An Analysis of Mark Twain’s Writing Style on The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

魏笑

【Abstract】 Mark Twain is a great literary giant of America, who is considered as the true father of the American literature. With works like Huckleberry Finn, Twain shaped the worlds view of America and made a more extensive combination of American folk humor and serious literature than previous writers had ever done. His most famous novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn fully stands for his writing style. The humor and satire, symbolism, and his colloquial speech all together make him a worldwide known author, and make this novel well known. The writing style is just the greatness of this good novel.

【Key words】symbolism; humor; colloquial speech

1 Introduction

This thesis talks about Mark Twain, a major realist writer in the age of realism. Under the influence of realism, he produced lots of great works, such as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, one of the most famous novels around the world. He adopted some techniques in this novel, which formed his writing style, and made him a great writer in America.

In the passage, an analysis of Mark Twains writing style in Huckleberry Finn, such as symbolism, humor and colloquial speech will be provided.

2 Some Techniques Applied to the Novel

2.1 Symbolism

Huck is a symbolism in this novel. It is enough to say that Huck Finn, as character and voice, is a metaphor for Twains mind: through his identification with the boy, he might indulge in vagrant thoughts and happy recollections, and particularly in the early stages of composition, he might satisfy his own desire to escape the cares of a world that was too much with him. And when he was in more aggressive moods, through the satirical latitude Hucks perspective on events permitted him, Twain could deal with his several hatreds and annoyances. His complaints about these and other matters found their way into Hucks narrative. Twain saw the world through a childs eyes, and showed his opinions through Huck, by Hucks styles. Perhaps the same thing an adult would treat this way, while a child would treat the other way. Twain just stood on the side of Huck, representing Hucks thoughts, but all these were Twains own. In this novel, Huck treats Jim differently at different stages, and at last, they become good friends. The change of Hucks attitude towards the black can reveal Twains attitude towards the black. He was a slave abolitionist in favor of the equality of the two races. So Hucks action is in accordance with Twains.

2.2 The Mixture of Light Humor and Heavy Satire

The next technique is one that is the best evidence to show Mark Twains style: humor and satire. Mark Twain is very good at making readers laugh then be lost in thought. Huckleberry Finn shows Twains satire on southern culture before the Civil War, when the Mississippi Valley was still being settled. Twain blended two different subjects, the experience of westward expansion and the experience of southern slavery. His attitudes towards the South were much less pleasant than his attitudes towards the West, because he confronted in the South the problem of slavery, the problem of mistreatment of humans by humans. Twain made fun of typical American values, and looked at the poor whites and showed readers how these whites thought they were better than black slaves. Vanity was the only thing that kept them above the slaves. Their standard of living in many cases was beneath that of slaves. The only thing that made them feel good about themselves was that they were white. And Twain made readers laugh at the ludicrous ideal that they held.

2.3 Genuinely Colloquial and Native Speech

Last but not least, Mark Twains genuinely colloquial and native American speech also make him well known. He used vernacular language, dialect with spelling representing pronunciation. His colloquial words, concrete and direct in effect, and his simple even ungrammatical sentence structures are typical of the spoken language. The directness of the language is a very influential point in Twains style. In Huckleberry Finn, the American colloquial prose, he wrote different dialects in it. He was extremely interested in showing how the person from this part of the state spoke, how the person from that side of the river spoke, how the black people spoke, and he was able to write precisely. His characters, confined to a particular region and to a particular historical moment, speak with a strong accent, which is true of his local colorism. Besides, characters from different literary or cultural backgrounds talk differently, as is the case with Huck, Tom, and Jim.

2.4 Local Color

Mark Twain is also known as a local colorist, who preferred to present social life through portraits of the local characters of his regions, including people living in that area, the landscape, and other peculiarities like the customs, dialects, costumes and so on. Consequently, the rich material of his boyhood experience on the Mississippi became the endless resources for his fiction, and the Mississippi valley and the West became his main theme. Mark Twain wrote about the lower-class people because they were the people he knew so well and their lives were what he himself had lived.

3 Conclusion

Mark Twain used a unique style in his writing The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn that appealed to many types of readers. The greatness of the novel lies in the techniques Mark Twain used. He combined humor and satire together, which represented his main features. At the first sight of this novel, we can laugh at the characters, and their dialogues. But at the second thought, we can find something valuable. What is more, the symbolism can be found through out the whole work. Symbolism can stand for the writers attitudes, and opinions. A simple object can convey a meaningful meaning. This is because the symbolism used in this novel. At last, Mark Twain was the first writer who ever used the American vernacular at the lever of art. Mark Twain can be called a master of language. He could combine different dialects, colloquial and slang together. He always wrote ungrammatically, which just revealed the features of the characters. Just because of his writing style in this novel, Huckleberry Finn is much too popular, and Mark Twain is so well known.

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