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Admirable Hooks
A not-so-great hook. Visit https://thisibelieve.org/youth/ and look at the various hooks (e.g., first sentences or paragraphs) of the...
A not-so-great hook. Visit https://thisibelieve.org/youth/ and look at the various hooks (e.g., first sentences or paragraphs) of the...
I thought that the perspective given on the novel was quite interesting. I had not previously considered specific scenes as “distractions” from the true meaning of the work. I partially agree with the critic. Most of what occurs in the latter half of the novel is filler rather than necessary content. The reader has already been able to witness the strong bond between Huck and Jim so the plot line should naturally start coming to a close. In some ways I think that the filler gave the ending of the novel more significance though. When Tom saves Jim from the plantation it displays that mindsets are changing among others as well and this bond between Huck and Jim is everlasting despite the time away from one another. Additionally, the fact that Twain is able to address the companionship between Jim and Huck makes this story at its time in history very valuable. Although it was after the civil war, people’s minds had not changed and there still existed stigma towards slaves and “black men”. This provided a platform on which people could start considering the possible reality of equality.
ReplyDeleteI think that Jane makes a very good point when she brings up the fact that neither Twain or Huck took Jim's passion to escape slavery seriously. The fact that Twain had to come back multiple times to write and rewrite the novel when it would imply a certain message also stands out, because it tells the reader that there was a very clear narrative that Twain didn't want to be shown in the book, which in a way, is Twain's own oppression of the novel.
ReplyDeleteThe question of whether or not Huck Finn should be taught in schools is a very interesting debate. Perhaps it should be taught, but not in a positive light. It should be taught beside novels like Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the Narative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, in order to show where Twain falls short. Even if it’s not the great American novel, it may have a place in classrooms as a tool to acknowledge the folly of our ancestors and the racism that has been ingrained in American literature and American life for so long.
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting that Jane Smiley compared Huckleberry Finn to Uncle Tom’s Cabin, another book that is controversial yet important in understanding our country's history. The difference between the two authors is that Stowe was able to write about slavery head on, without avoiding the difficult topics that come with it. It makes the characters in Uncle Tom’s Cabin “vivified by their attitudes, desires, and opinions as much as by their histories and their fates.” Twain on the other hand is unable to face “the nature and meaning of slavery” which makes the book not as impactful as it could have been.
ReplyDeleteOne of Jane’s points that I found really interesting was that “It is with the feud that the novel begins to fail, because from here on the episodes are mere distractions from the true subject of the work: Huck’s affection for and responsibility to Jim.” While I was reading the novel, I had never considered the feud a distraction from Huck and Jim’s story, but now I am beginning to see why Jane could have viewed it this way. I wonder why Twain decided to include the feud, and if he ever realized that it might be drifting away from the focus of Huck and Jim’s relationship.
ReplyDeleteI found many of the critic's points very interesting. I was especially interested by her point that Huck is widely considered a "hero" and people often use that argument in the debate over censorship. The critic explains that Huck is not a hero because he acknowledges that Jim is human. In order for Huck to be considered a hero, he must also treat Jim like he is a human and act in his best interest. I completely agree with this point. I often noticed that Huck has higher opinions of Jim as he develops however he doesn't always show that through his actions. I think that in terms of censorship, this does not mean the book should not be taught. (I also don't like the idea of banning books in the first place so I am slightly biased). I think that Huck's flaws present a learning opportunity, as long as they are acknowledged as such. If he is taught as a hero, then that becomes problematic. But if a teacher explains that Huck's actions are not always "heroic", then the inconsistency between Huck's thoughts and behavior becomes an opportunity to discuss the proper way to treat others.
ReplyDeleteI thought Smiley’s perspective was very interesting. I hadn’t considered while reading the book that the feuding and cons were distractions from Huck and Jim’s relationship. It’s true, Huck Finn, however great it may be, doesn’t focus on the realities of a black man-white boy relationship and constantly avoids the subject. I also thought it was interesting how Smiley pointed out that all Huck had to do to be heroic was acknowledge Jim’s humanity, which when you think about it really isn’t that grand of an achievement, he could have helped Jim and done so much more.
