Twain's Hucklebery Finn (selections, part I) - Class Discussion

What sort of book is this? a reader might ask upon encountering the weird "Notice" and "Explanatory," which is then followed by the entrance of a boy narrator who claims that Twain "told the truth, mainly" in his last book.  What kinds of truths might we expect to encounter? Are we invited to trust this narrator, who today might be called a juvenile delinquent? Are the humerous passages meant to be simply entertaining? Or do they satirize contemporary society (1876/83), the pre-Civil War south, or human nature?

The metafictive comments with which the novel is laced poke and prod readers to think about the nature of novels, authors, truth, etc.  Huck, Jim, and Tom all seem guilty of misreadings at points, sometimes by being too literal (as when Tom assumes novels as guidebooks on how to conduct a gang) and others too symbolic, as when Jim is described as "putting" interpretations on things.   The net effect may be to invite readers to engage the book without confining expectations.

The novel's picture of the world is important to grapple with before dealing with the characterization of Huck and Jim, their relationship.  From Huck's perspective, the social world of a small, Missouri town is at best confining, at worst awash in moral hypocracy.  Consider the depicition of the "sivilizing" efforts of Widow Douglass and Miss Watson.  It is this context that allows for the sometimes Edenic heights that freedom on the river seems to bring.   Chapters detailing the political views of Huck's Pap only add to our sense of corruption.  For however distorted some of Huck's objections to well-mannered behavior might seem, Twain never depicts his complaints without some sympathy.  (Note that Huck's legal situation places him near servitude: emphasized by Pap's claims to own him and Huck's relief to be on the island, where it seemed he owned all.)

The dynamic nature of the relationship between Huck and Jim is of course a central issue.  Its evolution is partly powered by Huck's reevaluation of received beliefs (about morality, property, and the status of African Americans) and seems to turn on some notion of friendship (and perhaps the solidarity of two run-aways) as a primary value, above law, custom, etc.  Discussion of Huck's sometimes condescending behavior as he learns his lessons should factor in Twain's apparent desire to depict pre-Civil War values with some verisimilitude, an evolution in attitudes, as well as the limits of the social horizon in the 1880s.

Jim has been read as an ambivalent figure. Some readers deplore the use of dialect, others note his cleverness and humanity. How effectively does the novel imagine the character of a slave? Does the sometime submissiveness of this grown man to a boy seem troubling, a reflection of period values, a flaw in the writing? What do you think of the generousity of Jim's friendship towards Huck?

What kind of solution to these issues does the novel propose, in that even the first steps towards transcending a racial divide seem to depend upon the ability of the two to step outside of society into the time/space of the grand Missisippi River? You may find this a hopeful adventure or decide that it only emphasizes the implausibility of solutions on the shore. The treatment of the river as if it were a kind of perfect wilderness, an Eden within which the two might create a new world, is repeatedly interrupted by contact with others. Even nature itself has a dark side, as the fog episode suggests (unless we read this as a dramatization of the broken bond between Huck and Jim).