Adventures of Huckleberry Finn By: Mark Twain Background Information

What is satire? Satire is the use of irony or sarcasm to denounce or make fun of a specific idea, object, concept, or person. Mark Twain uses satire to: make fun of a very serious subject, slavery point out flaws in human nature to point out social “ills” that Twain saw at the time.

Who is Mark Twain? Mark Twain's real name was Samuel Langhorne Clemens. Before becoming a writer, he held a variety of odd jobs including piloting a steamboat up and down the Mississippi River. He was licensed as a steamboat pilot in 1859 and worked on the river until fighting there during the Civil War ended traffic traveling from north to south. His experiences along the river helped him come up with his pen name, Mark Twain.

How did Twain get his pseudonym? In 1863, when Clemens was 27, he wrote a humorous travel story and decided to sign his name "Mark Twain." This name comes from something shouted by crewmen on a boat. To test the depth of the water, a crewman shouts "mark twain!" The crewman is calling for two fathoms, or a depth of 12 feet, which is barely enough for a boat to navigate safely. "Twain" is an old-fashioned way of saying "two" and a fathom is six feet. "Mark Twain" is a "pen name" in the same way that many people in show business use a "stage name."

What is the setting of Huck Finn? Time: Before the Civil War; roughly 1835–1845; Twain said the novel was set forty to fifty years before the time of its publication Place: The Mississippi River town of St. Petersburg, Missouri; various locations along the river through Arkansas

What is a major focus of Huck Finn? Slavery degraded the moral fabric of life Struggle against societies’ standards and expectations Intellectual and moral education Hypocrisy of “civilized society”

What elements are necessary in an American Romance (1851-1875)? 1. No geographic limitations 2. Mingling of Races: immigrants in large numbers were arriving to the United States 3. Growth of industrialization: division of north and south; north becomes industrialized, south remains agricultural.

What was Twain’s original intention in writing Huck Finn? He wanted to share his philosophy of society and culture at the present time. Twain makes a social commentary about the injustices of society, as well as how people were treating each other unjustly. Twain is convinced that slavery is filled with shame.

Why does the main character’s name seem out of place? A “huckleberry” is a wild, dark blue berry which resembles the blueberry. Huckleberries have hard seeds in the center and a thicker skin than the blueberry Usually found in the eastern and northern parts of the United States

Dialect in Huck Finn Representing the living speech of Twain’s day, the following examples of the seven dialects typify a uniqueness of language found in the areas along the Mississippi River. Missouri Negro: Jim “Goodness gracious, is dat you, Huck? En you ain’ dead-you ain’t drownded-you’s back ag’in? It’s too good for true, honey, it’s too good for true. Lemme look at you chile, lemme feel o’ you. No, you ain’ dead! you’s back ag’in, ‘live en soun’, jis de same ole Huck-de same ole Huck, thanks to goodness!” Extremist form of the backwoods Southwestern dialect: Arkansas Gossips (Sister Hotchkiss) “Look at that-air grindstone, s’I; want to tell me’t any cretur ‘t’s in his right mind’s a-goin’ to scrabble all them crazy things onto a grindstone? s’I.”

Dialect cont Ordinary “Pike County”: Huck “My folks was living in Pike County, in Missouri, where I was born, and they all died off but me and pa and my brother Ike.” Modified “Pike County”: Thief on the Sir Walter Scott, Jake Packard “I’m unfavorable to killin’ a man as long as you can git aroun’ it, it ain’t good sense, it ain’t good morals. Ain’t I right?” Modified “Pike County”: King “Well, I’d ben a-runnin’ a little temperence revival thar ‘bout a week . . . and business a-growin’ all the time, when somehow or another a little report got around last night that I had a way of puttin’ in my time with a private jug on the sly.”

Dialect cont. Modified “Pike County”: Bricksville Loafers “Gimme a chaw ‘v tobacker, Hank.” “Cain’t; I hain’t got but one chaw left. Ask Bill.” Modified “Pike County”: Aunt Sally and Uncle Silas Phelps “Good-ness gracious!” she says, “what in the world can have become of him?” “I can’t imagine,” says the old gentleman; “and I must say it makes me dreadful uneasy.”