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1.2 Literature Review
In the works of Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has been considered to be one of the most influential. The novel is even regarded as the source of modern American literature. The adventures of Huckleberry Finn took place in the area along the Mississippi River in the 1850s, after the civil war. The story tells of how white kid Hack and black slave Jim develop a profound friendship in the process of fighting against adversity in their adventures together to seek the land of the freedom.
The previous study of the novel can be classified into the following categories: research on the theme of the work, the racial tendencies of the work, the protagonist Huck’s moral development, the language style and characteristics, the functions of rivers in the novel, different translated text comparison comparing with its counterpart Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and so on.
Huck’s image first appears in Mark Twain’s novel Adventures of Tom Sawyer. At the end of the novel, Tom exchanges his inpidual freedom for the economic and social status, which declared, in the real world, inpidual freedom evaporates. But the author in the book’s Companion Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, processed and created a different Tom on the basis of the origin, who fully realizes his inpidual freedom. Thus, the search for free spirit becomes the theme of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. In the novel, Huck flees the widow Douglas, and Jim escapes from his master. Their revolt against the traditions symbolizes American’s porce from the traditional European civilization. Pursuit of freedom and rebelling against traditions are the two most representative characteristics of Americanism which is the focus of this thesis research.
In the previous studies, Huck’s quest for freedom, the connotation of Americanism, is often understood as a process of fleeing. Fang Cheng’s article “Avoid exploration revolt, Desperation—on children’s image American literature” compares the image of the child in Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter with Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer, and Huck, and Salinger’s Holden. When talking about Huck, he thinks Huck’s resistance escape for self-defense with Warrior-like determination actually means Mark Twain’s exploration of consciousness to the outside world. Hack is fanciful, longing for adventure and dares to explore. His escaping adventure itself is to explore, which is particularly evident with blacks, Jim Hark rafting along the Mississippi River. The article clearly states that: “an adventure like this, in terms of levels of consciousness, is to escape, but on an unconscious level, it implies an exploration and pursuit.”(Fang Cheng, 1996: 03) Cheng Xin’s article “The utilitarianism ethics of Hack” mentions that the quest for freedom is another major theme in the novel. Jim’s political freedom here refers not only to personal freedom, it also includes Hack’s personal moral freedom. Also some other scholars suggest that Hack’s pursuit is far more than just their inpidual liberties, the deeper meaning of his actions is to help others achieve the desire for freedom. Leon’s article “self-plastic, self-consideration and considering him—Mark Twain two Department adventure theme thoughts’ exchange” points out that Hack has far over pursued romantic adventure life: he not only seeks for his own freedom, but also helps black slave Jim obtain freedom. In the process of pursuit of freedom, Hack not only has completed “considering him” mission, but also has found the essence of “self-consideration”. These discussions tend to set off from the storyline of the novel, lacking studies of language, contents and ideas of the novel.
This paper will discuss Americanism from three aspects: language, content and thought. First, in terms of language, the novel features American English full of dialects and slang expressions of the black people in Missouri area. So Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is very rich with national color. Also the humor in the novel is typically American; as far as content is concerned, this paper takes history events of the United States (such as slavery) and social reality (such as worship) for description objects to reflect customs of the United States; from the perspective of thoughts, the novel fully reflects the connotation of Americanism: Hack and Jim’s escaping reflects Americans’ pursuit of freedom; abandoning continental civilization and yearning for Mississippi reflect Americans’ love of nature; fighting against slavery reflects that Americans approve human rights, such as democracy and equality; Hack and Jim go toward the unknown world, which is the symbol of American frontier spirit.