论文部分内容阅读
1. Introduction
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is about an outcast boy Huck and a runaway nigger Jim on the journey down the river. Huck is the narrator and main character of the novel. Slavery and other social evils are exposed by the disreputable, illiterate little boy. He isn’t influenced by civilization, so he has no cunning and sophisticated life philosophy. His sense is spontaneous. He views the society in his childish way and never exaggerates anything he has seen, heard and experienced. There are few people have studied the attitude of Mark Twain to slavery. I would like to do some research about it. To some extent, Huckleberry Finn is Mark Twain himself. So we can study the attitude of Mark Twain to slavery through Huckleberry Finn. This paper include the following parts:
Introduction, literature review, theoritical framework and critical approach and reference.
2. Literature Review
2.1 Abroad study
Julius Lester had pointed out that If the novel had been written before emancipation, Huck’s dilemma and conflicting feelings over Jim’s escape would have been moving. But in 1884 slavery was legally over. Huck’s almost Hamlet-like interior monologues on the rights and wrongs of helping Jim escape are not proof of liberalism or compassion, but evidence of an inability to relinquish whiteness as a badge of superiority. “I knowed he was white inside,” is Huck’s final assessment of Jim (chap. 40).
Laurel Bollinger also said that Huck never moves into the realm of “abstract” morality; he never asserts a conviction that when two moral principles come into conflict, one will have priority because of the nature of the moral principle itself. Instead, he acts strictly through his sense of commitment to his friends—and in the moment when Tom is shot, Huck finds himself on the horns of a dilemma.
2.2 Domestic study
Many domestic scholors have studied the moral changes of Huck Finn. For example, WangDan had said in her paper A Brief Analysis of Huckleberry Finn“Huck floats along with a runnaway slave—Jim and tries his best to help him. He changes his prejudice against black people and comes to accepting Jim as his friend.”
2.3 Author’s comments
Although many scholors have studied the theme—moral progress of the protagonist Huck Finn, they haven’t realised that Huckleberry Finn is Mark Twain himself to some extent. This paper will study Mark Twain’s attitude towards slavery through analyse the moral progress of Huck Finn. 3. Theoritical framework and critical approch
Psychological Approach is an approach to literature that draws upon psychoanalytic theories, especially those of Sigmund Freud or Jacques Lacan to understand more fully the text, the writer, and the reader. The basis of this approach is the idea of the existence of a human unconscious—those impulses, desires, and feelings about which a person is unaware but which influence emotions and behavior. Critics use psychological approches to explore the motivations of characters and the symbolic meanings of events, while biographers speculate about a writer’s own motivations—concious or unconcious—in a literary work. The psychoanalytic approach applied helps you understand why that person acts the way they do, or does not act. The psychoanalytic approach also helps you see the point that the character changes. Psychological approaches are also used to descibe and analyze the reader’s personal responses to a text. Oedipus complex is a Freudian term derived from Sophocles’ tragedy Oedipus the king.
Huck is old enough to realize what he is doing, by the standards of southern society, is wrong. It’s breaking the law in doing that. And it’s more horrible to Huck’s imagination because he wants to be a good boy. So one side of him—the conscience—tells him that his behavior is at fault, he is evil and will be punished by going to hell, he is very much scared of that. And yet there is another side of Huck that does not or cannot make him turn Jim in. Through their escape down the river, Huck has come to know Jim as a human being rather than a piece of property. He has learned a lesson on Jim, that Jim has feelings, that he cares for Huck and looks after him. That is essentially what this book is about. That is the moral climax of the book. Mark Twain expressed his idea of equality and freedom.
References:
[1]Bollinger Laurel,Say It,Jim:The Morality of Connection in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,College Literature 29.1(Winter 2002): p32-52.
[2]Lester Julius,Morality and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,Satire or Evasion?:Black Perspectives on Huckleberry Finn.Durham,N.C.:Duke University Press,1992.
