English 11 / Unit 4: Realism and Naturalism
4.2 Mark Twain
Notes
Mark Twain (pen name of Samuel Clemens, 1835-1910) grew up in Missouri along the Mississippi River and became a master of humor and satire.
- Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) is narrated in the first person by Huck, a boy who runs away and travels downriver with Jim, an escaped slave.
- Twain uses vernacular (everyday speech and dialect) to give the story authenticity.
- Satire mocks social faults. Huck's "sound heart" conflicts with a "deformed conscience" taught by society; he decides to help Jim even though he believes he will be damned for it.
- Twain also mocks con men (the Duke and the Dauphin), mob violence and hypocrisy.
- Worked example: Huck's innocent narration can be ironic, because the reader sees the injustice that Huck does not fully name.
Practice
Who narrates Adventures of Huckleberry Finn?
The novel is told from Huck's point of view.
Twain's use of Huck's dialect mainly helps to:
Vernacular speech is a realist technique.
Which statement best describes Twain's use of satire in the novel?
Satire criticizes faults through humor and irony.
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