Remember to bring your annotated copies of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to the camping trip. They will be collected once we arrive after the first day's discussions. Click on the link above to The Annotations Assignment if this notice is opaque to you.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Friday, August 27, 2010
SOME NOTES AND SOME QUESTIONS
Hello Maybeck!!! Summer is, as you all may have noticed, nearly over. The conversation via the blog has been great, with a large volume of thoughtful postings from many students. Now isn’t this more satisfying that tweeting and texting? However, while we have a record number of blog postings on the summer reading blog, many students, judging both by the number of postings and by the fact that so many of you have posted numerous times, have not yet posted anything.
It should go without saying that you should feel obliged to read all other students’ postings so that you are ready to take part in the discussions of the book which always take place at our camping trips.
It should be noticed that your combined postings will be the equivalent of your first paper for the semester in all of your English classes, so if you haven’t posted yet, it’s time to get busy. If you have posted many times, then you can probably take a deserved rest and save your remarks for the discussions. Students who have filed no postings until September are risking severe cuts to the grade for this first assignment of the fall semester, in particular since the summer reading is supposed to have been a summer long project, not a last-minute cram. These grades of course will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis, and mitigating circumstances and viable excuses will be entertained.
A NOTE ON DUE DATES:
I should also remind students that you are required to print out your postings and hand them in to the English department on the first day of the camping trip, which means that you have to deliver them to us, printed, and signed on the first day of whichever version of the trip you are on. Bikers should deliver their printed blog postings to the main office prior to departure by Saturday September 4th, and Bussers must hand their postings in on Wednesday, September 8th prior to departure.
MISCELLANIOUS NOTES:
These notes are designed to whip up the discussion a bit for those of you who haven’t written anything yet. Please respond to them at the space provided for comments under the questions posted by the English department in July. Remember to supply evidence from the book with page references to support any claims you want to make.
A misconception about dating the novel has cropped up in one or two posts. The novel was not written before or during the Civil War, as at least one blogger claimed. It is set in the years before the Civil War, in the 1850s when Twain was about Huck’s age, but Twain did not begin writing it until 1876, finishing it by 1883. Since slavery was officially abolished after the XIIIth Amendment which passed in 1865, this means that Twain started writing the novel more than ten years after slavery had been abolished. (For an excellent article on Twain’s writing process, see “Note on the text” pp. 549-561 of our edition) To my mind, this raises the stakes in Twain’s depiction of slavery to a much higher level. It raises numerous questions which none of our bloggers have so far addressed, the most salient of which is, why is Twain still so concerned about slavery and its effects on people more than a decade after its abolition?
Another issue surrounding the slavery question that is huge, and which has not come up in the blog postings so far (unless I missed it) is Huck’s moral evolution: throughout the novel Huck evolves away from his initial position as a boy who accepts his culture’s view that Jim is property and that he is doing something very wrong, even evil, in helping Jim gain his freedom. By the end of the novel, Huck is totally convinced that his friendship with Jim, and Jim’s humanity overrides the moral issues surrounding Jim’s status as property. In many ways Huck’s evolution parallels the evolution of many people in the nation towards the point of view that slavery itself was a major evil, a point of view that produced the national cataclysm of the Civil War.
On the question about superstition and religion, I want to throw a big issue out there that only a few posters have noticed. I will do it with a series of questions: What is the relationship in this book between religion and superstition as Twain depicts it? Is Twain saying that religion and superstition are essentially the same? Or is there some subtle difference between the two? To stimulate your thinking on these issues, review who is religious, who is not, and ask how their religion, when it is mentioned, looks to Huck. Of course, since the question of slavery is a moral question, and religion is supposed to deal with moral issues, the questions of slavery and of religion are heavily involved with one another.
Yours,
Michael D.
It should go without saying that you should feel obliged to read all other students’ postings so that you are ready to take part in the discussions of the book which always take place at our camping trips.