ReplyDeleteI found it odd that Jane Smiley believes Mark Twain is a “villain” and does not put Huck at fault because he is just a young boy. She thinks the Grangerfords and Shepherdsons feud is a point where the novel “begins to fail” since it detracts from Huck and Jim’s relationship. Would the novel be better off without the Grangerfords and Shepherdsons feud or does it add significance to the story?
ReplyDeleteI think Smiley's critique of the novel is a valid one, especially when she points out that "neither Huck nor Twain takes Jim's desire for freedom at all seriously," because that was something I had also noticed when reading the book. When the two miss Cairo on the river, Jim doesn't seem that concerned by it, showing that Twain was very dismissive of the risk Jim was taking by trying to escape. Twain made Jim into less of a human character, which makes Huck's moral epiphany less meaningful.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Smiley in the sense that the addition of the feud did act as a distraction from the main point of the novel which is the relationship between Huck and Jim. However, I don't think that this feud causes the novel to "fail". This part of the novel is ironic as these two families continue to fight even though they are unsure of the reason that they are fighting. The extreme violence and eventual bloodshed that occurs between the two families demonstrates the cruelty of society, which I think adds some value to the novel.
ReplyDeleteI thought that this interpretation of the novel was very interesting and brought up some points that I hadn't previously thought of. Especially interesting was how Smiley said that the true villain was Mark twain, for giving huck a voice but not a novel. I also thought that the point about how Twain just saw Jim as Huck's sidekick with no vote or anything was very interesting.
ReplyDeleteSmiley's comments on the feud was very intriguing, since I found those scenes to be entertaining and a "break" from Huck and Jim's journey. Twain might have wanted to surprise the readers by changing the direction of the plot, taking a break from the underlying build up of Huck's maturity. I thought the addition of the feud and the con men were an entertaining addition to the plot, and they added good lessons the readers could takeaway and dispute.
ReplyDeleteI am wondering what Smiley meant by "The villain here is Mark Twain, who knew how to give Huck a voice but didn’t know how to give him a novel." Does she mean that Twain didn't know how to make the story he had in his mind into a novel? Is she saying that the flaws in the book are purely because of the execution? Or does she mean something entirely different?
ReplyDeleteJane Smiley argues that “...The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has little to offer in the way of greatness…,” and points out that arguments concerning censorship on the novel "have been regularly turned into nonsense by appeals to Huck’s "greatness." I wonder what qualifies a piece of work as “a work of greatness?” Furthermore, why or how is Huck Finn identified as a “great American novel?”
ReplyDeleteSmiley mentioned that Jim should have just escaped into Illinois and that was my exact thought when I was reading the novel. When they missed the Ohio river, why did Jim decide to continue going down river towards the south? Jim seemed to have no end goal for himself.
ReplyDeleteOne really interesting quote said in the argument was, "She understands perfectly that slavery is an economic system embedded in America as a whole, and she comments ironically on Christian bankers in New York whose financial dealings result in the sale of slaves, on Northern politicians who promote the capture of escaped slaves for the sake of the public good, on ministers of churches who give the system a Christian stamp of approval. One of Stowe’s most skillful techniques is her method of weaving a discussion of slavery into the dialogue of her characters." I agree with this quote as it made me think a little bit.
ReplyDelete(Evan Bak) Smiley's point about Twain being somewhat of an improviser was spot on. Huck forgets about the mission to free Jim while they observe the feud and the Duke and Dauphin. The whole ending as well seems to be quite improvised as Huck's pinnacle of moral development after Jim is sold is cast aside to feature Tom's extravagant and unnecessary plot to free Jim. After much delay Huck had renounced his previous beliefs and become set on getting Jim freedom, and then he easily agrees to Tom's ridculous antics clouding the importance of Huck's character arc.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was really interesting when Smiley said, "But so what? These are only authors. after all, and once a book is published the author can't be held accountable for its role in the culture. For that we have to blame the citizens themselves, or their teachers, or their teachers, the arbiters of critical taste". It connected to what we have learned in class.
