The American novel in the second half of the 19th century

Triumph of realism, raise of the " local colour movement" it is only when one
reconstructs the peculiar history of American literature that it becomes clear why so
much stress is placed on local colour a term which simply means writing about life in
a particular usually provincial locality. It is because the US began as a collection of
British colonies and for a long time has laboured under the necessity of developing a
literature which would be completely natural to her. The example of Europe has
always been overwhelming for American writers. It was a long time before they could
feel that American places American topics and speech were valid" for literature. The
raise of the local colour movement marks the beginning of pride of place that pried
in ones own which every nation has to go through before she can evolve a unique and
heartfelt literature. Local colour fiction is concerned with the colour place scenes and
surface characteristics of a particular locality and its character by accurate use of
dialects and speech peculiarities which gives credibility and authenticity to regional
auth by careful presentation of character types of occupations and interests of codes of
conduct of small apparently insignificant details which are however central to an
understanding of the region.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens 1835- 1910
Born in a little town Florida in the state of Missouri. Twain grew up in Hannibal
the place which would be the background of the adventure of his 2 character Tom
Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. His father died when he was 12 so Twain had an early
start becoming a printed a newspaper man a humorist he wrote his first article at 15
soon he started down the Mississippi river towards New Orleans as an apprentice
steam boat pilot for 4 years. He got his pen name from the words used to measure the
depths of the river thus it is associated with the freedom of life lead in nature. Life on
the Mississippi is his memoir the picture of a free life in which the collections of
bourgeoisie society are not influential then he went West and became a not very
successful mining prospector while also contributing to news papers one of the
numerous stories he published in the New York Saturday Press The Celebrated
Jumping Frog Of Calaveras County became well known and collected some fame for
its writer. During the civil war Twain began to fight for the S but soon joined the
northern army. After the war he travelled the world as a journalist and gains some
fame through his witty sketches and travel logs. The volume Innocents Abroad 1869
is the record of his impressions abroad the satire is directed against the medieval
traditions still to be found in Europe and against the American snobs who admire the
works of art of Europe only because they have a touch of romanticism. In his youth
Twain believed in the American burgeo democracy the results of the war contradicted
his believes which were more and more shaken. The volume The Gilded Age: A tail of
today satirizes the ruthless of individualism and speculative exploitation of public
resources during the period of the Reconstruction. This novel opens a series of works
which illustrate his disillusionment with the ideals of the new world. Unlike Walt
Whitman who pleaded for a new and better world Twain preferred another way of
fiction that of criticizing and satirising the one he lived in. The 2 novels of child hood
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The adventures of Tom Sawyer and the adventures of Huckleberry Finn are works in
which children and their lives are presented as then power of understanding that
remains us of Dickens... never the last Twains heroes are different they are charming
little man whose only wish is to live and experience new and new adventures. The
description of the world Tom and Huck live in gives Twain the opportunity to satirise
certain institutions and government one of which is school and the sistem of teaching
which obliges students to memorise certain things. The books are record of the social
and moral life in America. Their episodes are meant " to pleasantly reminded adults of
what they once were themselves" Huck and Toms world mean and corrupt is opposed
to their personal life to their imagination which enables them to create another world
in which to find refuge the story of their adventures is given a new significance a
social one through the present of Jim the negro slave. Despite of such limitation as
incongruous humour episodic construction and emotional anarchism The adventure of
Tom Sawyer is a masterpiece by virtue of common places about nostalgic boyhood
experiences. It narrative unity of tone realism and character build a body of engaging
mythology. The adventure of Huckleberry Finn is a sequel to The adventure of Tom
Sawyer and more profound in its character delineation and nature descriptions the
latter acting as a kind of southing interlude to the salty adventure. The novel has
stylistic vigour which is appropriate to its picaresque structure and just as in the case
of the previous work the merits transcend the weaknesses.
