Realism in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.doc

毕业论文（设计）Realism in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn1.Introduction12. Realistic themes in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn32.1 Characterization32.1.1 Huck32.1.2 Jim72.2 Slavery92.2.1 The bad treatment of slaves92.2.2 White adults attitude to slaves102.2.3 Hucks attitude to slaves122.2.4 Jims attitude to slaves132. 3 Exposition of objectivity142.3.1 Fatuity152.3.2 Money worship163. Conclusion17References181.IntroductionThe Civil War broke out in 1861, which marked a change in America. Before the Civil War, America had essentially a rural, agrarian, isolated republic, whichs idealistic, confident, and self-reliant inhabitants for the most part believed in God. Most Americans had a strong view that America was the most democratic and civilized country in the world. After the Civil War, the United States was transformed into an industrial and urban nation. On the surface there were elegance, security and comfort; but underneath there were all seething disconcert and disappointment. Great wealth and economic power became more and more concentrated in the hands of the few. So the nation became a land of contrasting wealth and poverty; political and commercial corruption grew widespread. All these made its people begin to question the assumptions shared by the transcendentalists-natural goodness, the optimistic view of nature and man, benevolent God. In the meantime, people of the United States began to tire of the sentimental feelings of the Romanticism after the Civil War, just as they turned away from Puritanism at the close of the 18th century. A new inspiration came over them. Instead of thinking about the mysteries of life and death, peoples attention was now directed to the interesting features of everyday existence. Life itself held a challenge. A zest for living naturally, completely, and even boisterously became the vogue. This new attitude was characterized by a great interest in the realities of life. Therefore, a new attitude of realism entered American literature, which started a new period in American writing known as the rise of Realism (Wang Songnian, ed.2004). As time passed, Romanticists optimism was replaced by philosophical realism. With Howells, James, and Mark Twain active on the scene, realism became a major trend in 1870s and 1880s of American Literature.Realism is the theory of writing in which familiar aspects of contemporary life and everyday scenes are represented in a straightforward or matter-of-fact manner. Fundamentally, in literature, realism is the portrayal of life with fidelity. It stresses truthful treatment of material. It is anti-romantic, anti-sentimental, and without interest in nature, death, etc.In the later part of 19th Century, a crowd of realists appeared in European Continent, such as Zola, Flaubert, Balzac, Destoyvsky and Tolstoy. They sought to portray life as it really was, insisting that the ordinary and the local were as suitable for artistic portrayal as the magnificent and the remote. Such a strong wind flew over the Atlantic Ocean, and landed on the North American Continent. American readers or audiences got “hungry” about such mental food. They hoped for getting a vast reading of articles, essays, fictions and poems. It was realism writers such as William Dean Howells, Mark Twain who met such a strong demand (Zhang Xihua, 1996).Mark Twain, known as the Lincoln of American Literature, wrote many books which reflected the American society. As his masterpiece, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn won him the fame all over the world. In this ever-lasting popular book, Mark Twain dealt with many serious subjects in his time such as politics, religion and slavery.The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is about an outcast boy Huck and a runaway nigger Jim on the journey down the river. Huck is the narrator and main character of the novel. Slavery and other social evils are exposed by the disreputable, illiterate little boy. He isnt influenced by civilization, so he has no cunning and sophisticated life philosophy. His sense is spontaneous. He views the society in his childish way and never exaggerates anything he has seen, heard and experienced.2. Realistic themes in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn2.1 CharacterizationOne of the features of realism is that realism focuses on the commonness of the lives of the people who are customarily ignored by the arts. Therefore, Mark twain often showed the basic goodness and wisdom of ordinary people as his major theme and revealed the common personality and spirit by portraying “specific persons or facts” (Liao Fucai, 2000), such as Huck and Jim.2.1.1 HuckHuck is looked upon as an outcast. He has no mother, no home, “sleeping in barrels, eating scraps and leavings and dressed in rags” (Yang Jie, 1998). He has a father, however, his father has never taken