ReplyDeleteI really agreed with the author when she said that “Jim is pushed to the side of the narrative”, especially towards the end of the novel. Though Huck’s relationship with Jim is supposedly the main focus of the novel, there are whole chapters where there is no mention to Jim, and I find myself wondering where Jim even is. I guess we’re supposed to assume he’s just hanging out on the raft. I would almost disagree with the author when she claims the focus is on their relationship. It seems more like a collection of Huck’s escapades, with Jim there to provide some sort of direction to Huck, who would otherwise be aimless. It seems like Jim is mainly used as a tool to move the plot along and provide a sense of character development for Huck.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was interesting how Smiley touched on how Twain taking a break from writing the book changed a lot about it, including how she said that Twain improvised a lot of the story, causing him to not give it a good ending.
ReplyDeleteI agreed with Jane Smiley when she felt that their was too much responsibility Huck had to take on because he was just a young boy who was learning about a complex topic in racism.
ReplyDeleteAt one point, Smiley says that, “... once Twain allows Jim a voice, this voice must speak in counterpoint to Huck’s voice and must raise issues that cannot easily be resolved, either physically or culturally”. She is pointing out that in Tom Sawyer, Twain largely avoided the issue of racism, but had the opportunity to revisit it and take a stand in Huck Finn. I wonder what would have changed if Twain had put more emphasis on Jim’s character?
ReplyDeleteI agree with Jane when she says that Huck didn’t take Jim’s eagerness to escape very quickly and that was due to him being so young and inexperienced
ReplyDeleteSmiley chose a violently feminist critical lens to view Huckleberry Finn through. This is by no means a bad thing. The negative parts of her criticism shine through in her analysis of Uncle Tom's Cabin. She paints Harriet Beecher Stowe as an objectively better person than Mark Twain, possibly because she herself identifies with many of the opinions that Stowe sought to put forth in UTC. She disregards the potential for negative conclusions to be drawn from Stowe's work, and instead resorts to an unfortunate preemptive refutation of the "stereotyping of whites" that seemed prevalent to her in the novel. In short, Smiley idolizes UTC at the expense of finding any educational or morally complex themes in Twain's works. She comes across as pretentious and overtly academic. I believe that while her claims are reasonable, the manner in which she goes about providing them with substance is undeserving of recognition.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was interesting when Smiley describes Twain as a villain. I never thought about it that way and I found it interesting to read about her thoughts on Twain and his writing process instead of only the book and book characters.
ReplyDeleteMs. Jane Smiley is correct in many aspects. Huck Finn is nowhere near progressive or clear enough when it comes to being an anti-racist novel. Views on racism should not be nuanced because at the end of the day racism is a terrible no matter the reason. However, there is a point that she misses. Huck Finn is an anomaly of source when it comes to protagonists because his views are so ambiguous. Much of what Huck believes is up to the reader's interpretation. If literature about race should promote the end of racism, Huck Finn fails in almost every account because his lack of a clear stance leaves room for the possibility that the protagonist of a book with whom we are supposed to empathize and go on a journey with is actually a racist. However, I do not believe Huck Finn to be a novel that is meant to protest racist thought. Instead, the book is a painfully real picture of someone's circumstance and how that shapes their views. During that time period, the chances of Huck having anymore respect for Jim than he displays are very low. This in no way excuses the book's inherently racist messages (whether those are intentional or not), and so it makes sense that Smiley would take offense. The amount of undefined moments allows us as the reader to place ourselves in Huck's shoes and contemplate what we would do, and if we choose to potentially forgive Huck for his flawed views. It is a book of self reflection on humanity and the decisions people make in certain situations. From the Nazi's to the Civil War, history time and time again has shown that people who we would believe to be "good" in a different context are capable of making horrible decisions. Huck Finn embodies this idea as there are several character whom we would potentially believe to be decent humans had it not been for their racist views. We are left to wonder if we would be the same had we grown up in early 19th century America. In conclusion, Smiley is not wrong in saying that Uncle Tom's Cabin is infinitely better in conveying that racism is bad. However, this does not mean Huck Finn is a useless novel, and I believe there to be real value in reading it once a person understands that racism is not acceptable.