The prince and the Pauper 1882 in which a poor boy becomes king and the
King comes to know the life of the poor people demonstrates its effect of
environmental determinism over peoples faith this carefully constructs historical
romance abundantly veined by humorous sit cloaks an attack upon the economic and
social evils inherent in the English monarchical system during the reigns of the boy
king Edward the 6.Mark Twain may be compared to Shaw as far as his attitude
towards history is concerned he made his duty to tear the veil of romanticism that
rapped certain poques to show their personalities as they were and not as they were
presented by hist. In 1889 Twain wrote A Connecticut Yankee in king Arthurs court an
embodiment on his conceptions on history. The novel succeeds in destroying the false
reputation of the medieval poque. The epocque most idealised by the writers who
exulted chivalry ideal love loyalty. Twain set himself the task to destroy his illusions
and he did it in his specific way. The pretext of the novel is not very original the
author visits a castle in Warwick England and there he meets an old American who
gives him a manuscript and dies the next day. The manuscript tells the wonderful
adventure of the American who after a fall down awakes in the 6century a century
much praised by poets and writers. The author describes a brutal world in which the
inhumanity of the masters is considered to be normal as well as the primitive life the
people are forced to live. The knights who are presented as courageous men brave
devoted to the protection of children and women are in fact the quite opposite of their
ideal image they are fond of eating and drinking they devote themselves to barbarous
fights and what mostly strikes us they are dominated by superstitions. King Arthur
and his knights believe the most fantastic adv but they are not able or do not want to
see what happens under their very eyes. The medieval world is ruled by injustice
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superstitions wild laws the Yankee becomes a wing to his culture a very important
personage a rival of Merlin he is a practical man a real business man he introduces the
manners of modern American life at the court of King Arthur. He turns to account the
itinerant nights he uses them to advertise some goods created by him he uses the
metrical force of a monk to produce cloth in the end he consolidates his situation by
using gun powder. Although Twain speaks of past times the reference is to
contemporary soc are always present. It is easy to understand that when he refers to
sixth cent England he means in fact 19th cent America Twain criticizes monarchy and
its relations with the clergy and praises democracy as the ideal political regime the
criticism of contemporary America is evident in the conversations the Yankee has
with the king he tells the king about unemployment about trade unions and class
struggle all this facts reflect Twain deep love for the simple men and because of his
love his books are never pessimistic although he wrote some good novels Twain
preferred another literary genre the short story the sketch presenting a single fact a
single aspect of life together with the auth commentary on it . Twain insisted on such
subject as the corruption of the press the political system he satirized the school
sistem the begitic the lyrical and conventional literature the pretentions of the burg. In
his last years T attack by writing pamphlets they unmask the colonial policy of the
United States the corrupt character of the soc institutions the essence of bourgeoisie
society. T understood that the bourgeoisie order both in England and America was an
enemy to progress. Possessing neither wide background of economic fact and theory
nor a comprehensive knowledge of scientific or philosophical methods Twain could
not voice any profound criticism but had a genuine contempt for all pretence and
hypocrisy and exposed to humorous view the tyrannies of cavalry slavery and religion
he was praised for his simplicity and informality of phrase bould and incongruous
similes flavoured colloquialism cadence of speech and brilliant episodes as well as for
his lifelike delineation of character convincing narrative universal appeal and
philosophical inside. He was the greatest voice of the W of his day.

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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Mark Twain is the most widely read American author living or dead and The
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is by far the most popular book it was a best seller
when it was published and it has held its audience ever since and has been translated
into more language than any other work in American literature. The book has an
immense vitality Twain poured into it its memories of people and places observed
during his childhood in Hannibal and his years on the Mississippi. The narrative is
fully accessible it can be read with pleasure both by scholars and by people who read
nothing else but papers. The book invites the readers to identify themselves with an
adolescent protagonist suddenly exposed to novel risks and opp. Huck has never been
outside the little river town St. Petersburg that is Hannibal yet now he is lunched on a
journey that will take him more than a 1000 miles downstream as the river flows
through a constantly changing panorama of new landscapes, strange character
unforeseen and unimagined dangers. Huck's story is a story of movement he runs
away from St Petersburg in order to escape from his fathers brutality and the well
meaning attempts of the tows people to civilize him" and the outcome of each
episode. In his story is a renewed flight from Jacksons island where he and Jim fear
they will be found by slave hunters from the racked steam boat Walter Scott in middRiver on which they encounter a band of robbers and murderers from the violence and
feud on the Grange port plantation. This pattern of repeated movement has character
American history from the beginning. The American character was formed by the
experience of advancing Westford across the continent Americans are ready to move
not only westward but in every direction Huck is like that: he is on the move through
most of the narrative and at the end he is about to set out again for the Indian territory.
Hucks impulse to run away when he is faced with a problem he can't solve is closely
related to what is called his habit of moral improvisation. What he decides in one
crisis tells him nothing about what he should do on another occasion or what other
people should do on other occasions since the problem Huck faces is always a new
one he cannot depend on what he has learned from experience as a guide to action.
