The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Chapter 15 Juxtaposition

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Chapter 15

Juxtaposition and Join • PLOT: Escape downriver: slave v. free states (join at Cairo) • LITERARY STYLE: River v. land; Romanticism v. Realism (join in the fog) • SOCIAL COMMENT: Slave state v. natural hierarchy (transition in 15) • CHARACTERIZATION/MORALITY: Huck the conformist v. Huck the individualist (transition in 15? )

Missing Cairo in the Fog Upper Mississippi River Ohio River Cairo, Illinois (pn: Kay-row)

Romanticism • “love of nature; sympathetic interest in the past, especially the medieval; mysticism; individualism. • “specific characteristics embraced by these general attitudes are. . . the dropping of the conventional poetic diction in favor of fresher language and bolder figures; the idealization of rural life • “enthusiasm for the wild, irregular, or grotesque in nature and art; unrestrained imagination; enthusiasm for the uncivilized or "natural"; • “interest in human rights (Burns, Byron); sympathy with animal life (Cowper); sentimental melancholy (Gray); emotional psychology in fiction (Richardson). ” • Definitions from A Handbook to Literature, Sixth Edition C. Hugh Holman and William Harmon.

Realism • “in the broadest sense, fidelity to actuality. . . verisimilitude. • “pragmatism. . . with discernable consequences and verifiable by experience. . . a realist is] a believer in democracy, and the materials he elects to describe are the common, the average, the everyday. . . the ultimate of middle class art. . . subjects in bourgeois life and actions. • “The realist eschews the traditional patterns of the novel. In part. . . a protest against the falseness and sentimentality. . . in Romantic fiction. • “truthfully reflected life. . . avoid symmetry and plot. . value the individual very highly. . . praise characterization as the center of the novel. • “ Simple, clear, direct prose. . . objectivity. • Definitions from A Handbook to Literature, Sixth Edition C. Hugh Holman and William Harmon.

Romanticism v. Realism • River: Romantic, ideal • Land: Realist, social comment • “Romanticism seeks to find the Absolute, the Ideal, by transcending the actual, whereas Realism finds its values in the actual and Naturalism in the scientific laws that undergird the actual. ” • Definitions from A Handbook to Literature, Sixth Edition C. Hugh Holman and William Harmon.

Social Hierarchies and Morality c. 1850 Free • Adult man • Adult woman • Male child • Female child Slave • White man • White woman • White child Chattel; human? • Slave man • Slave woman • Slave child “It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and humble myself to a nigger- but I done it, and I warn't ever sorry for it afterwards, neither. I didn't do him no more mean tricks, and I wouldn't done that one if I'd a knowed it would make him feel that way” (86).