care of Huck but given him cruel beating. There is no doubt that Huck is just like an orphan. As an orphan, Huck suits in a hard environment. Although he receives hardly any education, he learns to be active, intelligent, honest and brave from the hard society.Huck is a rebel of American society. He is used to his free life no need to pray before dinner, no need to go to school and to church. It seems that the “civilized society” does not fit Huck at all. Therefore, when the pecking of Miss Watson becomes unbearable and the deadly dull life tires him, he flees. He rebels mainly because those “kind-hearted and civilized” people make him uncomfortable and ill.Twain wrote stories about how ordinary people tricked experts, or how the weak succeeded in hoaxing the strong (Liang Qing, 1994). There is no doubt that Huck is a master at this point. In Chapter 16, Huck comes upon some men in a boat who want to search his raft for escaped slaves. In order to protect Jim from being catching, Huck pretends to be happy and makes the following dialogue to trick them into believing that his father on board the raft has smallpox. The following dialogue can express this point clearly.“Papll be mighty much obleeged to you, I can tell you. Everybody goes away when I want them to help me tow the raft ashore, and I cant do it by myself.”“Well, thats infernal mean. Odd, too, say, boy, whats the matter with your father?”“Its the-athe-well, it ains anything much.”They stopped pulling. “Well,” says I, a-blubbering, “Ive told everybody before, and they just went away and left us”(2003, p108-109).By tricking the two men, Huck not only rescues Jim, but also wins forty dollars in gold.Also, Huck is filled with self-recrimination and self-condemnation (Quirk Tom, 2000). When Jim is bitten by the dead snakes mate, Huck is sorry for the outcome and his stupidity, because the dead snake is put into Jims blanket by him.Though Huck is young, his wisdom and goodness and honest consciousness is not restricted to the innocence or the childish vision of a young boy (Liang Qing, 1994). From the novel, we can find clearly that Huck is a good boy who has humanistic care. In Chapter 33, after being proven to be deceivers, the duke and the king run out of town on a rail, tarred and feathered. Huck feels sad, although both of them have done many unregretful things to lots of people and they even sell Jim to a farmer by forty dollars. “I was sorry for them poor pitiful rascals, it seemed like I couldnt ever feel any hardness against them anymore in the world. It was a dreadful thing to see. Human beings can be awful cruel to one another” (2003, p276). This expresses Hucks sympathy to human beings. Furthermore, it is also a foil to the inhuman people in the society. They can even treat their own kind in such a bad and crude way.In Hucks eyes, he should tell Miss Watson where Jim is because Miss Watson is kind to Huck, although sometimes she is stubborn and curious. She always believes that there are good places like heaven and bad places like hell. She also insists that Huck should pray every day. This is the reason that Huck feels guilty. However, during the trip in the various towns and villages along the way, Huck sees many ugly things and cruel people, from which, he has learned about the evil of the world. He begins to suspect and refuse what the white people believe in. Although he is at the risk of going to the hell, according to the white Christians, he decides to try every effort to rescue Jim. It is a turning point for Hucks growing, because the decision makes him break away from the civilized society completely. It is also a mark of Hucks maturity. Having learned much of the evil in the world, Huck gradually gives up the value judgement held by the white adults.Meanwhile, as a white boy, Huck has his own shortcomings. Under the education of Widow Douglas, Miss Watson and other respectable persons and affected deeply by the white adults, Huck has the racial discrimination against blacks. In his eyes, black people are stupid and rude. In the white adults opinions, black people are less intelligent. When Jim insists that Solomon is crude and stupid and Huck can not persuade him to believe that Solomon is wise, Huck comes to the conclusion that “I see it warnt no use wasting words you cant learn a nigger to argue” (2003, p97). Maybe, in his mind, blacks are so unreasonable and stubborn that they cant understand the whites.Actually, from the development of Hucks inner world we can see the opinions of the society affect him deeply. Huck is full of righteousness and also has deep sympathy for Jim. However, since he lives in the slavery society, racial discrimination influences him a lot. Therefore, at the beginning of the book, Huck often plays tricks on Jim. For instance, after suffering separation by the riptide, Huck still deceives Jim that their separation is only a dream and Huck himself never goes away when he sees the anxious