Refiguring Huckleberry Finn

by Wieck, Carl F.

• ISBN13: 9780820322384
• ISBN10: 0820322385
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-10-01
• Publisher: Univ of Georgia Pr

Summary

Much about Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is ageless, yet its author was completely immersed in the age in which he wrote. Refiguring "Huckleberry Finn" looks at ways contemporary American culture and history influenced the formation of Mark Twain's masterwork. It also shows how the novel reflects Twain's deep investment in what Carl F. Wieck calls "an openminded, unbiased perception of the well-springs of the American spirit".

Clearly, Twain knew the Mississippi River and its people well. With Frederick Douglass, William Dean Howells, Ulysses S. Grant, and John Hay (Abraham Lincoln's personal secretary) among his friends, Twain also knew America. That understanding, Wieck shows us, is richly evident in Huckleberry Finn by the ways Twain explored themes of justice, rights, knowledge, and truth; engaged with the thought of Douglass, Lincoln, and Thomas Jefferson; and expressed concern over the public discourse on race and equality.

In addition, in discussions that range from number play in the novel to the symbolic potential of the Mississippi's awesome, one

Author Biography

Carl F. Wieck is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Translation Studies, Tampere University, Finland.

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
Acknowledgments	xi
Introduction	xiii
A New Birth of Freedom: Jefferson, Lincoln, and Huckleberry Finn	1	(19)
Frederick Douglass in Huckleberry Finn	20	(20)
``Right'' in Huckleberry Finn	40	(16)
Finishing Huckleberry Finn	56	(14)
Huck and Jim on the Mississippi: Going with the Flow?	70	(12)
Reflections on Huckleberry Finn's Floating House	82	(11)
The Figure Forty in Huckleberry Finn	93	(9)
The End, Yours Truly Mark Twain	102	(6)
On Black and White in Huckleberry Finn	108	(17)
``I Never Seen Anybody but Lied One Time or Another''	125	(22)
Knowledge and Knowing in Huckleberry Finn	147	(26)
Notes	173	(40)
Works Cited	213	(14)
Index	227