1. life of twain mark the reasons and purposes of the topic main party


§4. «Huckleberry Finn».It's role and importance for American Literature


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§4. «Huckleberry Finn».It's role and importance for American Literature
No author before Twain had been able to blend the American condition in such a fascinating and engaging manner. It is not surprising then, that 115 years later, close to 1,000 different editions of Huck Finn have been published since the novel first appeared as Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Tom Sawyer's Comrade). The translations number more than 100, and the amount of scholarly articles and books continue to dominate the study of American literature. Critical interpretations run the gamut from expansive social commentary of post-Reconstruction in the South, to linguistic interpretations of the African-American voice, to exploration of dark humor and the mythical trickster character. The book has continued to invite exegesis and ignite controversy, and its position as an American classic appears to be ensured.
Simply put, the book continues to thrive because of its original narrative style, its realistic subject matter, and its depiction of loyalty and sacrifice, regardless of the consequences. Unlike former southwestern humor characters, such as George Washington Harris' Sut Lovingood and Johnson J. Hooper's Simon Suggs, Huck does not rely upon an authoritative, gentleman narrator to introduce the story or help explain its significance. There is no doubt that Twain drew heavily upon his literary predecessors for inspiration, but Huck's story is his own. He tells it from his own boyish point of view, free from any affectation, underlying motive, or purpose. In doing so, Twain created a completely original American voice. Twain did more, however, than depict a realistic version of an average American boy, he also presented the squalid and cruel environment of the South in a brutal and raw manner, including its use of the horrid and offensive term, "niggers." The unabashed narrative approach to racism and the American condition prompted American author Langston Hughes to comment that Twain's work "punctured some of the pretenses of the romantic Old South." By allowing Huck to tell his own story, Twain used his realistic fiction to address America's most painful "sacred cow": the contradiction of racism and segregation in a "free" and "equal" society.
What is the most rigorous law of our being?” Twain asked in a paper he delivered the year Huckleberry Finn was published. His answer? “Growth. No smallest atom of our moral, mental or physical structure can stand still a year. ... In other words, we change - and must change, constantly, and keep on changing as long as we live.”
This child of slaveholders who grew up to write a book that many view as the most profoundly anti-racist novel by an American clearly spoke from his own experience. Troubled by his own failure to question the unjust status quo during his Hannibal childhood, Twain became a compelling critic of people's ready acceptance of what he called “the lie of silent assertion” -- the “silent assertion that nothing is going on which fair and intelligent men are aware of and are engaged by their duty to try to stop.” Experience also taught him not to underestimate the transformative power of humor. The greatest satirist America has produced wrote that the human “race, in its poverty, has unquestionably one really effective weapon -- laughter. Power, Money, Persuasion, Supplication , Persecution - these can lift at a colossal humbug -push it a littlecrowd it a little -- weaken it a little, century by century: but only Laughter can blow it to rags and atoms at a blast. Against the assault of Laughter nothing can stand.
Conclusion
Mark Twain endures because he is greater than any of his possible classifications- philosopher, literary comedian, world traveler, realist, Naturalist, hoaxer, novelist, vernacular humorist, after-dinner speaker-with which he might be labeled. He did practically everything that was expected of a man of letters in his age, and he generally acquitted himself well in every department. He gave his countrymen pride in themselves, their humor, their literature. And he elevated the station of his calling: among Twain's achievements, one of his grandest was his success in making literary humor seem like a respectable profession. His wealth, his Nook Farm home, his fraternal relations with the influential and the lionized-these and other signs of status laid a benediction on his career so lasting that all subsequent authors of comic sketches, stories, and novels owe him a large debt. He rescued the funnyman from the smudged-print pages of Billings, Phoenix, and Nasby and restored him to the honored tradition of Benjamin Franklin, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and James Russell Lowell. Moreover, Twain mixed seriousness and comedy so subtly in works like A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court that he himself did not always understand his initial intentions, and he thus educated publishers and reviewers and readers about the deeper possibilities of humor, preparing American audiences for John Cheever, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Thomas Berger, John Barth, and others. American literature would have flourished without Mark Twain's contributions.
Yet it would be stuffier, less redolent of the river and the West, less alluring. He has given us, along with rich impressions of life on rafts, steamboats, stage coaches, railroad cars, and ocean ships, a reassurance that we are not travelling into some black hole of the future, that we have a renewable and accessible past that guarantees a sane and attainable future. By finding amusement in the writings and speeches of one American figure of the nineteenth century, we assuage disturbing anxieties about our historical and cultural isolation when we contemplate with misgivings the dawning age of computer technology, biological engineering, and galactic transportation. If we can palpably touch the steamboat pilot's wheel with Mark Twain, then our grip on the spaceship controls of the twenty-first century feels surer as we extend our capacity to shuttle a supply of humor into the farther reaches of human history.
Adventures of Tom Sawyer’ and ‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.’ Hailed as "the father of American literature" by William Faulkner, Twain was known for not just his humorous writings and satire but also his radical views on imperialism, organized religion, and civil rights. He was a very popular figure and was friends with the presidents, prominent industrialists, and even the European royalty. Born into a humble family in Missouri, he endured a difficult childhood. The untimely death of his father in 1847 forced the 11-year-old Twain to take up a job to support his family. His early struggles instilled in him sympathy for the working class. As a young man, he was appointed as a river pilot's apprentice, eventually becoming a licensed river pilot. He began his writing career during the ‘Civil War.’ The success of his story ‘The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County’ earned him national recognition, paving the way for a successful writing career. Thanks to his popularity, he was also a much sought after speaker.

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