Racial/Cultural Lens: Lens Expert

Julius Lester’s article, “Morality and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” is an analysis of Huckleberry Finn through the views of the Racial and Cultural Lens. Lester ha shared some of his experiences with racial inequalities himself. As this is relevant to Huckleberry Finn which deals with racial problems and being treated unequally to others we can receive a different view on Twain's decisions to compare Huck and Jim being enslaved and the role of that Jim and Huck play in Huckleberry Finn.

Lester criticizes Twain’s comparison in the enslavement of Jim and Huck. Lester explains that Huck being enslaved by his drunken father and being locked up in a room for a long time compared to Jim's enslavement of being owned and the property of another person isn't the same. Lester says that Twain tries to cover the real horror in slavery although being held captive by a drunken father isn't the same as being the property of another human being showing that Twain did not take slavery and black people seriously. In agreement to Lester's that slavery wasn't taken seriously with comparing it to a boy that had the ability to leave that compared to a slave that wasn't able to leave slavery is something that is different but they had the same wishes of reaching their freedom which for Jim was slavery and for Huck being free from his father and starting over.

Lester also describes Twain's portrayal of Jim in the novel. In the novel Twain describes Jim, according to Lester, as being childlike instead of being a grown man with children. Twain plays around with black reality when Jim had escaped and fleeing deeper in the slave country rather than to free states. In contrary when Jim is sold Huck and Tom, in their plan to free Jim, Tom get shot and Jim comes out of hiding knowing he will be recaptured in trying to help Tom. Which is why I disagree with Lester that Jim is childlike because he was able to give his freedom away in trying to help a friend survive.

Huck Finn Experts

Though never studying or being an expert on psychology, Henry Nash Smith writes a psychoanalytical paper called “A Sound Heart and a Deformed Conscience.” Here, Smith explains how Twain uses setting and supernatural ideas to create a deeper understanding for his lead character, and without such, readers would not understand the full of Huck Finn as a character.

Smith describes one of the key parts of Twain’s characterization of Huck is “the boy’s capacity for love,” which is “projected into the natural setting.” Smith believes that “without qualification as a symbolic account of Huck’s emotions he [Twain] would have undercut the complexity of characterization implied in his recognition of Huck’s inner conflict of loyalties. Instead, he uses the natural setting to render a wide range of feelings and motives.” Smith seems to see the line between love and loyalty as thin, and Twain would not have crossed in had the novel not been in a setting where things are constantly out of the characters’ control. Many of the situations that Huck and Jim came across were uncontrollable natural accidents, and in many of the situations, Huck choose to help or stay with Jim. If they had not been in a natural setting, it would have made sense that only loyalty guided Huck’s relationship with Jim, as he would have stayed by his loyalty to others, such as Tom or possibly Widow Douglas, and would have given Jim up. However, since they were together in nature, the Huck’s love for Jim was able to build and over power loyalty.

Another important part of Twain’s writing that Smith touches on is “the characterization of Huck [that goes] beyond the needs of the plot.” After showing a passage from the first chapter of Huck alone, Smith explains “the whimpering ghost with something incommunicable on its mind and Huck’s cold shivers suggest a burden of guilt and anxiety that is perhaps the punishment he inflicts on himself for defying the mores of St. Petersburg,” and believes that “ the narrator whose stream of consciousness is recorded here is much more than the innocent protagonist of the pastoral idyl of the raft, more than an ignorant boy who resists being civilized.” This can connect back to Huck’s “capacity for love” and the complexity of Huck’s character. The author never had to talk about what happened in St. Petersburg, a major part of the novel Huck was previously a part of. However, the “burden of guilt and anxiety” for Huck can lead readers to believe that some of his motives from the novel could have come from that instead of what was implied in the novel. Having multiple motives for the character was unnecessary for the author, though he still chose to do it, most likely to point out that there is more to Huck than the “ignorant boy who resists being civilized,” which is absolutely true. When he is with the King and the Duke, he could have gone with the con’s, as it would have been a great way to resist civilization, but he continually explained his disdain for it, showing there is obviously more.