【作者簡介】尹玉娟,昆明医科大学海源学院。
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is about an outcast boy Huck and a runaway nigger Jim on the journey down the river. Huck is the narrator and main character of the novel. Slavery and other social evils are exposed by the disreputable, illiterate little boy. He isn’t influenced by civilization, so he has no cunning and sophisticated life philosophy. His sense is spontaneous. He views the society in his childish way and never exaggerates anything he has seen, heard and experienced. There are few people have studied the attitude of Mark Twain to slavery. I would like to do some research about it. To some extent, Huckleberry Finn is Mark Twain himself. So we can study the attitude of Mark Twain to slavery through Huckleberry Finn. This paper include the following parts:
Introduction, literature review, theoritical framework and critical approach and reference.
2. Literature Review
2.1 Abroad study
Julius Lester had pointed out that If the novel had been written before emancipation, Huck’s dilemma and conflicting feelings over Jim’s escape would have been moving. But in 1884 slavery was legally over. Huck’s almost Hamlet-like interior monologues on the rights and wrongs of helping Jim escape are not proof of liberalism or compassion, but evidence of an inability to relinquish whiteness as a badge of superiority. “I knowed he was white inside,” is Huck’s final assessment of Jim (chap. 40).
Laurel Bollinger also said that Huck never moves into the realm of “abstract” morality; he never asserts a conviction that when two moral principles come into conflict, one will have priority because of the nature of the moral principle itself. Instead, he acts strictly through his sense of commitment to his friends—and in the moment when Tom is shot, Huck finds himself on the horns of a dilemma.
2.2 Domestic study
Many domestic scholors have studied the moral changes of Huck Finn. For example, WangDan had said in her paper A Brief Analysis of Huckleberry Finn“Huck floats along with a runnaway slave—Jim and tries his best to help him. He changes his prejudice against black people and comes to accepting Jim as his friend.”
2.3 Author’s comments
Although many scholors have studied the theme—moral progress of the protagonist Huck Finn, they haven’t realised that Huckleberry Finn is Mark Twain himself to some extent. This paper will study Mark Twain’s attitude towards slavery through analyse the moral progress of Huck Finn. 3. Theoritical framework and critical approch
Psychological Approach is an approach to literature that draws upon psychoanalytic theories, especially those of Sigmund Freud or Jacques Lacan to understand more fully the text, the writer, and the reader. The basis of this approach is the idea of the existence of a human unconscious—those impulses, desires, and feelings about which a person is unaware but which influence emotions and behavior. Critics use psychological approches to explore the motivations of characters and the symbolic meanings of events, while biographers speculate about a writer’s own motivations—concious or unconcious—in a literary work. The psychoanalytic approach applied helps you understand why that person acts the way they do, or does not act. The psychoanalytic approach also helps you see the point that the character changes. Psychological approaches are also used to descibe and analyze the reader’s personal responses to a text. Oedipus complex is a Freudian term derived from Sophocles’ tragedy Oedipus the king.
Huck is old enough to realize what he is doing, by the standards of southern society, is wrong. It’s breaking the law in doing that. And it’s more horrible to Huck’s imagination because he wants to be a good boy. So one side of him—the conscience—tells him that his behavior is at fault, he is evil and will be punished by going to hell, he is very much scared of that. And yet there is another side of Huck that does not or cannot make him turn Jim in. Through their escape down the river, Huck has come to know Jim as a human being rather than a piece of property. He has learned a lesson on Jim, that Jim has feelings, that he cares for Huck and looks after him. That is essentially what this book is about. That is the moral climax of the book. Mark Twain expressed his idea of equality and freedom.
References:
[1]Bollinger Laurel,Say It,Jim:The Morality of Connection in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,College Literature 29.1(Winter 2002): p32-52.
[2]Lester Julius,Morality and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,Satire or Evasion?:Black Perspectives on Huckleberry Finn.Durham,N.C.:Duke University Press,1992.
【作者簡介】尹玉娟,昆明医科大学海源学院。