Jim. Later, when he knows that Jim has tried every effort to look for to him and Jim is angry about his joke, Huck feels sorry for that. He says that the tricks made him feel so guilty that he could almost kiss Jims feet to take the words back. Also, he would not do Jim any more mean tricks, and he wouldnt have done that one if he had known it would make him feel that way.Although sometimes Huck thinks God would punish him for helping a runaway nigger to get freedom, as helping a slave to escape is regarded as a crime, Huck chooses to help Jim instead of telling Miss Waston the truth. The main reason is that he gradually has a deep affection for Jim.During the journey with Jim on the raft, Huck at first believes that blacks are by nature lower than whites, but at last accepts Jim as a man and as a brotherly friend.2.1.2 JimMark Twains view on democracy is the equality of every person, no matter what race one belongs to and what color he or she is (Li Xue, 1996). American Negroes take up a large portion of American population and they fight and work side by side with the white population for the American independence and prosperity. Jim is such a kind of typical black. As a black, Jim has his own shortcomings and his own thoughts for freedom.Living a long life as a slave, Jim is innocent and superstitious. For example, Jim believes that handling snakeskin was so unlucky that he would like to see the new moon over his left shoulder as much as a thousand times than to take snakeskin in his hand. Also, Jim thinks counting the things that are going to be cooked for dinner and shaking the tablecloth after sundown will bring bad luck as well. Although all of these have no evidence at all, Jim believes in them very much and teaches Huck as if they were learned knowledge. The absurdest thing is that Jim says his hairy arms and hairy breast predict he will be rich someday, although he is still very poor today. Maybe, most of the time, most of us would laugh at Jims superstitious or somehow stupid ideas. But we have to know that the long-term slave-holding system makes Jim and other blacks positioned in a low and poor class, and has them treated as the property of whites. In order to get freedom and lead a happy life, black people have to redeem themselves first, because all of them do not belong to themselves but their “masters”. Also, blacks often do the most difficult and dirty labor work and superstition gives them some bright dreams or hope in some way, just as Jims says, ”Ef yous got hairy arms en a hairy beras, its a sign dat yous a-gwyne to be rich. Well, deys some use in a sign like dat, kase its so fur ahead. You see, maybe yous got to be po a long time fust, en so you might git discourage en kill yoseff you didnt know by de sign dat you gwyne to be rich bymeby” (2003, p56). Therefore, we may safely say that Jim gains energy and courage partly from supersition.Meanwhile, Jim respects himself and he claims for respect which he thinks he should be given. For example, he gets mad at Huck for making a fool of him after he had worried about him so much. Being very angry, Jim even calls Huck, a white boy, “trash”. In Jims opinion, Huck is the best and the only friend he ever has. Therefore, he is very kind and grateful to Huck and can not bear the tricks that Huck plays.Though Jim looks like a fool and is often tricked by Tom and Huck, he is intelligent and has his own dreams. Jim is faithful and committed to his family and he strongly hopes for his family to get complete freedom from their owners. In Chapter 16, Jim tells Huck that if he gets to a free state he is going to save up money and never spend a single cent, and when he gets enough he will redeem his wife, and then they will work together to redeem his two children. From these words, we can see that Jim has logical thoughts and he dreams for a happy life with his family.Also, Jim is very kind and considerate. During the journey, Huck and Jim have to keep a vigil in turn. Huck says, “I went to sleep, and Jim didnt call me when it was my turn. He always done that” (2003, p183). Also, on the raft, Jim pets Huck and does everything he can for Huck. Actually, Jim is very grateful to Huck. When Huck deceives the two men who want to search runaway blacks and saves Jim, Jim says to him sincerely:”I tell you, chile, I spec it save ole Jim ole Jim aint going to forgit you for dat, honey” (2003, p111). While escaping with Huck and Jim,Tom had a bullet in the calf of his leg. Because Tom Sawyer is seriously hurt and nearly dying, Huck has to run back to call a doctor. At the crucial moment, instead of running away, Jim chooses to risk his freedom and look after Tom. He says to Huck:” No, sah I doan budge a step outn dis place dout a doctor, not if its forty year” (2003, p329)! At last, Jim is caught by the old white doctor. In order to protect Huck and not to put Huck to any trouble, Jim even pretends not to recognize Huck at all. All of the above prove that Jim is