Hi all! Here is my paragraph - I chose the one that is giving me the most trouble, so there might be some clarity issues. My topic (in a nutshell) is how because literary convention is limited, Huck was able to enact the most change with his silence.
Not only does language stifle Huck, but also the rest of the story is limited to existing literature. The notice at the beginning explicitly tells readers that “Persons attempting to find a moral in [this novel] will be banished” and that “persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot” (4). Perhaps the reason why he posts this message is because all the motives, morals, and sequences in the book are borrowed from existing literature. We see glimpses of works such as The Arabian Nights, Don Quijote, Romeo and Juliet, and The Pilgrim’s Progress throughout, just to name a few. Tom Sawyer, for example, resembles Don Quijote in his romanticized view of himself and his “adventures.” At the beginning of the novel, he plans to raid “a parcel of Spanish merchants and rich A-rabs” as well as capture “two hundred elephants, and six hundred camels, and over a thousand ‘sumter’ mules, all loaded down with di’monds” and “kill the lot” (25). However, the image Tom Sawyer created turns out to be “a Sunday-school picnic” with “doughnuts and jam…a rag doll…a hymn-book and a tract” (25). Huck calls Tom’s bluff, only to be ignored. This episode mirrors the iconic episode in Don Quijote where Quijote and Sancho Panza encounter a group of windmills, but Quijote is thoroughly convinced that they are monsters for him to fight. Panza, representing the materialistic voice of reason, advises him otherwise but is disregarded. Tom Sawyer mirrors his literary heroes, implying that he, too, seeks his self-worth from language. As readers, we have no choice but to see themes, characters, and storylines “borrowed” from works of literature. For example, the Sheperdson and Grangerford incident mirrors Romeo and Juliet, and it occurs shortly after the King and Duke perform the play to raise money. The Arabian Nights slips through when Huck tells a story in order to save his life, and this story creates interactions with those around him. The episodic structure of the book even mirrors The Pilgrim’s Progress. Huckleberry Finn is a novel about other works because a history of literature is cycled through this book. The density of allusions is such that characters begin to mix them up. The king and the duke attempt to re-create Hamlet’s soliloquy for their performance, but they end up adding lines such as “till Birnam Wood do come to Dunsinane,” (152) which is from Shakespeare’s tragedy Macbeth. The intent of allusions in literature is to provide a passing reference that furthers the readers’ understanding of the work as a whole. When several Shakespeare plays are combined into one soliloquy, the purpose of the allusion is essentially defeated because the comparison no longer has any logic to it. Not only does Mark Twain purposely over-rely on literary convention, but he also renders it useless. Although language was once empowering and efficient, we now depend on it too heavily to depict reality because ingenuity in literature has been exhausted.
Hi all!
ReplyDeleteHere is my paragraph - I chose the one that is giving me the most trouble, so there might be some clarity issues. My topic (in a nutshell) is how because literary convention is limited, Huck was able to enact the most change with his silence.
Not only does language stifle Huck, but also the rest of the story is limited to existing literature. The notice at the beginning explicitly tells readers that “Persons attempting to find a moral in [this novel] will be banished” and that “persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot” (4). Perhaps the reason why he posts this message is because all the motives, morals, and sequences in the book are borrowed from existing literature. We see glimpses of works such as The Arabian Nights, Don Quijote, Romeo and Juliet, and The Pilgrim’s Progress throughout, just to name a few. Tom Sawyer, for example, resembles Don Quijote in his romanticized view of himself and his “adventures.” At the beginning of the novel, he plans to raid “a parcel of Spanish merchants and rich A-rabs” as well as capture “two hundred elephants, and six hundred camels, and over a thousand ‘sumter’ mules, all loaded down with di’monds” and “kill the lot” (25). However, the image Tom Sawyer created turns out to be “a Sunday-school picnic” with “doughnuts and jam…a rag doll…a hymn-book and a tract” (25). Huck calls Tom’s bluff, only to be ignored. This episode mirrors the iconic episode in Don Quijote where Quijote and Sancho Panza encounter a group of windmills, but Quijote is thoroughly convinced that they are monsters for him to fight. Panza, representing the materialistic voice of reason, advises him otherwise but is disregarded. Tom Sawyer mirrors his literary heroes, implying that he, too, seeks his self-worth from language. As readers, we have no choice but to see themes, characters, and storylines “borrowed” from works of literature. For example, the Sheperdson and Grangerford incident mirrors Romeo and Juliet, and it occurs shortly after the King and Duke perform the play to raise money. The Arabian Nights slips through when Huck tells a story in order to save his life, and this story creates interactions with those around him. The episodic structure of the book even mirrors The Pilgrim’s Progress. Huckleberry Finn is a novel about other works because a history of literature is cycled through this book. The density of allusions is such that characters begin to mix them up. The king and the duke attempt to re-create Hamlet’s soliloquy for their performance, but they end up adding lines such as “till Birnam Wood do come to Dunsinane,” (152) which is from Shakespeare’s tragedy Macbeth. The intent of allusions in literature is to provide a passing reference that furthers the readers’ understanding of the work as a whole. When several Shakespeare plays are combined into one soliloquy, the purpose of the allusion is essentially defeated because the comparison no longer has any logic to it. Not only does Mark Twain purposely over-rely on literary convention, but he also renders it useless. Although language was once empowering and efficient, we now depend on it too heavily to depict reality because ingenuity in literature has been exhausted.