美国文学选读答案

Irony: His humor was a weapon to ridicule and satirize those false, ugly and
unreasonable phenomenon of the society at that time. Mark Twain used the irony to express his dissatisfaction to the existing society and the blame for the racial discrimination. a) The psychological description of Huck is really an irony, he was struggling whether he should expose Jim or not. In fact, Mark expressed his dissatisfaction to the existing society and the blame for the racial discrimination. b) The 2 cheater called “Duke” and “King” were the people from low class. This is big irony for them. These two cheaters met each other after they were rescued by Huck, they intended to speak elegant words to overstate their status. We all know that these two cheaters didn’t have much knowledge actually and they were only the people who were living in the low class, but they pretended to be the upper class through their speaking style, but just this dialect cannot be changed for certain nation, so the dialect reflect his innocence and ignorance but they didn’t find this point and still kept doing this.
4. Is Huck’s moral conflict reasonable? Why?
➢Yes. It is reasonable that there existed a moral conflict in Huck’s mind. Though Huck knew Jim was a good person, as a boy growing up in the whites’ world, the Negro Slavery had rooted deeply in his mind. He was still a teenager with immature mind, so he thought that it’s wrong to release Jim.
5. Elaborate on Mark Twain’s use of language in the story.
Vernacular language and grammatical errors: In this story, mark twain used vernacular language, dialect with
2. Discuss Twain’s use of dialects in the novel. What effect does this usage have on the reader? Does it make the novel less of an artistic achievement?
Twain’s use of dialect, which has proved controversial over the years, lends to the overall realism and vividness of Huckleberry Finn. Because it is sometimes difficult to decipher the character’s speech while reading, we are almost forced to read aloud: at the very least, to read this novel, one has to be able to “hear” the voices in one’s own head. Furthermore, in the world of the novel, the way in which a character speaks is closely tied to that character’s status in society. Huck, who was born in poverty and has lived on the margins of society ever since, speaks in a much rougher, more uneducated-sounding dialect than the speech Tom uses. Jim’s speech, meanwhile, which seems rough and uneducated, is frequently not all that different from Huck’s speech or the speech of other white characters. In this way, Twain implies that it is society, wealth, and upbringing, rather than any sort of innate ignorance or roughness, that determines an individual’s educational opportunities and manner of selfexpression.
3. Discuss the use of the river as a symbol in the novel.
For Huck and Jim, the Mississippi River is the ultimate symbol of freedom. River flows freely and smoothly, and people go to the river to escape from the society and civilization. They feel free with the nature surrounding them, which allows them to rest, and relax in peace. For Huck and Jim, the river is a place with freedom and in Mark Twain’s heart.
1. Does Gasoline appear to be the type of person you would like or admire? What emotion do you feel toward her?
No. She is not the kind of the person I admire. I feel sympathetic with her. On the one hand I think she is a kind of New women, who braves enough to leave the rural area to pursue her dreams. On the other hand she doesn’t have too much knowledge, to some degree, which results to her tragedy. And what she pursues is material things, nothing about moral qualities.
So we can see that there are many spelling error and local slang in this article, which is a typical figure of twain’s local color fiction. He thought dialect can best reflect the character’s features and the colloquial style could help make the novel very interesting and meaningful.
spelling representing pronunciation. e.g. “…we dasn’t stop again….” , “so we staid where we was…”,
“whereabouts?” says I. “the king begun to sass back”
➢ Using a child protagonist, Mark Twain is able to imply a comparison between the powerlessness and vulnerability of a child and a black man. Huck and Jim frequently find themselves in the same predicaments: being abused, facing the threat of losing his freedom. In Huck’s moral dilemmas, Jim is also vulnerable to Huck who is white. Twain also uses h is child protagonist to dramatize the conflict between societal or received morality. As a boy, Huck is a character who can develop morally, whose mind is still open and being for med, who does not take his principles and values for granted. By tracing the education a nd experiences of a boy, Twain shows that conclusions about right and wrong that are b ased on logic and experience. The society’s rules and morals are often hypocritical rathe r than logical.
AMERICAN LITERATURE
Questions
英语三班 第三组
Questions(P110)
1. Huck Finn is a thirteen – year – Leabharlann Baiduld boy. Why does Twain use a child as the center of consciousness in this book?