It should be noticed that your combined postings will be the equivalent of your first paper for the semester in all of your English classes, so if you haven’t posted yet, it’s time to get busy. If you have posted many times, then you can probably take a deserved rest and save your remarks for the discussions. Students who have filed no postings until September are risking severe cuts to the grade for this first assignment of the fall semester, in particular since the summer reading is supposed to have been a summer long project, not a last-minute cram. These grades of course will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis, and mitigating circumstances and viable excuses will be entertained.
A NOTE ON DUE DATES:
I should also remind students that you are required to print out your postings and hand them in to the English department on the first day of the camping trip, which means that you have to deliver them to us, printed, and signed on the first day of whichever version of the trip you are on. Bikers should deliver their printed blog postings to the main office prior to departure by Saturday September 4th, and Bussers must hand their postings in on Wednesday, September 8th prior to departure.
MISCELLANIOUS NOTES:
These notes are designed to whip up the discussion a bit for those of you who haven’t written anything yet. Please respond to them at the space provided for comments under the questions posted by the English department in July. Remember to supply evidence from the book with page references to support any claims you want to make.
A misconception about dating the novel has cropped up in one or two posts. The novel was not written before or during the Civil War, as at least one blogger claimed. It is set in the years before the Civil War, in the 1850s when Twain was about Huck’s age, but Twain did not begin writing it until 1876, finishing it by 1883. Since slavery was officially abolished after the XIIIth Amendment which passed in 1865, this means that Twain started writing the novel more than ten years after slavery had been abolished. (For an excellent article on Twain’s writing process, see “Note on the text” pp. 549-561 of our edition) To my mind, this raises the stakes in Twain’s depiction of slavery to a much higher level. It raises numerous questions which none of our bloggers have so far addressed, the most salient of which is, why is Twain still so concerned about slavery and its effects on people more than a decade after its abolition?
Another issue surrounding the slavery question that is huge, and which has not come up in the blog postings so far (unless I missed it) is Huck’s moral evolution: throughout the novel Huck evolves away from his initial position as a boy who accepts his culture’s view that Jim is property and that he is doing something very wrong, even evil, in helping Jim gain his freedom. By the end of the novel, Huck is totally convinced that his friendship with Jim, and Jim’s humanity overrides the moral issues surrounding Jim’s status as property. In many ways Huck’s evolution parallels the evolution of many people in the nation towards the point of view that slavery itself was a major evil, a point of view that produced the national cataclysm of the Civil War.
On the question about superstition and religion, I want to throw a big issue out there that only a few posters have noticed. I will do it with a series of questions: What is the relationship in this book between religion and superstition as Twain depicts it? Is Twain saying that religion and superstition are essentially the same? Or is there some subtle difference between the two? To stimulate your thinking on these issues, review who is religious, who is not, and ask how their religion, when it is mentioned, looks to Huck. Of course, since the question of slavery is a moral question, and religion is supposed to deal with moral issues, the questions of slavery and of religion are heavily involved with one another.
Yours,
Michael D.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Other Ideas (Discussion Topic)
Do you have ideas or insights regarding the novel that don't fit into any of the posted discussion topics? If so, please share your ideas here. Remember to read the other comments before posting your own so that you can engage with the ideas already put forth. Also, remember to use specific examples from the novel and quotations (with page numbers, of course!) whenever possible.
Portrayals of Women (Discussion Topic)
Do you have ideas or insights regarding the portrayals of women in the novel? If so, please share them in a comment. Remember to read the other comments before posting your own so that you can engage with the ideas already put forth. Also, remember to use specific examples from the novel and quotations (with page numbers, of course!) whenever possible.
Here are some questions to get you thinking:
How are women portrayed in Twain’s novel? The book is a resolutely male-oriented novel; the Narrator is a young boy who tells a tale largely devoted to a friendship
between two male characters. Huck’s tale opens with a variety of portrayals of women, but they always appear as obstacles to Huck’s desires and ambitions. Identify the women in the novel, track what they have to say about themselves, and examine what each represents as an underrepresented or marginalized character. After all, the book expresses a major set of issues in American culture, so why/what does it mean that the women are so marginalized in this representation? In what specific ways are they marginalized and what specific roles do they play?
