2. Samuel Langhorne Clemens
“Mark Twain”
Hannibal, Missouri
the Mississippi River
humorist, public speaker, novelist, riverboat pilot

3. Tom Sawyer Published in 1876 a “boy’s book”
high adventure, mischief, freedom from adult world
the world’s introduction to Huckleberry Finn, the semi-homeless son of the town drunk
Huck and Tom solve a murder-mystery and receive a large sum of “treasure money” they find.

4. Huckleberry Finn
started in 1876; not finished and published until 1885.
“fits and starts”
set in the 1830s or 1840s -- antebellum South
written after the end of the Civil War
another “boy’s book”???
“NOTICE”

5. “Realism” and Humor
literary transitional period -- from Romanticism to Realism
“local color”
“verisimilitude”
dialect
slapstick
satire

6. The Controversy in 1885
banned by the Concord, MA. library in 1885; one of the most frequently banned books in American history.
“absolutely immoral in its tone”; “rough, ignorant dialect”; systematic use of bad grammar and an employment of inelegant expressions.”
“trash of the veriest sort”

7. The Controversy Today “A masterpiece.” T.S. Eliot
“One of the world’s great books and one of the central documents of American culture.” Lionel Trilling
“All modern literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” Ernest Hemingway

8. The Controversy Today
“For the past forty years, black families have trekked to schools in numerous districts throughout the country to say, ‘This book isn’t good for our children,’ only to be turned away by insensitive and often unwittingly racist teachers and administrators who respond, ‘This book is a classic.’” John H. Wallace

9. The Controversy Today
Why do many people believe that Huck Finn is a racist novel?
the portrayal of the character Jim:
“Jim is a white man’s inadequate portrait of a slave.” Ralph Ellison, author
the “N Word”
appears over 200 times. Why?
The fine line between “satirical” and “offensive.”
the ending
the original illustrations