Huckleberry Finn

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Click here for more free books!

Ernest Hemingway wrote that "all modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. …All American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since."

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was published in 1885, and in that year the public library in Concord, Massachusetts, became the first institution to ban the novel. Twain's use of the word "nigger" later led some schools and libraries to ban the book. Huckleberry Finn was first attacked during Twain's day because of what some described as its indecency; later, it would be attacked as racist. But by the end of the twentieth century, its status as one of the greatest of American novels was almost universally recognized.

Huck Finn, the protagonist and narrator of the novel, is around thirteen or fourteen years of age. He is being raised by Miss Watson and the Widow Douglas, both of whom blindly accept the hypocritical religious and moral nature of their society and try to help Huck understand its codes and customs. They represent an artificial life that Huck wishes to escape. Huck's attempt to help Jim, a runaway slave, reunite with his family makes it difficult for him to understand what is right and wrong. The book follows Huck's and Jim's adventures rafting down the Mississippi River, where Huck gradually rejects the values of the dominant society, especially its views on slavery.

Bibliography

Blair, Walter. Mark Twain and Huck Finn. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1960.

Smith, Henry Nash. Mark Twain: The Development of a Writer. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1962.

Although probably no other work of American literature has been the source of so much controversy, Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is regarded by many as the greatest literary achievement America has yet produced. Inspired by many of the author's own experiences as a river-boat pilot, the book tells of two runaways — a white boy and a black man — and their journey down the mighty Mississippi River. When the book first appeared, it scandalized reviewers and parents who thought it would corrupt young children with its depiction of a hero who lies, steals, and uses coarse language. In the last half of the twentieth century, the condemnation of the book has continued on the grounds that its portrayal of Jim and use of the word "nigger' is racist. The novel continues to appear on lists of books banned in schools across the country.

Nevertheless, from the beginning The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was also recognized as a book that would revolutionize American literature. The strong point of view, skillful depiction of dialects, and confrontation of issues of race and prejudice have inspired critics to dub it "the great American novel." Nobel Prize-winning author Ernest Hemingway claimed in The Green Hills of Africa (1935), for example, that "All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huck Finn. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since."

The noun has one meaning:

Meaning #1: a mischievous boy in a novel by Mark Twain
  Synonym: Huck Finn