Critical Lens Close Reading

Chapter 1 page #4

"Her sister, Miss Watson, a tolerable slim old maid, with goggles on, had just come to live with her, and took a set at me now with a spelling-book. She worked me middling hard for about an hour, and then the widow made her ease up.  I couldn't stood it much longer.  Then for an hour it was deadly dull, and I was fidgety.  Miss Watson would say, "Don't put your feet up there, Huckleberry;" and "Don't scrunch up like that, Huckleberry—set up straight;" and pretty soon she would say, "Don't gap and stretch like that, Huckleberry—why don't you try to behave?"  Then she told me all about the bad place, and I said I wished I was there. She got mad then, but I didn't mean no harm. All I wanted was to go somewheres; all I wanted was a change, I warn't particular. She said it was wicked to say what I said; said she wouldn't say it for the whole world; she was going to live so as to go to the good place. Well, I couldn't see no advantage in going where she was going, so I made up my mind I wouldn't try for it.  But I never said so, because it would only make trouble, and wouldn't do no good. Now she had got a start, and she went on and told me all about the good place.  She said all a body would have to do there was to go around all day long with a harp and sing, forever and ever.  So I didn't think much of it. But I never said so.  I asked her if she reckoned Tom Sawyer would go there, and she said not by a considerable sight.  I was glad about that, because I wanted him and me to be together."

In this passage Miss Watson is trying to break Huckleberry and create him into an ordinary white male of that time period, she is trying to do this by teaching Huck manners and how to act. The Feminist lense is usually view as how woman are seen in society and what roles they play. Most women in society are seen as nurturers, teachers, mothers and even as pure women.

In this period of time females in society where also know as “good” which meant that they have to pretty much be perfect and they could not misbehave or they could not do anything bad because the males were know as the “bad” ones. In this passage we can see how Miss Watson was the a “good” and “pure” women. She would always talk about the “good place” and how she wanted to live a good life so she would be able to go to heaven.

We can see that Miss Watson is considered a pure women because of her name. She uses Miss which means that she is still yet not married. “She was going to live so as to go to the good place.” In this quote Miss Watson talks to Huck about how she wants to go to the “good place” referring to Heaven and how she will never say any of the words that Huck says because she wants to live a good life. “She said all a body would have to do there was to go around all day long with a harp and sing, forever and ever.” In this quote, Miss Watson goes on and on about why she wants to go to Heaven and how Heaven is the good place to go to. This shows how Miss Watson is considered a pure woman because she tries to be a model women.

Throughout this passage we do not get to see any of Miss Watson’s thoughts or desires, we only get to see Huck’s. Huck sees Miss Watson as a teacher, because she is teaching him manners and how to act as a regular white man. Huck is a typical male that is “bad”. “Don’t put your feet up there, Huckleberry;”, "Don't scrunch up like that, Huckleberry—set up straight;" Miss Watson is always correcting Huck, and is trying to change his bad manners. Growing up Huck did not go to school and was not taught anything because his Pap, would just get drunk, so when he decided to run away the widow and Miss Watson has to teach him how to be like an ordinary white man.

Through the feminist lense we get to see how every gender does not have an equal say, women are usually in the background of the story and males have more say. Women are also described as a “model” women and they usually are widows, stay at home women, or even teachers. Here we get to see how Miss Watson has to not only teach Huck manners and how to act, but she also has to teach how to spell and read.

