The Adventures of Huckleberry FinnBy Mark Twain

Historical BackgroundNovel is set along the Mississippi River during the 1830s or 1840s.This region was still a frontier area.Large stretches of land were sparsely inhabited.Few cities and towns.Majority of people lived off the land, farming, hunting, fishing and trapping.Industrialization was still in its early stages.Steam technology was becoming dominant.

Historical BackgroundFew schools in rural Missouri, Illinois, Arkansas, and Mississippi.Most children attended classes only long enough to learn to read and write.No theaters, libraries, or museums in the region.Entertainment and popular education were offered by traveling showmen, musicians, circus performers, preachers, and lecturers.In the 1830s and 1840s, after the North had abolished slavery, there began the great national debate over its extension in the new states created from the western territories.

Historical BackgroundNortherners opposed the extension of slavery, citing moral as well as practical objections.Southern states were dependent on slave labor.The whites in the South generally defended slavery and supported its extension into the new states.Most white Americans, no matter where they lived and what their attitudes toward slavery were, agreed that black people were intellectually and morally inferior to white people.Racist beliefs, attitudes, and behavior that would be considered reprehensible today were commonplace then.

The Fugitive Slave ActThe Fugitive Slave Act mandated the return of runaway slaves, regardless of where in the Union they might be situated at the time of  their discovery or capture. Along with the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the  ratification of Kansas' admission for free statehood, this legislation  is part of the chain of events which culminated in the American Civil  War.

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SettingThe main action takes place along the Mississippi River, which propels Huck and Jim into the southern states of Tennessee, Arkansas, and Mississippi.The river functioned as the border between the relatively settled and industrial East and the primarily unsettled and undeveloped West.The Miss. River was a major artery of transportation between the North and the South. The Mississippi River and its tributaries, the Ohio and the Missouri rivers, also connected the East to the western frontier.By the 1840s steamboats dominated the Mississippi, although it was still possible to travel the river at little cost by raft, flatboat, keelboat, and canoe.

SettingOn the Mississippi, rich and poor, Northerner and Southerner, frontiersman and city dweller, come together seeking adventure.Some, including Huck, traveled to escape from constraints of civilization.Others, including Jim, sought freedom in the next town, the next state, or beyond the frontier.The state of Missouri also represented a frontier between the North and the South.One of several border states between the free North and the slaveholding South, it was torn between pro-slavery and anti-slavery sentiment.Slavery was permitted in Missouri, but the commitment to the peculiar institution evidenced in the Deep South was not shared by many white citizens of the state.

Racism and the “N” word

Pejorative word in the early nineteenth century, distinguishing whites from slaves.In general, who can or can't say the word? When, if ever, can it be said?How do you feel about the use of the word?Is the use of the word in the classroom different from its use outside the classroom?Is it different to read a text by an African American who uses it than it is to read it in a text by a non-African American? Why or why not?Does the use of the word in a "classic" literary work give it validity outside of the classroom? If so, how?

Incident by Countee Cullen

Once riding in old Baltimore,Heart-filled, head-filled with glee;I saw a BaltimoreanKeep looking straight at me.

Now I was eight and very small,And he was no whit bigger,And so I smiled, but he poked outHis tongue, and called me, "Nigger."

I saw the whole of BaltimoreFrom May until December;Of all the things that happened thereThat's all that I remember.

StereotypesHuck Finn is often criticized because of its use of stereotypes. How were stereotypes used to justify slavery? To reassure slave owners?Why might slaves themselves have reinforced stereotypes?How have slave stereotypes influenced portrayals of African Americans today? What do the Hughes and Dunbar poems express?What are some "masks" that oppressed groups use? What is the function of such a mask? How can masks be used as a form of resistance?

We Wear the Mask – Paul Laurence Dunbar

    WE wear the mask that grins and lies,     It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—     This debt we pay to human guile;     With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,     And mouth with myriad subtleties.

    Why should the world be over-wise,     In counting all our tears and sighs?     Nay, let them only see us, while             We wear the mask.

    We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries     To thee from tortured souls arise.     We sing, but oh the clay is vile     Beneath our feet, and long the mile;     But let the world dream otherwise,             We wear the mask!

Minstrel Man – Langston HughesBecause my mouthIs wide with laughterAnd my throat Is deep with song,You do not think I suffer afterI have held my painSo long?Because my mouthIs wide with laughter,You do not hear My inner cry?Because my feet Are gay with dancing,You do not knowI die?

Stereotypes and SatireConsider portrayals of African Americans in movies, television, and advertising today. What are the common stereotypes? How are these stereotypes related to the slave stereotypes? Have new stereotypes arisen as well?Can stereotypes be used in a positive way?Satire - the use of irony, sarcasm, ridicule, or the like, in exposing, denouncing, or deriding vice, folly, etc. - Although satire is usually meant to be funny, its greater purpose is constructive social criticism, using wit as a weapon.- This "militant" irony or sarcasm often professes to approve (or at least accept as natural) the very things the satirist wishes to attack.