Here are some questions to get you thinking:
How are women portrayed in Twain’s novel? The book is a resolutely male-oriented novel; the Narrator is a young boy who tells a tale largely devoted to a friendship
between two male characters. Huck’s tale opens with a variety of portrayals of women, but they always appear as obstacles to Huck’s desires and ambitions. Identify the women in the novel, track what they have to say about themselves, and examine what each represents as an underrepresented or marginalized character. After all, the book expresses a major set of issues in American culture, so why/what does it mean that the women are so marginalized in this representation? In what specific ways are they marginalized and what specific roles do they play?
Issues Surrounding Slavery (Discussion Topic)
Do you have ideas or insights regarding issues of slavery in the novel? If so, please share them in a comment. Remember to read the other comments before posting your own so that you can engage with the ideas already put forth. Also, remember to use specific examples from the novel and quotations (with page numbers, of course!) whenever possible.
Here are some questions to get you thinking:
In the first chapters the issue of slavery and also the status of slaves crops up many times. Jim’s status in relation to other slaves (via his special knowledge of Magic) speaks of power and status within slave communities: what does Jim’s status tell us? Also what does Jim’s worry about being sold imply about slavery and the new conditions slaves could expect upon being sold?
Here are some questions to get you thinking:
In the first chapters the issue of slavery and also the status of slaves crops up many times. Jim’s status in relation to other slaves (via his special knowledge of Magic) speaks of power and status within slave communities: what does Jim’s status tell us? Also what does Jim’s worry about being sold imply about slavery and the new conditions slaves could expect upon being sold?
Magic, Religion, Superstition, and Belief (Discussion Topic)
Do you have ideas or insights regarding the presence or meaning of magic, religion, superstition, and/or belief in the novel? If so, please share them in a comment. Remember to read the other comments before posting your own so that you can engage with the ideas already put forth. Also, remember to use specific examples from the novel and quotations (with page numbers, of course!) whenever possible.
Here are some questions to get you thinking:
There are many references to magic, religion, the supernatural, and witchcraft in Huckleberry Finn. How do these issues help to shape the story? What kinds of conflicts do they represent? (Conflicts such as truth vs. falsehood, sacred vs. profane, good vs. evil, superstition vs. knowledge) How do these conflicts shape the meaning of the text? How does Jim profit from his claim to supernatural knowledge? What can we say about Huck’s view of each of these conflicts?
Here are some questions to get you thinking:
There are many references to magic, religion, the supernatural, and witchcraft in Huckleberry Finn. How do these issues help to shape the story? What kinds of conflicts do they represent? (Conflicts such as truth vs. falsehood, sacred vs. profane, good vs. evil, superstition vs. knowledge) How do these conflicts shape the meaning of the text? How does Jim profit from his claim to supernatural knowledge? What can we say about Huck’s view of each of these conflicts?
Lying and Storytelling (Discussion Topic)
Do you have ideas or insights regarding the role of lying and storytelling in the novel? If so, please share them in a comment. Remember to read the other comments before posting your own so that you can engage with the ideas already put forth. Also, remember to use specific examples from the novel and quotations (with page numbers, of course!) whenever possible.
Here are some questions to get you thinking:
What is the role of lying in the novel? Are the lies the characters
tell “good” or “bad”? Huck frequently admits to lying – does that mean we do not trust the story he tells? How do we see through the lies? How is lying similar to or different from storytelling in the novel?
Here are some questions to get you thinking:
What is the role of lying in the novel? Are the lies the characters
tell “good” or “bad”? Huck frequently admits to lying – does that mean we do not trust the story he tells? How do we see through the lies? How is lying similar to or different from storytelling in the novel?
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