First chapter Huckleberry Finn

First chapter Huckleberry Finn

The extract I’m going to analyse is the beginning of the first chapter of Huckleberry Finn. To plot the novel, I’m going to give you some general information about Huckleberry Finn. The story is located in the town of St Petersburg, Mississippi, which lies on the banks of Mississippi river and is about a poor boy of 13, Huck, whose father is an alcoholic. At the beginning of chapter 1, we learn that the “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” is a sequel “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” and that since then Huck has been adopted by Widow Douglas and her sister Miss Watson. The two women have made it their duty to teach good manners and religion to Huck. Being a good citizen and a good Christian are two important points highlighted by Mark Twain all along the novel and is introduced as from the 1 chapter. Therefore we may wonder how Mark Twain illustrates the adult society of the 19th Century through the eyes of a child. To answer this problematique, I have divided my presentation is divided into 3 parts:
1. The point of view in Huckleberry Finn
2. Natural and free individualism contrasted with the expectations of society
3. A satire of religion
Before tackling my second and third parts it is important to talk about some special features of the book, which is, reading the story from a child’s point of view. The first sentence of chapter 1 “You don’t know about me, without you have read a book by the name of the Adventures of Tom Sawyer, but that ain’t matter”. The use of “I” and “me” tells the readers that the novel is going to be narrated by Huckleberry Finn, the protagonist of the story himself, i.e. from his point of view, in his own words, language and dialect. By using the 1st person narrative point of view, Twain can easily use the south-western humour tradition of vernacular language (vernacular means the native language of a country or locality). Thus, Huck sounds like a young uneducated boy from Mississippi in the 19th Century should...