ReplyDelete- Seiyoung Jang
I disagree with the Smiley’s idea that the feud between the Grangerfords and the Sheperdsons simply detract from the novel’s focus: Huck and Jim’s relationship. I think the feud in particular is a moment of growth for Huck. He realizes that he has to consider the consequences of his actions and not stay passive all the time. Twain also uses the feud to demonstrate the religious hypocrisy at the time: the Grangerfords stand by brotherly love, yet kill off their neighbors because of a long-standing hatred for each other without a legitimate reason for continuing it.
ReplyDeleteJane Smiley deconstructs the relationship between Huck and Jim to establish the rather lack of greatness in Mark Twain's novel. Although taking the first step towards fixing a problem is valuable, it is wrong to see that step as a complete victory and just stop there. Huck's acknowledgement of Jim's humanity is really just Huck doing the bare minimum. If Huck does not acknowledge Jim's humanity in front of others nor take action to defend it, his acknowledgement does not truly amount to anything.
ReplyDeleteSimilar to Smiley, I felt like many of the side stories such as the episode with the Grangerfords and the Shepherdsons hindered the development of the story, and distracted the reader of the core of the main plot. I feel like these events added very little to aid Huck's development as a person and I think that they would have been better left out of the novel.
ReplyDelete"Moreover, so much critical thinking has gone into defending Huck so that he can be great, so that American literature can be found different from and maybe better than Russian or English or French literature, that the very integrity of the critical enterprise has been called into question. " This is an interesting idea from Jane Smiley, I hadn't thought very deeply about the motivations to keep Hucks character appear great. It would make sense that people would defend Huck in order to protect the reputation of a great american author.
ReplyDeleteI found Smiley's thoughts about the novel very interesting, and I agreed with many of her opinions. She mentions that the Duke and the Dauphin as well as the feud were distractions to the overall message of the novel, and I completely agree. I kind of see the importance of the feud and how it can highlight problems with society, but I found the Duke and the Dauphin to be quite distracting. I really feel that it takes away from the overall message and was just an unnecessary addition.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteLike Smiley, I think Huck Finn's plot took a wrong turn after Mark Twain's first hiatus. I think that the reason why the plot changed so much was because as Mark Twain started to write the book, he wanted to target a younger audience, like in Tom Sawyer, but as he understood that his book was much more complex than anticipated, he took his first hiatus. Finally, he decides that he indeed does want to target a younger audience, but does not want to scrap the first part of the book, hence the abrupt change in style.
ReplyDeleteThough a bit aggressive, I appreciated how Smiley deconstructed the relationship between Huck and Jim. I agreed with many of her opinions and I liked how she highlighted the lack of greatness in Mark Twain's novel. Though often praised as such, I believe that Huck Finn is nowhere near progressive or clear enough when it comes to being an anti-racist novel. Regardless of the reason, or the way it is presented, racism is never okay, and should never be ignored. Huck's acknowledgement of Jim's humanity and his value as a fellow human being, is really just Huck doing the bare minimum. By making Jim into less of a human character (and more of a tool used to move the plot along and provide a sense of character development for Huck) it made Huck's moral epiphany less meaningful.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Smiley that the novel has underlying racism that is uncomfortable considering so many people view the novel as great. Huck purely recognizing Jim as a human and loving him doesn’t fix the underlying issue with not only Huck’s racism but the underlying racism within Twain’s work, and the attitudes of many at the time when Huck Finn was published, recognition of someone’s humanity is not enough.
ReplyDelete"Although they predated the current generation of politicized English professors, this was clearly a political act, because the entry of Huck Finn into classrooms sets the terms of the discussion of racism and American history, and sets them very low: all you have to do to be a hero is acknowledge that your poor sidekick is human; you don’t actually have to act in the interests of his humanity"
ReplyDeleteI agree with this argument due to the fact that the novel creates growth in the classroom with the knowledge that is given when learning Huck Berry Finn.
--Jack Hayes
DeleteAfter reading Jane Smileys thoughts on this book, I partially think that including grangerford and shepherdson in the book kind of lost focus of the main plot. But I also understand why he used it. Their family feud satirizes the Civil War, in the fact that they have been fighting for so long but over something so unnecessary that sometimes they forget what exactly they were fighting for. In the Civil War's case, it was slavery. I think in this case I partially disagree with Seiyoung. I think this novel is supposed to protest racism and by using the example of the civil war in the novel, Twain is emphasizing how people didn’t care about this controversial issue.
