Huckelberry Finn and the Great American Novel
A Journey of Morality as Youth Grows Up
Published in 1884, Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain is considered to be one of America’s best example of regional literature and the Great American Novel. It is one of the first major American novels written in first person using ordinary speech, the vernacular. It is told by Huckleberry "Huck" Finn, who is the best friend of Tom Sawyer and principal narrator of two other Twain novels. Briefly, it is the story of Huck and his Negro friend Jim as they make their way down the Mississippi. Huck is a young boy running from home, Jim is a mature man escaping slavery.
Many critics of Huckleberry Finn have focused on the use of racial terms “n-gger” and the like and hence characterized it as a racist book. But that criticism misses the essential metaphor characterized by the main character, Huck Finn.
Huck Finn is a metaphor for the young America. Naïve, immature, and living side by side with the slave Jim. Huck does not see a human Jim, he sees a slave. Jim, meanwhile, is also a symbol of the mature and strong institution of slavery, a well-established institution that has many supporters and is living side by side with the free people. Huck, like many Americans at the time, did not see the humanity of Jim. They only saw the skin color, and the racist culture that entombed him. But by going down the river, Huck sees the human dimension in his friend, Jim. Through different events, Huck grows up and helps Jim to escape slavery. In the end, Huck becomes human by seeing the humanity of Jim, his friend.
Huckleberry Finn may be the first Great American Novel; it also may be the last. Consider how different the society was that Mark Twain was writing about 130 years ago. First of all the majority of the people country lived in a rural countryside. Cities were small. They were slowly developing a manufacturing economy and most importantly, the culture of the time was much more homogeneous than now.
Consider what a writer would have to contend with if they were interested in delving into the subject matter of the Great American Novel.
For one, the culture is very different. It is not North vs. South; the manufacturing North vs. the plantation South. Today there is influence of politics, right vs. left; Republican vs. Democrat, even the independents. There are the Christian fundamentalists and the secular humanists. There are the pro-choice and pro-life groups. There is the pop-rap-drug-porn commercial sub-culture that lies next to the classical-sophisticated culture. There is the sports culture, the country-western culture, and new age. It is a country that has produced Lawrence Welk and Jimmy Hendricks. The child actor Shirley Temple and Madonna each have millions of fans. The immigration of peoples from other countries also adds to the diversity of the country. Viewers can watch television in many different languages as well as listen to music from many countries and cultures. There is the Ivy-League and the Community College dimension. Rich vs. poor; professional vs. labor union. It is a myriad of cultures, subcultures, groups and subgroups.
Another difference is size. The size of the country is the same, but it is smaller. One can go from one end of the country to another in less than eight hours, by air. Even by land, it could take five days instead of six months. Roads can take one from state to state with speed and safety.
But the other feature is the uniformity found in the country. Most cities are the same. New York, San Francisco, Boston, San Antonio, and Miami may be International cities, but the vast majority of cities have a downtown, surrounded by suburbs. The suburbs have their shopping malls. They look the same. Really, they are the same.
All of these elements make writing the Great American Novel an enterprise that would be hard to duplicate. You have incredible diversity and incredible homogeneity. If one tried, the novel would be massive. Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky would find it challenging.
What made Huckleberry Finn a great novel was the moral growth of the hero and helped create a Great American Novel. But the status of the country was way different than one found today.
Huckleberry Finn
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