him, nobody takes the trouble to lend Huck a hand, however, on hearing the death of Huck, almost the whole town turns out to pursue the boy’s dead body. In the town where the two frauds put on their notoriously cheating performances, people invite the “king” and the “duke” to their houses and considered it an honor,
“…and every little while the prettiest kind of girls, with the tears running down their cheeks, would up and adk him would he let them kiss him, for to remember him by; and he always done ir; and some of them he hugged and kissed as many as five or six times- and he was invited to stay a week; and everybody wanted him to live in their houses.”18
His frustration with the innocence and insensitiveness of the public is found in the attitudes of Southerners such as Aunt Sally Phelps, a good-hearted preacher's wife, who were incapable of recognizing their own cruelty toward Black people because of either her innate hatred against black people or a compelling social value. When Huck tells her that a steamboat supposedly "blowed out a cylinder-head," the revealing conversation begins:
“Good gracious! Anybody hurt?”
“No’m. Killed a nigger.”
“Well, it's lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt.”19
From the supposed respectable upper classes to the most ordinary folk families and to the detestable frauds and social dregs, spreads an unrecognized public innocence yet fairly justified social bias. People are incapable of finding out whether they have any moral perceptions that are universally humane and justifiable or not. The idea that there is nothing inherent in human nature to give us understanding of what is truly right and good or that people are socially affected to such an extent of being knowingly blind to others’ living predicament outside their immediate circle that the evil in life ultimately outweighs the good, is a deeply pessimistic view, and Twain found it difficult to see reality any other way so that everywhere his pen falls leaves a awful picture of how ordinary “good” people react in those absurdly insensitive ways.
A real world unfolds with different people and their “civilized” conducts turning any sound heart off. When looking back, one finds no real independence gained by fight and the protagonist does not achieved any form of freedom; the motivation of social training and religious belief are attacked and cut down to a menial base on which self- assurance and selfishness rest; a pervasive and prevailing moral blindness in society has turned its citizens away from the front of benevolence and universal welfare. Chapters dealing with the Grangerford feud, the “king” and the “duke” are most typical examples to illustrate man’s inhumanity to each other and expose the appalling difference between what people claim to be and what they really are. The Grangerfords, with their senseless pride and crudity conveys the real culture of the southern ignorant and arrogant people. Emmeline’s sentimental poetry and drawings just make people can not help laughing, despite Huck, the uneducated innocent and all the family member as well as neighbors of Grangerford considering it noble and pride-worthy. More appalling are the two dirty hands, who conduct the most hypocritical cheating under the claim to be noble, they fought for money and cruelly sold Jim, finally fell into the targets laughed at and abused by town folks, by introducing so many anecdotes about townspeople, Twain draws people’s attention to the fact that human beings can be awfully cruel to one another and the absurdity and hypocrisy of the evils of aristocracy, southern gentility and repellent chivalric mentality. Nowhere else can we find a gallery of southwestern characters as varied and was veracious as those Huck Finn met in his wanderings. The amusing adventure, natural characters and Twain’s pleasant humor all constitute an accurate portrayal of a whole civilization, the value of which men should probably deplore. While the numerous tricks and lies give a comic feature to the novel, equally uncountable figures with their conduct draw the novel to a cruel reality, in which people with genuine moral and ethical problems suffer. The irony is that Huck makes up lies to survive and to save Jim; he escapes reality by pretending to obey and not to irritate. These basic paradoxes persist through the whole book. The end appears Huck and Jim’s victory, and at the same time it is notably not appropriate to be called a victory since everything couldn’t have been changed if Jim’s owner Watson didn’t changed her mind and Huck has gained no freedom at all that he has to set out a new journey.
Twain fails to take any overt standing actually. He just sets his imagination loose and rests his tired heart for a while, through all the elevating and laughable description of an imagined trip led by two outcasts. He does not intentionally preach nor please anybody, although all that he has demonstrated is a result of his pessimistic visions on reality as a natural man struggled with an author’s duty to inform and to alert the public. Not deliberately hiding any connotation, the committed author enunciates all his impetus of a pessimistic individual by denying the motive of an author in the introductory notice “persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.” 20
Notes
1 Paula Kepos and others, eds., Twentieth Century Literary Criticism, vol.38(Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1991) 254
2 Sharon K. Hall and Dennis Poupard, Twentieth Century Literary Criticism, vol.6(Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1982) 453
3 Victoria Neufeldt, Webster’s New World Dictionary of American English(New York: Webrster’s New World Dictionaries, 1988)1009
4 Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn(Bungay: Penguin Books, 1978)
5 Twain, 53
6 Twain, 246
7 Twain, 145
8 Twain, 288
9 Twain, 289
10 Twain, 369
11 Twain, 349
12 James L. Roberts, ed., Cliff Notes on Twain’s Huckleberry Finn(Lincoln: Cliff Notes, Inc., 1971)
13 Twain, 60
14 Dennis Poupard and others, eds., Twentieth Century Literary Criticism, vol.19(Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1986) 383
15 Ibid. 169
16 Twain, 121
17 Twain, 167
18 Twain, 194
19 Twain, 291
20 Twain, 48
Bibliography
Hall, Sharon K. and Poupard Dennis. Twentieth Century Literary Criticism, vol.6. Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1982.
Lazzari, Marie and others, eds. Twentieth Century Literary Criticism, vol.38. Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1991.
Poupard, Dennis and others, eds. Twentieth Century Literary Criticism, vol.19. Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1986.
Roerts, James L. Cliff Notes on Twain’s Huckleberry Finn. Lincoln: Cliff Notes, Inc., 1971.
Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Bungay: Penguin Books, 1978.
刘海平等：新编美国文学史（第二卷）， 上海：上海外语教育出版社，2002年. |
