Theme: the theme of slavery in the novels of m. Twain contents

Theme: THE THEME OF SLAVERY IN THE NOVELS OF M.TWAIN

CONTENTS

Theme: THE THEME OF SLAVERY IN THE NOVELS OF M.TWAIN 1
CONTENTS 1
Chapter One: Historical and Literary Background 4
1.4. Mark Twain’s Biography and Works 13
1.5. Conclusion 15
CHAPTER TWO SLAVERY IN THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN 16
General Conclusion 34
Bibliography 36

General Introduction

Mark Twain wrote his novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn two decades after the Emancipation Proclamation which means the end of slavery in the United States of America and after the Civil War in the Southern states. People in the South did not understand that Negroes or slaves, their former property, should have the same rights as they have. Slaves in the United States suffered from the mistreatment of the White People as they were stripped of their names and dehumanized in many ways, they did not have the right to make contracts or to own properties. Slaves' suffering has been the object of slave narratives such as the slave narrative of Frederick Douglass and Olaudah Equiano. On the other hand many white novelists dealt with slavery in their works, for example Harriet Beecher Stowe and Mark Twain.
Through the twentieth century Twain‟s novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has become famous not only as the peak precious and grand work of one of America‟s greatest writers but also as a subject of controversy. It has been banned and reworked with replacement of certain words and many critics have argued about the meaning of its legacy. Others have dismissed Huckleberry Finn as vulgar or racist because it uses more than two hundred times “nigger” (Messent parag.2) a term which clearly points to the issue of slavery as the novel‟s most prominent concern.
The novel begins when The Adventures of Tom Sawyer ends, with Tom and Huck who found six thousand dollars which caused many problems to Huck. Some wanted to civilize him like Miss Watson and the Widow Douglass and the harm caused by his abusive father who wants to steal his money. All these problems led him to elope to Jackson Island where he meets Miss Watson‟s slave Jim. The research problem, however, is what aspects of slavery are seen through the novel. To fulfill the aims of this research that orbits around race relations in the novel, these research questions are formulated:
What image does Mark Twain manages to draw to show slaves suffering in the South?
What is therefore his attitude towards the institution of slavery in the South of the United States?
In order to answer the research questions, the New Historicist theory will be applied to explain the historical background of the novel and to examine slavery in it.
This extended essay is divided into two chapters. Chapter one is an examination of the historical and literary backgrounds of the novel, focusing on the issue of slavery in America as a historical phenomenon and as a literary theme as well. Chapter two entitled Slavery in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is the practical chapter in which a literary analysis of the novel occurs to demonstrate the ways Twain reflected slavery.