In response to Smiley's criticism of Twain's "failure to address the issue
of
slavery in as serious a manner as did Harriet Beecher Stowe, in -Uncle Tom's
Cabin-" I would have to agree.  However, this in no way diminishes the fact
that
-Adventures of Huckleberry Finn- is THE great American novel of the 19th
century and perhaps of all time.  Twain took the appropriate approach in
writing Huck Finn because his approach was in line with the story of a young
teenage boy.  But I disagree on the issue of whether or not Twain was
goal-oriented in his writing of the novel.  I contend that he did indeed
have
an agenda for the novel and that agenda consisted of a reflection of the
"damned human race."  When Stowe wrote
-Uncle Tom's Cabin-, slavery was very much alive and well in much of the
nation.  By the time Twain wrote (1876-1885), slavery had been abolished for
many years (since 1865).  Why should one expect Twain to assault a defunct
institution with the same zeal as Stowe?  He set his aim on the prejudice
and
ignorance that served to keep African-Americans in shackles!  After
completing -A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court- (1889), Twain wrote
Howells that he was still burning with things to say but it would take too
much time and a "pen warmed up in hell" to say it all.  Further, before
introducing the Duke and the Dauphin in Huck Finn, Twain laid the manuscript
aside for over a year because Huck had taken on so many moral issues that
Twain was unsure of where to take him at that point.  Twain's own words at
the end of the novel testify that if he had known what a hard job it was
going to be to write a book, he wouldn't have done it.  Again, a testimony
to
the depths of morality to which Huck had gone.  The ending of Huck Finn,
while a great disappointment to mankind, was precisely Twain's point.  He
reintroduced Tom, a weak character who was the product of an unkind,
prejudicial, and narrow-minded society, to show us that even though Huck had
grown morally throughout the course of his many adventures, he was only a
representative of the human race, and the human race was as limited at the
end of the novel as Twain painted it at the beginning.  The novel had to end
the way it did because that was the society that Twain saw.  While Huck was
not a goal-oriented character, Mark Twain surely was.  Although he wrote for
monetary gain and fame, he also wrote with an agenda in mind.  That agenda
became not only a mirror to reflect society as he saw it, but a window into
which each of us can peer to retrieve our own glimpse of the human race.
I must get a copy of Harper's and read Smiley's article!

[log in to unmask]