The present doesn't seem to him continuous to the past and he therefore has no reason
to believe the future will be continuous with the present. Hucks moral improvisation
might be regarded as one aspect of his indifference to abstract ideas he sees no basis
for regarding a given situation as an illustration of a general principle. Each one must
be faced on its own terms. one the other hand he cannot be regarded as a pragm either
he does not have a philosophy and relies on intuition rather than reason he acts on
impulse rather than according to preconceived plan a good illustration of Huck is
when the raft takes him and Jim downstream approaches the ... Jim is more and more
excited because he believes that when he can head up the Ohio he will be out of slave
territory and be free and Huck for the first time begins to realise that he is actually
helping a slave escape. His conscience formed by the society in which he has grown
up guides him until he decides he will turn Jim in as a runaway slave. He actually sets
out on a canoe to tell on Jim when he encounters a scheff with two men searching for
5 Negroes who have just escaped from a plantation on the shore. They ask Huck
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whether the man on the raft is black or white, he answers that he is whit and than in
order to prevent the man from going to see for themselves Huck improvises an
elaborate story that makes them believe there is smallpox. When Huck finds himself
unable to carry out his preconceived intention he falls back on impulse. He acts in this
way again and again. Twain means to demonstrate that the abstract principles Huck is
aware of have been implanted in him by a peculiarly corrupt society- the slave
holding culture of the old South. He has no chance to arrive at a view of slavery as an
institution by the time he runs into Jim hiding on Jacksons Island he has accepted
without question the attitude towards slavery travelant in St. Petersburg. He considers
it divinely ordained and he can never imagine a society in which slavery doesn't exist
but this slave has been a friend of his fore a long time and when Jim reveals the awful
fact that he has run away from his mistress Huck hesitates for a moment and then he
decides " I ain't going to tell" by enlisting himself in Jims cause Huck becomes an
outlaw from this point to almost the end of the story he believes himself to be engaged
in a criminal undertaking he goes through 2 moral crisis in which he is denounced by
his conscience but he finally reaches a clear decision to " go to Hell" that is to defy
what he understand to be the laws of god and of man by remaining loyal to Jim.
Although he does not question the legality of slavery nor does he accepts the laws as a
guide to action. In fact all established institutions are alien to him. He suffers when
Widow Douglas and Miss Watson dress him in conventional clothing try to teach him
table manners and passages from the bible and send him to school. The modes of
behaviour prescribed by custom and tradition seem to him abnormal. In Huck
unreflecting he illustrates the aphorism that the American people have their culture
from one continent and their duties from another as a consequence they are
accustomed to a discontinuity btw theory and practice.
In a comment on a book after it was published T described Huck as a boy with
a sound heart and a deformed conscience although Hucks heart is undisciplined and
even the source of subversive impulses it is never the less sound neither depraved nor
wicked but virtuous. T intends for the reader to identify with this part of Huck to feel
a thrill of moral exaltation when the ignorant boy decides to go to hell rather than
betray his friend and there can be no doubt of Hucks underlying innocence he intents
harm to no one. He is sickened by the violence of the Kentuki feud and a cynical
hypocrisy of the King gulling the mourners at Peter Vilks funeral into taking him for a
Christian minister. His deepest emotion is love, most of all for Jim of course. To their
comradeship on the raft Twain gives poetic support by providing for their idyllic
moments of solitude a setting of starry sky and quiet water. Nature cherishes them and
the purity of sunrise on the river is an affirmation of both Hucks and Jims innocence.
Yet this purity is not allowed to endure. The celebrated sun rise at the beginning of 19
ends with a reference to the odour of decaying fish that prepares for the entrance of
the rascally Duke and Kings a page or to later Huck and J escape only momentarily
from the depraved society of the shore and this society has given Huck the deformed
conscious that it as war with his sound heart. His conscious / the voice that condemns
him for helping Jim is the total sum of the fancied obligations the foolish inhibitions
the perverse constrains imposed on Huck by society. Hucks innocence is
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compromised by the only culture he knows that of the towns along the river in which
slavery has became the focus of moral and legal values and honour is expressed in the
cowardly abused and murders of the feud. The hostile depiction of Hucks conscience
is extended further in the story by the characters. of his father and the women who
function as mother to him the man who would normally embody the ideal wisdom and
moral authority is a neurotic drunk whose beatings actually threaten the boys live and
drive him to fight. The dukes and kings who assume authority over Huck and may
therefore be regarded as paradise for the father image are amusing rascals but
potentially criminals. As the raft floats further and further S wards Huck shows that he
understands that fully the orphan has no reason at all to consider his fathers actual
and symbolic as the source of moral authority they are quite simply the enemy. The
mother figures seems less menacing although miss Watson is hard and angular with an
ignorant bigotry the widow Douglas and Aunt Selly Phelps have traces of motherly
warmth. Aunt Sally the substitute mother who is portrait at greatest length in the story
is allowed for a moment to awaken remorse in Huck at the night when he sits at the
window hopeing for his return. Never the less most of the time she is a comic victim
of the boys pranks and like Miss Watson and the widow she is determined to
subjugate Huck to the moors of a society that Twain has deprived of all moral
authority. The American dream of a preindustrial Eden is incomparably rendered in
the novel despite its shadows of violence and terror Hucks story is remembered by
most readers for the pastoral interludes in which the raft drifts down the river in a
landscape of breath taking beauty. Much more complex is the revelation of basic
American attitudes in the overall structure of the book the narrative begins in a near/
farcical mood acquires a rich symbolical meaning as Hucks and Jims quest for
freedom becomes the narrative focus moves toward the tragic recognition that
freedom cannot be attained in this or any world than suddenly vires back towards
fares in the arrangements for Jims erosion which proves in the end a gigantic hocks. Is
not Twain taking refuge from tragedy in a joke he probably is and in doing so he is
confirming to notorious American habit.

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