Huck Finn Test Flashcards
Satirizing: Grangerfords / Sheperdsons
Southern upper class
- clearly low class
- tacky furniture
- obsessed with death
- no idea why they are feuding
- listens to sermon on brotherly love and brings guns to church
Satirizing: Boggs / Sheburn shooting
Violence and mob mentality
- laughed at dogs attacking pigs / set stray dogs on fire
- Sheburn shot Boggs
- town wanted to lynch Sheburn; shamed them and called them cowards as a group (146)
Satirizes: King and Duke
Greed and gullibility of townspeople
- camp-meeting (reformed pirate)
- Royal nonesuch
- Wilkes sisters (started to feel bad after sister w/ cleft lip helps him)
- Sold Jim from under Huck’s nose
Satirizes: Tom
Child brought up as “normal”
- foil for Huck
- Freedom for imaginative play
- Doesn’t care how his actions affected others (Sunday school robbing, Huck, Jim)
Why did Tom help free Jim?
- He knew Jim was already free (didn’t do it bc he felt that is was the “right” thing to do)
- Freedom from boredom - opportunity for another adventure
(Inner goodness) Huck and Christianity
- obsessed with cause and effect - superstition is more real to him
- christianity doesnt make sense to him
- Widow Douglass = harsh God, Mrs. Watson = God of grace
(Inner goodness) Borrowing vs. stealing
- Borrowing: Pap; okay as long as you meant to pay it back
- Stealing: Widow Douglass; never okay
- THEY COMPROMISE: Take a few things off the borrowing list (but choose the things they dont like / that are out of season anyway)
- Both confused: Jim and Huck were brought up the same way: No definite moral standard - Just because Jim is older doesn’t mean that he has a clear conscience
(Inner goodness) Murderers on boat-wreck
- Puts himself in the murderers’ shoes - feels widow would be proud
(Inner goodness) helping Jim vs. telling
- feels guilty for helping Jim run away (society says it is wrong)
- but he doesn’t tell (feels he was born bad - would feel just as bad if he told, and just as bad if he didnt)
(Inner goodness) King and Duke pretend to be Wilkes brothers
- ashamed that they would do something like that especially since the girls were so kind to them
When was the climax of Hucks morality?
- Ch. 31 - forced to do something about Jim when he is taken
- Decides to go to Hell instead
(Inner goodness) Climax of Hucks morality - forced to do something about Jim once he is taken
- still sees society as right - sees his feelings as wrong (shows how deeply society had penetrated his innocence and thoughts)
- Chooses hell over betraying Jim
How has Huck come full circle by the end?
- still despises civilization
- feels better for helping Jim
Evolution of H+J relationship
- Mrs. Watson’s slave - merely someone to play a joke on
- Played joke (dead rattle snake) hides the evidence - shows he doesnt see him as an equal
- “They’re after us” - Willing so (subconsciencly) help Jim
- Plays another joke on Jim - wasn’t lost in fog - appologizes (even though he doesnt think he needs to) but doesnt regret it
- Sees Jim’s humanity when he sees Jim misses his family and guilt over mistreating his daughter
- Sees all Jim has done for him - willing to go to Hell for him
- Finally sees Jim as human - “white inside”
- Glad someone of “society” has the same opinion of Jim
Episodic novel (def)
A story constructed as a narrative by succession of loosely connected incidents rather than by an integrated plot
How is Huck Finn an episodic novel?
- New episode each time they are on land
- Binded by the “spine”: river
What does a picaresque novel include? (4)
- Picaroon - a person of low social status as a hero(ine)
- First person narrative
- Episodic structure
- Realistic low-life descriptions
* Picarron typically wanders around and lives off his/her wits
How can Huck Finn be considered a picqaresque novel?
- Picaroon: low social status
- No family / authority figure- child of an alcoholic
- mother never mentioned
- Morally confused - no spiritual compass - Mrs. Watson vs Widow Douglass (God of Grace vs. God of reprimand) - ends up more confused
- Cause / effect from Jim
- Episodic structure
- On land- runs into problems only on land
- Boggs and Shebern
- Wilkes brothers - K+D
- Witnesses the cruelty of society while on land
- On water
- Has time to himself - time to form his own opinions
- Grows in time spent alone / time w/ Jim
- Seen at end - Tom acts as foil
- Realistic low-life descriptions
- Grangerfields home - doesn’t recognize “fancy” furniture is gaudy
- Doesnt want to be civilized - smoking is good for you - runs away from Widow to prevent further change
Vernacular (def)
Occurring in the every day language of a place and regarded as native or natural to it (informal, less prestigious)
Vernacularist (def)
Someone who advocates the use of a regional or working-class language / dialect (including speaking or writing it) rather than using a classical form
Regionalism (def)
- a movement where writers tried to capture the “local color” of a region - its people, landscape, dialects etc.
Colloquialism (def)
The use of informal expressions appropriate to everyday speech rather than the formality of writing
- differs in pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar
S: Mississippi River
Freedom from…
- Oppressive opinions belonging to society members - Inferiority - violence
S: Mrs. Watson and Widow Douglass
Judgmental / hypocritical society
S: Shore
Violence
S: Pap
Brutality and violence
S: Tom
Selfishness; foil for Huck
S: Jim
Unconditional love
What is the theme of Huck Finn?
The struggle of good and evil in the human conscience
Satire (def)
A work ridiculing identifiable objects in real life, meaning to arouse contempt for its object
Point of satire?
To open eyes rather than laugh
Formal satire (def)
1st person POV
Indirect satire (def)
Uses characters as symbols; characters are mocked through their own actions and words
Methods of satire (3)
- Diction
- Irony
- Styles
(Satire) Irony (3)
- Verbal, dramatic, and situational
- Hyperbole - exaggeration for effect
- Litotes - representation of something as less than it is
(Satire) diction (4)
- Sarcasm - harsh, cutting language intended to wound
- Invective - intense, emotional, verbal attack
- Innuendo - harness at face value, deeper meaning - implying
- Bathos - going quickly from lofty to crazy language
(Satire) Styles (3)
- Burlesque - comedy by exaggeration
- Parody - humorous imitation of a well-known work
- Mock-heroic - imitation of the epic style using exaggeration; elevates the trivial
2 Ex. Of hypocrisy
- “Civilized members of society” Buck - Tries to shoot Huck when seeing him for the first time, yet he calls the Grangerfords “classy”
- Widow Douglas - chastes Huck for smoking but chews tobacco
2 ex. Of violence in society
- Grangerfords / Sheperdsons
2. Boggs and Shebern
- Ex “respectability” in society
- Grangerfords - “elaborate and ornate” decorations - appear socially acceptable
- Widow Douglass and Mrs. Watson - must belong to a religion like everyone else
- Ex of prejudice
- Huck and moral debate apologizing to a black person
2. Begins by viewing Jim and merely Mrs. Watson’s slave - plays tricks on him
2 ex. Of religion
- Mrs Watson and Widow Douglass - 2 Provinces
2. Jim - religion of cause and effect
2 examples of tradition
1.
2.
Three times the struggle of good and evil within the human conscience can be seen throughout the novel
- Huck debates apologizing to Jim
- Huck debates writing to Mrs. Watson regarding Jim’s whereabouts - tears up the letter and decides he would rather “go to Hell”
- Debates weather or not to help the murders on the boat
