Роман Приключения Гекльберри Финна - высшее достижение американской реалистической литературы 19 века Реферат

Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens by birth) grew up in the Mississippi River frontier town of Hannibal, Missouri. Ernest Hemingway told once: “All of American literature comes fr om one great book, Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” [1, p.302]. This statement indicates that the author had a static position in a literature tradition.

Mark Twain’s literature style was very different from the style of other 19th-century writers. When they tried to write too flowery, sentimental, or ostentatious, Mark Twain was vigorous, realistic. He also used colloquial American speech and all these features of his works gave American writers a new appreciation of their national voice.

Realism for writers of 19th century was not just literature style. It was a possibility to tell the truth. It made a great controversy with the society the writers lived in. The most well-known example is a hero of Mark Twain’s novel Huck Finn — a poor boy who decides to follow the voice of his conscience and help a Negro slave escape to freedom. But before analyzing the great role of this novel in 19th-century American literature there is an importance to tell about common statements.

The novel became the main form of Western literature in the 19th century. In that period a lot of realistic novels were produced. One of the most outstanding realistic novels of 19th century is “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain (1883). This novel was a revival of picaresque novel. It’s both realistic and romantic because the author tells about the beauty of the Mississippi River and about religious hypocrisy and racial persecution at the same time.

Mark Twain can be characterized as the author who had two periods of creating. Because of the topic of investigation the second period makes some interest. This period started at the beginning of 1880s, and was closely connected with growing crisis of bourgeois democratic illusions in the mind of the writer [2,

Twain’s books “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” and “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” can be called autobiographical (especially the first one). They absorbed the writer's memories of his childhood in the American province. Those who are more familiar with the life of Mark Twain can easily determine that St. Petersburg, the town-village on the coast of the Mississippi is Hannibal. Hannibal is a town wh ere Sam Clemens grew. Mark Twain’s biographers point to the prototypes of other characters in both books. Also they tell about proximity of certain scenes to certain moments from childhood and adolescence of the writer.

Personal motifs in “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” cannot be underestimated. These motifs go back to the humor and the lyrics of the work. But the main idea of the novel doesn’t exist only within author’s autobiography. Autobiographer gives a place to the historian of manners and realist. Referring to the years of his childhood and adolescence Twain draws vast panorama of American life in those years — “Old America”. In “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” Huck and Negro Jim go more than a thousand miles down the great river, visiting other coastal towns and villages, meeting dozens of people — familiar and strangers, watching ordinary and extraordinary incidents, each of which is a illustration of the social life of that period.

Autobiographical motifs in the book have dreamy regret about old time. That time was unique; it had one-of-a-kind experiences of childhood and adolescence. But, speaking as a chronicler and historian, Twain becomes harsh and demanding writer. He looks at the past and gives vent to satire. Mark Twain does not hide the pain and bitterness of that time, he shows them. In the combination of these contradictory tendencies, their collision and internal communication a reader feel the book. For such a reader Twain’s literature is a great heritage of the past [2, c.132].

The end of the 70’s and early 80’s of the XIX century were important milestones in the history of the United States and in American public life.

“Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” includes a lot of themes developed around the main plot. It’s quite typical for the most literature works and it makes the whole story within the book. This story is about a young boy — Huckleberry, and a slave — Jim. The story shows a reader their moral development. They have an odyssey down the Mississippi River, and it brings them a lot of conflicts with society. The novel includes many contrasts: the freedom, which the main characters are seeking for, and the civilization. This practice of contrasting is used by the author for the purpose of humor. Comparing two protagonists of Mark Twain’s novels — Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn — a reader can see that the first one is a romantic boy and the second one is realist. Huckleberry has a thought that he will appear in the Hell after his death because he has broken the Law [5, p.14]. The boy doesn’t think that he will appear in the Paradise because he has a very high morality. His personality is really humanistic.

The novel “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” became an example for many other ones. It’s fair to say that Mark Twain inspired other American writers of his period. It’s not surprising because the novel is a really great example of story that illustrates death, birth and initiation. While reading this novel a reader can see the growth of Jim’s morality. When he wants to save Huck he has to take great decisions. It shows that Jim is quite a strong person to leave his slave-owning society. Jim is given a moral courage and it shows a reader a complexity of human nature.

Huck and Jim have a lot of funny and dangerous adventures during their odyssey. In the end, it is discovered that Miss Watson had already given freedom to Jim, and a respectable family is taking care of the wild boy Huck. But Huck grows impatient with civilized society and plans to escape to “the territories” – Indian lands. The ending gives the reader the counter-version of the classic American success myth: the open road that leads to the wilderness, away from the morally corrupting influences of “civilization”. Among similar literature examples