ReplyDeleteI think the quote from the article that reads “I don’t hold any grudges against Huck himself. He’s just a boy trying to survive. The villain here is Mark Twain, who knew how to give Huck a voice but didn’t know how to give him a novel.” I think this is a really interesting point because I never really thought of writing Huck with a voice and not giving him a novel as two separate things.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Smiley on the relation with Jim and Huck. At it's best Jim can call out Huck for playing jokes on him when his future as a free slave is at risk, like in the fog. However in the beginning, end, and even some parts in the middle Jim stops feeling like a person. It's especially noted how in the end Tom has ridiculous ideas and Jim has to go with it, their isn't even an argument. I would also have to agree with the excerpt from Leo Marx on the ending that "(the) author has lost the battle between plot and theme and is just filling in the blanks."
ReplyDeleteWhen Smiley started going in on how she holds no grudges with Huck and instead Twain, it confused me because she stated that Twain didn't know how to give Huck a voice. First off, you never how if Twain did this on purpose, as he's the one who created the story, and the character. Theres so many ways the book could've ended including one where Huck has a voice, but thats often the fun in reading books, creating your own endings, looking at others perspectives and more and holding grudges doesn't go into that category for me.
ReplyDeleteI think that it was interseting to see some kind of "behind the scenes", how the story got out of the hands of Mark Twain, and how he ended up "writing not a boy's novel, like Tom Sawyer(italicized), but a man's novel, about real moral dilemmas and growth". - Zoe Rigoulot
ReplyDelete"The villain here is Mark Twain, who knew how to give Huck a voice but didn’t know how to give him a novel.” I agree with others on how this was an interesting point. It's a new point to see a critic acknowledge the work of author but disagree with the author himself. I also enjoy how her point on race when she how huck finn, "sets the terms of the discussion of racism and American history, and sets them very low: all you have to do to be a hero is acknowledge that your poor sidekick is human; you don’t actually have to act in the interests of his humanity" and I actually agree, I don't think this novel should be a standard to teaching on social issues regarding race for this reasons.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Jane Smiley’s perspective in which the storyline created conflicts with Twain’s original concept. I think the aspects along the story are important, but it failed to emphasize the seriousness of Jim’s liberation and the relationship between Huck and a Jim.
ReplyDeleteI found Smiley's thoughts on racism throughout the novel interesting. Although Huck certainly grows in his maturity and begins to see Jim and black people as whole people, there still remains some racist sentiment. Although we see Huck recognize Jim as human and deserving the same opportunity and rights as him, he still refers to him using derogatory slurs without giving thought to them. This represents how deeply ingrained racism was/is ingrained in society both then and now.
ReplyDeleteI found this very interesting. I hadn't totally realized how I felt about the book until I heard another person point out that the failures of the novel begin as the focus of the story between Huck and Jim is disrupted by the other episodes and people shoved into it. From the feud onward, there are more people and Huck is constantly isolated from Jim, who becomes more of a side character as Twain attempts to steer the novel towards other subjects like fraud. Unfortunately, I do have to agree that the story is removed from it's original purpose of exploring what happens when a black man and white boy become friends on a raft. The simplicity of the original vision is a great concept which is ultimately shoved to the side as Twain's narrative fails.
ReplyDelete- Cameron Gurwell
It’s interesting to me that Smiley says that the villain of the story is Twain himself for not knowing “how to give him a novel”. It’s a cool take that I’d never really considered but I think it is a valid point that Twain wasn’t quite sure of what he was really doing with Huck Finn, especially since he had to take a hiatus from writing.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with Smiley's point that Jim is treated as a secondary character when compared with Huck and whatever the current intriguing discovery along the river is. TS Eliot made some point about the river giving the book it's framework but Twain seems to use it as an excuse to separate the book into vignettes without putting too much thought into the flow of the story. As Smiley noted with the Grangerford subplot, it allowed Twain to get rid of Jim as he pleased, hiding him somewhere if he couldn't think of how to use him and bringing him back when he could be used as the object of Huck's personal development. It's lazy storytelling and it certainly keeps the novel from being the subversive masterpiece that so many people seem to think it is.
