MONT 104Q Plan for discussions on Huck Finn -- October 19, 21, 23 Monday, October 19 -- History - Historical context -- Missouri and other states along the Mississippi River in the 1830 -- 1840 period. Steamboat navigation on the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers was a major driver of commerce, economic expansion. Twain grew up in Hannibal, Missouri, worked on steamboats as a young man (that's where his pen name comes from -- his birth name was Samuel Clemens) so he knew this world intimately. - This was a time when African-Americans were enslaved in roughly half the country and the economy of the "deep South" was built on slave labor in cotton plantations and other large farms. Slave trading (i.e. buying and selling slaves) was also a major industry; [save this point: New Orleans was a center of the slave trade]. The Civil War was still 20 to 30 years in the future, but questions of race and slavery were already explosive -- coming close to tearing the country apart. Southern planters were working as hard as they could to keep status quo. Reasons: economic interest, and also often out of sincere beliefs that whites were inherently superior, entitled to use blacks as labor, and (occasionally, paternalistically) that whites were responsible for caring for the just barely human, childlike race of African slaves => Racism pure and simple. It's not that everyone in the North was opposed to this system, or less racist either. Large sections of the populations of the "free states" were satisfied with the system as it was (Democratic party aligned with Southern interests; Republican party founded in early 1850's in opposition.) There were also "abolitionists" in the North are seeking to have slavery outlawed everywhere, often on grounds of religious and humanitarian principles. Some of them were just as paternalistic as the less violent Southern racists, though. - Missouri was a uniquely important state in this story -- it had entered the Union as a state in 1820 as a result of the "Missouri Compromise" -- designed to keep the number of Senators from "slave states" and "free states" equal. Missouri was allowed to enter as a slave state, but Maine split off from Massachusetts at the same time as a free state. As a part of this, slavery was also banned in any portions of the Louisiana Purchase north of the southern border of Missouri (except Missouri itself). - But Twain is also writing Huck Finn a long time after the fact -- 1884-1885 to be precise, almost 20 years after the end of the Civil War, when the overtly racist slave-holder society was already "history" (or was it?) - Q: How does this history form the basis of the story of Huck Finn? What aspects of the plot turn on the historical setting? (For example, why is Jim in such constant danger after he runs away from Miss Watson? Why is the fact that Huck and Jim miss the mouth of the Ohio River in the fog such a big deal? Why is the fact that they are headed down the Mississippi to New Orleans so important? Why do the "King" and the "Duke" dress Jim up as the "sick Arab?") Q: How are African-Americans portrayed in the book (especially the slave Jim)? Q: Is the book racist? Or is it a critique of racism? Can we separate Huck's voice as narrator from the author's voice? Do we know what Twain thought about these issues? [If they haven't done so, have them look up Olivia Langdon and Warner T. McGuinn for Wednesday.] Q: (Hard question): Why does Twain consistently use a term for black people that is so offensive to most of us now? Why did he go to such lengths to portray the speech patterns of slaves (like Jim, the slaves on the Phelps farm, etc.) the way he did? Q: Is white society monolithic? What are the different strata/classes in white society? Where do Huck Finn [BTW, do you recognize what the name "Huckleberry Finn" is supposed to tell us about his background?], his "Pap," Tom Sawyer, Judge Thatcher, the Grangerfords, the Phelpses, the "Duke" and the "King," etc. fit into this picture? Why can't the Wilks family immediately spot the "King" and the "Duke" as frauds when they try to pass themselves off as Englishmen? How do money, education, culture come into it? Is anyone immune from Twain's satire and ridicule? Wednesday, October 21 -- An American Odyssey Q: What do you think Twain's prevailing attitude toward the America he's describing is? [Did you laugh out loud at some of the pretentious nonsense, mangling of words, phrases, quotations from the Bible and Shakespeare, the general hypocrisy?] Q: Is Huck Finn (the character) like characters in the Odyssey? How is he different? How is the book as a whole similar or different? (e.g. in structure, in the role of humor, the tone of the author, the role of creature comforts like good food, adventure, the sheer excitement of travel ... )? Q: Clearly this is a coming of age story for Huck, in a somewhat similar fashion to the way the Odyssey includes Telemachus's growth to manhood. How old is Huck supposed to be when the story takes place? What does he have to do to grow up? And how is that different from the process Telemachus must undergo? Has that process reached its conclusion by the end of the book? Is he at all similar to Telemachus, or to Odysseus, for that matter? Friday, October 23 -- Wrapping up, Bigger Themes Q: What constitutes family in this book? Why does Huck's "Pap" think he has a right to hold onto Huck? How is Jim's family treated? What is the deal between the Grangerfords and the Shepherdsons and why do younger members of the families like Buck Grangerford "buy into" the family feud so unquestioningly? Q: The book takes place largely on the border between "nature" and "civilization," moving repeatedly back and forth. Why is town life and "civilization" so hard for Huck? Why is he so happy to get out and onto the river with Jim at the start of their trip together? Is town life and "civilization" all brutal and violent? Is the nature, represented by the river, only peaceful and idyllic? Q: Is this book a satire? a tragedy? a "happy ending story?" None of the above? Does it have elements of all of them? ["Unpack" the happy ending.]