It tooke me a while to figure out exactly what I was going to argue about this book because there were just too many options I could try. I decided that my strongest argument would be to argue that the book is neither racist nor anti-racist, it's simply a product of the times in which it was written. I also feel that this book should be taught in schools because though the ending (one of the greatest flaws of the work) is a satire which few people seem to pick up on.
I love Mark Twain as a writer, so my argument about this book is going to biased, but that being said, I do recognize the flaws in this novel and there fore will not try to make the case that this is the single greatest american novel, there are much better works out there. My case is, however, going to be based in the fact that Twain was not a very serious person. He took is work very seriously, but very rarely did he write something that was dead serious.
Another thing that I would love to address, but I don't want to argue too many things at once, is the fact that maybe the point of the end, though a satire, is just as much about Jim becoming a father figure to Huck's moral awakening, seeing as Jim saves Tom in the end even though he makes Jim's life a living hell in the end.
Critics such as Peaches Henry, and James Cox I've found might be useful, as would be Marx. I sould love to find a critic that had a strong argument against mine which I could use to help strengthen my own point (like Sanders did to Rushdie) but I definitely find those 3 critics helpful in their points.
As for direct scenes, I am obviously going to be focusing on the ending to make the case of the satire which Twain created, and in doing so I can reference the gang of "robbers" which Tom Sawyer creates to help reiterate some of the cyclical formatting Twain used. I can extend this argument about satire past Tom by including the humorous retelling of Romeo & Juliet with the Grangerfords.
However, my argument that the book is a product of the times rather than racist I'm finding slightly difficult. I can make the argument that the word usage and some of the actions are clearly what would be expected in the time it was written, much less set in, but I really am trying to figure out scenes which might strengthen this argument. While I could use many scenes from the novel where Huck makes a moral decision, these seem to be making more of a racist/anti-racist message, while my argument is that it is neither.
Either way, I know my argument and I can write a good paper off of it, but if there are any critics or scenes that might help me, point me to them. Thanks
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
AJ,
ReplyDeleteNice post. Glad to see you're making some headway on this assignment. Keep in mind that the book can be both racist and anti-racist BECAUSE it is a product of the times (both an accurate depiction of the slave-holding south, in which it is set, and an indirect echo of the ambivalence about race that marked the time in which it was written). The key to your argument seems to be this issue of satire, and I think that if you were to stress this up front (say, in the first half of your essay) by focusing on clearly satirical scenes (the depiction of the Grangerford home and their shrine to Emmeline, for example, which would allow you to point out how Twain is poking fun at the 'Genteel Tradition'--or the portrayal of the backward Arkansas fellows who seem to have nothing better to do than swap chaws of tobbaca and set dogs on fire), then you could make the case that Twain is using the book (and Huck's relatively innocent perspective) to poke fun at ALL the characters in the novel, not just blacks. This would allow you to set up the ending no as a failure, but a damming commentary on racist attitudes in the south at the time (here we've seen Jim gain his humanity, now watch him lose it through the cruel indifference of whites--that sort of thing). I think Smiley may present herself as your most useful 'foil'. You could draw on some of her most damning criticisms of the novel, and then show how she's mistakenly approached some of these key scenes in a literal, rather than satirical way.