Entry #1

For this project I chose the historical and biographical lens.  I feel as if when reading books from a different time period it is very important to examine the historical attitudes present at the time in which they were written.  In some ways all the issues addressed by other lenses are heavily dependent on the social context of the time, allowing me to touch on many subjects in my analysis.  In 1884 when Mark Twain wrote Huckleberry Finn it had been less than 20 years since slavery was abolished.  However, Twain chose to set his novel nearly 50 years in the past, before the legal abolition of slavery.  This, paired with the book’s inclusion of a black character lends itself to all sorts of racial undertones.  The historical and biographical lens allows for the exploration of not only a book’s themes, but all the rich history and context surrounding the book’s writing.