Huck Finn Responding and Reflecting:Racial/ Cultural lens

In choosing the racial /cultural lens I had previous knowledge that slave were treated badly and  unequally to the rest of the population. As I continued reading I had seen just how people like Tom Sawyer, who is the same age as Huck, had treated slaves like Jim as if they were dumb and easily persuaded. This can be seen when Jim had told his dreams of witches taking him around the world and Tom described Jim as crazy and he was someone that all the other slaves would want to see and hear about these dreams that he because they were just like Jim. Making him and the other slaves seem crazy in that they had believed all this crazy stuff and making fun of them. The use of the n word had been used many times by different people to make them seem less of a person.

When reading farther in the book I noticed that it seems as if Huck which seems to be struggling with his life himself having a drunken father that abuses him and going through hard times growing up to having to be removed from his father then being put into the custody of a widow which gives him everything from helping him learning to read and write giving him a better life but Huck it still unhappy of having to go to school everyday. He then tries to help Jim ,who is Miss Watson's slave, became free and creates a plan with Tom to free him. It can be seen that Huck in the way that he had grown up can be similar to Jim with feeling like society is against him or dislike him, when they had been separated from his father while Jim when slavery had started and was seen in society as being someone that was hated and treated badly. Though Huck and Jim are different racially they still face some similar difficulties in life and have grown close as friend in going through these thing together in trying to reach freedom in the own life.

Response and Reflection: Marxist Lens

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Marxist Lens

This story was one that was truly coming of age. It truly represents the naivety and innocence we all had before stepping into another stage of our lives that we knew nothing about. But how Huck dealt with it in this book was sort of childish, despite he’s almost an adolescent. We have talked in past history classes about the issue of race before and after the Civil War, this was a sort of a dive in experience about a personal life of one of those victims and what they thought was right, and not to the ways of a society.

At first I didn’t know if Twain was trying to mock the pre war north (and I still cannot identify why) But I begin to single out the reason that Twain’s intention was to mix the meanings of growing up and introducing to children issues that was critical to american society at the same time. And as the chapters pass on I began to think that was one of his motives. I guess it was one of those things that made him so confusing to understand, because at the same time he’s introducing Jim, a black slave; and referring to him constantly with the “N” word; which is probably never one of the things children should hear at such a young age. But this was probably his way of introducing mature material to children; it had to be in their face and introduce them to the matters at a young age. Sure it would confuse them at first, and maybe after a more detailed explanation about why it was in the pre war period, they would still be a little confused but the point is now that they understand it, it would take away a portion of their innocence. It’s ethical for kids to be kids while they still can and never learn about such things until they get older. But Twain obviously thinks otherwise. At least that’s what I think his whole gist of it was. But we all have different opinions of this book, but we know one thing: Mark Twain was very complicated to figure out.

Huck Finn Response and Reflection

After reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, I realized how although the book was written over a hundred years ago, Huck and parts of his story could exist today, or really in any time in history. I’m not talking about the running away with the slave, or witnessing first hand a volatile family feud, or even assisting a couple of con men. In reality, the relationships he has and they way he responds to them or his actions because of them are extremely real in any time in history.

Because I chose the psychoanalytic lens, I thought a lot about what made Huck the person he is in the novel and what relationships he had with different people that affected that. The three people who I thought had the biggest influence on him before, and even during the novel, where his Pap, Widow Douglas, and Tom Sawyer, and each relationship connected to some psychological idea that I had before reading the novel. Huck’s Pap was an alcoholic who beat and abused Huck. Most people believe that this would have made Huck try to avoid his father, however, Huck did what I believed to be true with many abused children. Huck would constantly excuse his father or deny that the abuse was as bad as it was, even though he acknowledge that his Pap shouldn’t be doing that and didn’t really like his father. When he was kidnapped, he made the best of the situation and made himself believe that living with his father wasn’t too bad, and he didn’t go to drastic measures to get away from his Pap until after he tried to kill Huck. It stuck with my belief that children, at least when they are still children, want to see the best in their parents, no matter how awful they are treated, and may even try to excuse their parent’s behavior. It wasn’t until Huck was in a better home with Widow Douglas, that he realized how bad he had it with his father, though he does not enjoy trying to be civilized by Widow Douglas. Though he enjoys being with her, and even to some extent he enjoys some parts of civilization, like learning to read and write, he plays it off as not being as good as living on the outskirts of the society.

