Word: twainã
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...cumulative impact of over 100 years of critical acclaim makes the literary reputation of an acknowledged masterpiece such as Mark Twain??s “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” seem impregnable. Twain??s classic book elevates the form of the picaresque novel into a story of individual freedom as Huck Finn and the escaped slave Jim row down the Mississippi River liberated from the constraints and judgments of society. “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” is undoubtedly a classic of American literature, but too often literary scholarship tries...
...Twain??s classic offers a medley of colorful characters, memorably presented by his irreverent narrator. Although Huck presents each new figure with a keen eye for the ridiculous, Huck himself is a shifting comedic persona rather than a genuine, grounded character. His personality and world view changes to fit each scene, allowing him to effectively satirize any given situation. Although Huck often seems implausibly ignorant of the world’s conventions, he at times possesses astounding insight into how society operates. The temptation of the comedian is to conveniently modify his characters for a few extra laughs...
...Twain??s problematic use of comedic flexibility culminates in the novel’s controversial final scene. At the end of the novel, Jim is recaptured after a failed escape attempt and appears to be on the brink of being sold back into slavery. Miraculously, Jim is saved when Tom reveals that the whole escape plan was an elaborate game—Jim was already freed by his mistress on her deathbed. Some critics have criticized this ending as an evasion that allows Twain to avoid dealing with the evils of slavery, while others have defended the scene...
...subject than as the starting point of a narrative dominated by the strong-willed women who tell it. In fact, although the book jacket proclaims My Jim a “nuanced critique of the great American novel,” it makes little direct contact with Twain??s text. Miss Watson, the sister of the Widow Douglas, Huck’s adoptive mother and owner from whom Jim has fled, shows up sporadically, but the one direct reference to the eponymous rapscallion appears only on the 132nd of 161 pages. Jim himself seems more like a ghost...
...Early in Twain??s novel Huck laments “how dismal regular and decent” his life with Miss Watson and the Widow Douglas has become. His complaint could serve as a harsh but not wholly inaccurate description of Rawles’ book. Rawles—or perhaps those marketing her—seem to have failed to recognize that the moral complexities My Jim purports to expose are already present in Huck’s own narrative. While Rawles has provided a reasonably interesting supplement to Twain??s book...