1. Mark Twain Great literary giant of America (1835-1910)

2.  Pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens true  H. L. Mencken: “(Twain) the true father of our national literature”

3.  I. Life  II. Literary Career  III. Style  IV. Artistic Features  V. Main Works

4.  At that time, Missouri was a slave state  Young Twain became familiar with the institution of slavery, a theme he would later explore in his writing.

5.  When he was 18, he left Hannibal and worked as a printer in  New York City  Philadelphia  St. Louis ['lu(:)i]  Cincinnati

6.  He educated himself in public libraries in the evenings, finding wider sources of information.  At 22, Twain returned to Missouri ([mi'zuəri]).

7. III. III. Main Works  The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County 《卡拉维拉斯县著名的跳蛙》, 1865  The Innocents Abroad 《傻瓜出国记》,1869  The Adventures of Tom Sawyer 《汤姆 · 索耶历险记》,1876

8.  The Prince and Pauper 《王子与贫儿》, 1881  Life on the Mississippi 《密西西比河上》, 1881  The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn 《哈克贝里 · 费恩历险记》,1885

9.  A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 《亚瑟王朝里来自康涅狄格州的美国佬》, 1889  Pudd’s Head Wilson 《傻瓜威尔逊》, 1894  Following the Equator 《赤道行》, 1897

10.  The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 《败坏哈德莱堡的人》,1900  What is Man? 《人是什么？》, 1906  The Mysterious Stranger 《陌生来客》,1916

11. Changes  His earlier works:  light, humorous, optimistic  His later works:  darker and more obscure  showing his discontent and disappointment toward the social reality  His last works:  acute pessimism, despair, skepticism determinism

12. IV. IV. Style  1. language:  colloquial, vernacular, dialects  Before him there had been only American dialect; after him there was an American language.

13.  One of Mark Twain’s significant contributions to American literature lies in the fact that he made colloquial speech an accepted, respectable literary medium in the literary history of the country.

14. Huck Finn  YOU don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter.  No, but there won't be nobody to see what I look like.

15. 3. syntactic feature( 句法 ):  sentences:  simple, brief, sometimes ungrammatical  diction:  simple and plain, precise, direct

16.  4. humour  5. tall tales: highly exaggerated  6. local colour  7. social criticism  satire on the different ugly things in society

17. V. V. His influences  Howells wrote the following on Twain’s style: “So far as I know, Mr. Clemens is the first writer to use in extended writing the fashion we all use in thinking...”

18.  Sherwood Anderson:  the first writer after twain to take the vernacular as a serious way of presenting reality.  Ernest Hemingway:  the direct descendant

19.  William Faulkner declared, “In my opinion, Mark Twain was the first truly American writer, and all of us since are his heirs, who descended from him.”

20. He also influenced:  J. D. Salinger  E. A. Robinson  Robert Frost  Carl Sandburg  Ezra Pound  William Carlos Williams  E. E. Cummings  T. S. Eliot

21. VI. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn  1. Assessment  2.  2. The Plot  3.  3. Symbols  4.  4. Features of the language

22.  “All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. ……But it’s the best book we’ve had. All American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since.” ---- Ernest Hemingway, Green Hills of Africa, 1935

23.  Huck Finn  the climax of Twain’s literary creativity  the best book that Twain ever produced 1. Assessment

24.  first published in England in 1884  taken as a sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer  Considered as one of the Great American Novels

25.  widely known as one of the first true “American Novels”  among the first in major American literature to be written in the vernacular  characterized by local color regionalism

26. 2. 2. The Plot  Huck is motherless, and his father Pap is a drunkard and good-for-nothing.  For that reason, Huck is brought up to hate “civilization” and “rules”.

27.  He smokes, swears ( 咒骂 ), and roams ( 闲逛 ) outside his home without restraint.  However, he is good, innocent, and upright ( 正直的 ).

28.  He is adopted by Widow Douglas and her spinster sister Miss Watson, who together try to rehabilitate him, but in vain.  One day, Pap comes to ask him for the money and does not get it, so he put Huck in a cabin.

29.  Huck is beaten and hungry.  Pap even threatens to kill Huck.  One night, Huck uses pig blood to pretend that he is killed, so he escapes the drunkard father.

30.  On Jackson Island, Huck sees Jim, a runaway slave of Miss Watson’s, who flees on overhearing that his mistress is going to sell him to the south.

31.  Since his escape is right after the death of Huck, it is believed that he kills Huck, so there is a 300- dollar reward offered to get him.

32.  They plan to go to the free north and Canada, but in a fog they miss the port they are planning to go to: Cairo.

33.  One day, their raft is wrecked.  Jim missing, Huck swims ashore.  Huck is saved by the Grangerfords who are at the time having a feud with the Shepherdsons.

34.  With the slaves in the Granger- ford family, Huck finds Jim again, and when they continue their drift, they encounter two frauds: the “King” and the “Duke”.

35.  Later, the two rascals attempt to sell Jim at the price of 40 dollars but fail.  They are feathered and tarred after their bad doings are discovered.

36.  At Mr. Phelps’s farm, Huck is mistaken as his nephew and is greatly treated.  Later, Tom comes to see his aunt.

37.  They conspire a scheme to save Jim, whose whereabouts are known to Miss Watson through the ambivalent Huck.

38.  In the end of the story, Pap dies, Jim is freed in Miss Watson’s will before her death, and Huck prepares to go away from home again for Aunt Sally intends to adopt and “civilize” him again, which Huck cannot stand.

39. 4. 4. Features of the language  short, concrete and direct in effect  simple or compound sentence structure  repetition of words  ungrammatical elements

40. Colloquial style  a very important contribution of this novel to American literature  Mark Twain made the colloquial speech an accepted, respectable literary medium in the literary history of America.

41. 5. 5. Themes  search for freedom  humanism  serious social problems  racism and slavery  social satire

42.  moral conflict & moral choices  intellectual and moral education  the hypocrisy of “Civilized” Society

43. 6. 6. The character analysis and social meaning of Huck Finn  a typical American boy with “a sound heart and a deformed conscience”.  vulgar in language and in manner  honest and decent in essence

44.  Huck is  the son of nature  a symbol for freedom and earthly pragmatism  an innocent and reluctant rebel

45.  His remarkable raft’s journey down on the Mississippi river can be regarded as his process of education and his way to grow up.

46.  At first, he stands by slavery, for he clings to the idea that if he lets go the slave, he will be damned to go to hell.  And when the “King” sells Jim for money, Huck decides to inform Jim’s master.

47.  After he thinks of the past good time when Jim and he are on the raft where Jim shows great care and deep affection for him, he decide to rescue Jim.

48.  And Huck still thinks he is wrong while he is doing the right thing.  Through the eye of Huck, the pre-Civil War American society is fully exposed.

49. 7. 7. comparisons  the life on the river & the life on the banks  the innocence & the experience  the nature & the culture  the wilderness & the civilization