The final person to be a big influence on Huck is his friend Tom Sawyer. Tom kind of acts as the voice of reason for Huck, though it is in a way that Huck feels like he is not being controlled. Huck’s relationship with Tom is one of the few he makes by choice and isn’t one that was forced upon him in someway. This creates a relationship where Huck wants to listen to and follow Tom. The way I saw this relationship was one of slight envy on Huck’s side. Huck most likely saw Tom’s life as an ideal one, and had an underlying level of jealousy. Because of this jealousy and envy, Huck listens to Tom in hopes that maybe he can be more like Tom.

Huck Finn Close Reading

“Did you want to kill him, Buck?”
“Well, I bet I did.”
“What did he do to you?”
“Him? He never done nothing to me.”
“Well, then, what did you want to kill him for?”
“Why, nothing—only it’s on account of the feud.”
“What’s a feud?”
“Why, where was you raised? Don’t you know what a feud is?”
“Never heard of it before—tell me about it.”
“Well,” says Buck, “a feud is this way: A man has a quarrel with another man, and kills him; then that other man’s brother kills him; then the other brothers, on both sides, goes for one another; then the cousins chip in—and by and by everybody’s killed off, and there ain’t no more feud. But it’s kind of slow, and takes a long time.
“Has this one been going on long, Buck?”
“Well, I should reckon! It started thirty year ago, or som’ers along there. There was trouble ‘bout something, and then a lawsuit to settle it; and the suit went agin one of the men, and so he up and shot the man that won the suit—which he would naturally do, of course. Anybody would.”
“What was the trouble about, Buck?—land?”
“I reckon maybe—I don’t know.”” (Twain, 91-92)

In this quote, Huck is questioning why his friend, Buck, shot at a random stranger who just happened to ride by. Buck, a Grangerford, explains that the person was not a random stranger, but rather a member of a feuding family, the Shepherdsons. Huck continuously asks questions about the feud to try and make sense of it, though he never seems to completely understand the point of the fighting.

The feud that takes place between the Grangerfords and the Shepherdsons closely resembles an infamous feud that took place in the 1880s between the Hatfields and McCoys. Being the satirical writer that he is, Twain was likely commenting on what he believed to be the stupidity of these types of feuds. The way Buck “don’t know” why the feud started, especially after the casual “Well, I bet I did” in response to being asked if he wanted to kill someone after shooting at them, shows how ingrained the feud is in Buck’s head. He doesn’t register how many people get hurt, or even that he possibly gets hurt, so long as “everybody’s killed off,” as is supposed to happen in a feud. Here, Twain is essentially making fun of the feuds because most people, in a logical situation, would avoid something that they know would end in their death. He sees the feuds that he had witnessed as silly and pointless because all it meant was losing loved ones and taking the lives of another’s loved ones. He may have also seen this as important because he lost his father at a young age and thought that the loss of a life for such a pointless reason was a waste of a life.

With the feud, Twain also could have been commenting on people’s desires and how it can play a huge role in one’s life. There is a psychological theory that was created by Sigmund Freud, that explains how people have three parts of their subconscious. This includes the id, which is a person’s impulses and desires and just wants to fulfil them, the superego, which is the rational part, and the ego, which balances the id and the superego. With the Grangerfords, specifically Buck, represent the id. They desire to take out the Shepherdsons at all costs shows this, especially when others and their own are getting hurt because of it. Huck acts as a sort of superego when he tries to rationalize with Buck, explaining how the feud seems to be hurting others. Without a consistent or strong superego, or even ego, the id is able to do as it pleases, though it eventually gets hurt. This is proven later when the Grangerfords and Shepherdsons have one final battle that kills most of both families.