ReplyDeleteThis is pretty similar to what I said in my last post but I don't really agree with Smiley like I did with Eliot. She says that she would rather have her kids read Uncle Tom's Cabin because it is unmistakably a tragedy, and while I do think it's an important book to read, I don't think that her implication that Huck Finn is somehow not great because it might be misleading is fair. By the time we are reading Huck Finn, we know that a text is never just a text and that it has a context. The context is one which everyone will already be well aware of by middle school. Maybe what many think makes Huck Finn so great is not only that it is a condemnation of slavery, but also that it teaches the value of seeing the humanity of others as a baseline for developing a personal moral framework. And even though Smiley says that this sets the bar low for being a hero, society at large does make it very easy to dehumanize people you have never met, not only in terms of race but also class, religion, gender and sexual orientation etc. Additionally, while today we can recognize that Twain didn't treat the topic with the severity it deserved, it is also important to recognize that real change comes from meeting people halfway. It's analogous to improvements in media representation. You begin with some kind of a minority who more or less conforms to the dominant society and over a decade most people get used to what had initially seemed like a big difference. Then you can introduce more realistic characters that the general public will respond positively to. So when Smiley denounces Huck Finn as whitewashed it misses the point on many levels. First: We are all well aware of the context of the novel by middle and high school. Second: Universally acknowledging humanity as a basis for morality is in fact worthy of celebration. Third: Real cultural change takes time and patience.
ReplyDelete-Jona Lehmann
I agree with Smiley that in second half of Huck Finn distracts the reader from how slavery is evil, since first there is a large segment with the duke and dauphin committing multiple acts of fraud (which is not very relevant to slavery), and then there is the escape plan which Tom over-complicates and which overall feels less realistic (such as how Tom and Huck were able to trick the family of Phelps and Aunt Sally for so long and so elaborately, and how Jim is immediately treated well when the family discovers that he helped treat Tom's gunshot wounds); Smiley's description of Uncle Tom's Cabin seems appealing, as it specializes in painting slavery as especially cruel. But I think the best plan is to read both books, since Huck Finn does show that at least one white person succeeds in concluding for a moment that slavery is evil (and given the setting that Huck Finn is in, if Huck was shown to fully believe that slavery is evil and not lose focus on this belief, readers might criticize that the story would be too optimisic).
ReplyDeleteFunnily enough, I picked up both huck Finn and Uncle Tom’s Cabin around the same time in eigth grade, and eventually ended up putting both books down, for the same two reasons: they’re not neccessarily easy reads, and they both made me uncomfortable. Uncle Tom’s cabin manages at the same time to be both infuriating and depressing, while Huck Finn lacks a very coherent plot, has the Duke and Dauphin scenes which make me want to die of seconhand embarassment (thank goodness I’ve gotten good at skimming), and as Smiley writes seems to at times try to avoid making the book about it’s two main characters, Huck and Jim and the power dynamics. I don’t really like Huck Finn, I think there are a lot of scenes that Twain could have cut to make it less awkward and to get his point accross, but I think Smiley is wrong when she says that Uncle Tom’s Cabin is better to read in school. It’s important to con
ReplyDeletesider the context of the book. Uncle Tom’s Cabin hs a abolitionist purpose, it is credited with being one of the books that started the civil war; Huck Finn was written later. And so, it’s primary message did not have to be one of abolition, but that of Huck growing up and finding his conscience. I think partly the fact that often Huck is very relateable, that extends its reach.
I hadn't considered the loss of focus in the second half of the book, though I partially agree that some of Huck's exploits in the second half were somewhat filler. However, I think what Twain wrote was about as realistic as could be given the setting: while Smiley has a progressive 20th century lens through which to view the novel, Huck is just a boy, born in a setting where slavery is completely the norm. Huck's rather superficial friendship with Jim, though not as impassioned as we might like it to be, is about the best Huck could have done given his background.
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