Mark Twain Chapters 21-25 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
The Historical and Cultural Context of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain.
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Transcript of The Historical and Cultural Context of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain.
The Historical and Cultural Context of
Adventures of Huckleberry
Finnby Mark Twain
Historical Context of Huckleberry
FinnSet in pre-Civil War years 40-50 years before 1885 publication
Slavery ended, but racism still rampant (Jim Crow Laws)
Mark Twain underwent moral transformation…
He believed slavery was wrong and white Americans owed black Americans reparations
19th CENTURY
The Civil WarIndustrial Revolution Extreme contrasts between rich and poor
Literary and Artistic Movements: REALISM and
REGIONALISM1. Attack upon Romantics and Transcendentalists
pragmatic, democratic, and experimental
Responsibly moral – goal was to report the world with HONESTY
2.Drew subject matter from “our experience”
Focused on the common, the average, the probable
3. Character and Setting more important than Plot
(Local Color Movement)
Focused on the norm of daily experience
Dialect, geography, regional manners
HUCKLEBERRY FINN is a…COMING-OF-AGE NOVEL: moral growth of a comic character in an physically beautiful yet morally repugnant setting
and a…PICARESQUE NOVEL: follows
the adventures of a roguish hero• episodic: Mississippi River • flight to freedom vs. river flowing toward Deep South (slave territory)
19th century Americans are self-
conscious…
They want to know what their new country looks like, and how the varied races of growing population live and talk
19th century Firsts…
First mappings of the West
First transcontinental railroad
First Photography
Photography as a social mirror…
The invention ignited an artistic and scientific frenzy…
Best portrait makers could bring out the very human essence of a subject…
The advantages of photography: immediacy, reliable representation, low cost, etc…
Massive social changes reflected in literature & photography.
1861-65 - Mathew Brady, Alexander Gardner: honest photographic record of the Civil War.
Photography, like literary Realism & Regionalism
showed TRUTH.
“Something new happened in Huck Finn that had never happened in American literature before. It was a book…that served as a Declaration of Independence from the genteel English novel…
…[It] allowed a different kind of writing to happen: a clean, crisp, no-nonsense, earthly vernacular…it was a book that talked. Huck’s voice, combined with Twain’s satiric genius, changed the shape of fiction in America, and African-American voices had a great deal to do with making it what it was.” - Dr. Shelley Fishkin, 1995
•
Photograph Huckleberry FinnComparing VIEWPOINTS OF SLAVERY in…
"Slave Boy Brought to Waterbury from Bucks Hill by Aunt
Ella Johnson's Second
Husband (Whelan)"Ninth-plate ambrotype, circa 1855
http://www.photographymuseum.com/slave
boylg.htmlThe American Photography
Museum, Inc.
#1
"Our Little Pedlars"
Quarter-plate ambrotype, circa
1855-1860
http://www.photographymuseum.com/pedlarslg.h
tmlThe
American Photography
Museum, Inc.
#2
W. Queen (Philadelphia), Publisher or Retailer:
"The Darkey's Vanity"Tinted Albumen
Stereograph circa 1860
http://www.photographymuseu
m.com/vanitylg.htmlThe American Photography
Museum, Inc.
#3
Cumberland Landing, Virginia,Group of "contrabands" at Foller's house, May 14, 1862http://memory.loc.gov/learn/lessons/psources/slavpho2.htmlThe American Photography Museum, Inc.
#4
Unidentified Photographer:Civil War Soldiers with a "Contraband"Albumen carte de visite, circa 1863
http://www.photographymuseum.com/contrabl.htmlThe American Photography Museum, Inc.
#5
E. & H. T. Anthony & Co. (New York),
Publishers:"Bombproof Quarters of
Maj. Strong, at Dutch Gap, 16th N. Y.
Artillery"Albumen Stereograph
circa 1864
http://www.photographymuseum.com/majstrong.html
The American Photography
Museum, Inc.
#6
Unidentified Photographer: Ten ChildrenCyanotype, circa 1898http://www.photographymuseum.com/cyanokidslg.htmlThe American Photography Museum, Inc.
#7
Palmer (Tuskegee, Alabama)
Instructor & Three Graduates with Diplomas and Geraniums
Gelatine-Silver Print, circa 1905
http://www.photographymuseum.com/tuskeglg.htmlThe American Photography Museum, Inc.
#8
Works CitedThe American Photography Museum, Inc. Virtual Exhibit: “The Face of Slavery and Other Early
Images of African Americans.” (2004). http://www.photography-museum.com/faceof.html
Cross, J.M. . “Nineteenth-Century Photography: A Timeline.” The Victorian Web. (2001). http://www.victorianweb.org/photos/chron.html
Reuben, Paul P. “Chapter 5: Late Nineteenth Century: American Realism - A Brief Introduction.” PAL: Perspectives in American Literature: A Research and Reference Guide - An
Ongoing Project.(2003). http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap5/5intro.html
Rubio, Juan Carlos. (Curator). “Portraits and Landscapes in Nineteenth Century Photography. Private Collections of Madrid.” Fundacion Telefonico. (2001).
http://www.fundacion.telefonica.com/at/photoes/efotoxix.html