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From:
Joe Coulombe <[log in to unmask]>
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Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Fri, 24 Mar 2000 16:40:55 -0600
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BOOK REVIEW

        Mensh, Elaine, and Harry Mensh.  _Black, White, & Huckleberry Finn:
Re-imagining the American Dream_.  Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press,
2000.  Pp. 167.  Bibliography, index.  Cloth, 6 1/4 x 9 1/4.  ISBN
0-8173-0995-0.

        Many books reviewed on the Forum are available at discounted prices from
the TwainWeb Bookstore, and purchases from this site generate commissions
that benefit the Mark Twain Project.  Please visit
<http://web.mit.edu/linguistics/www/forum/>.

        Reviewed for the Mark Twain Forum by:

                Joseph L. Coulombe <[log in to unmask]>
                The University of Tennessee at Martin

        Copyright (c) 2000 Mark Twain Forum.  This review may not be published or
redistributed in any medium without permission.


_Black, White, and Huckleberry Finn: Re-imaging the American Dream_, by
Elaine Mensh and Harry Mensh, is a valuable contribution to our
understanding of race in _Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_.  It should serve
as a useful companion piece to recent works like Jonathan Arac's
_Huckleberry Finn as Idol and Target_ (1997) and Jocelyn Chadwick-Joshua's
_The Jim Dilemma_ (1998).  Mensh and Mensh tend to align themselves more
closely with Arac than Chadwick-Joshua, and they approach _Huck Finn_ with
a view toward locating and discussing its often ambiguous and shifting
racial messages.  Moreover, they manage to focus on the novel's
difficulties without compromising its worth.  Rather than accept _Huck
Finn_ as strictly anti-racist, they contextualize it using 19th-century
slave narratives and racial attitudes, and then they interpret specific
scenes and passages in relation to these documents.  Since many educators
advocate _Huckleberry Finn_ as an accurate account of slavery in the 19th
century, the Menshes' historicization of Twain's novel seems well
justified.  Their close readings -- and their discussion of _Huck Finn's_
place in American high schools -- make this book a useful tool for
scholars, teachers, and students.

The Menshes begin by reminding readers of the circumstances under which
_Huckleberry Finn_ first gained its status as a classic as well as the
historical conditions that propelled it to the center of a racial
controversy in the United States.  In the first half of the 20th century,
Twain's novel was promoted primarily by white male academics.  During the
civil rights movements of 1950s, however, some African American students
felt compelled to voice indignation with its mandatory use in many high
schools.  This dissension resulted from far more than the pervasive use of
the epithet "nigger."  The Menshes write: "[I]t became ever more evident
that the argument over fictional black-white relations was also an argument
over nonfictional black-white relations; over black images in white minds,
unequal authority along racial lines, conflicting perceptions of
black-white amity, and -- because of the classic's unique place in the
national consciousness -- differing interpretations of the American dream"
(2).  Thus, the discussion of _Huckleberry Finn_ reveals as much about
20th-century attitudes about race as about representations of race during
Twain's time.  Since one informs the others, the Menshes spend the greater
portion of  the book (and the most useful) evaluating _Huckleberry Finn_ in
light of 19th-century documents written by and about slaves and masters as
well as free blacks and non-slave-holding whites.

By focusing on the passages that pose interpretive problems, the Menshes
hope to explain whether Twain's novel subverts or upholds racist beliefs.
They place the character Huck Finn at the crux of the controversy because
he serves in two wholly different functions: he acts as the spokesperson
for some of Twain's views; and he represents a cultural product whom
readers are supposed to recognize as misled and naive.  To the Menshes, his
fluctuating purposes not only hinder any possibility of a definitive
interpretation but also obstruct a clear understanding of Twain's racial
perspective.  Because Huck's inconsistencies do not always function as an
indicator of his character's growth (or potential for growth), the Menshes
ask "the question of the degree to which Twain's own eyes, clear and
penetrating as they could be, were not also thus shadowed" (18).

In this book, Huck's (and Twain's) characterization of Jim becomes the
major focus.  For example, the Menshes revisit the scene in which Jim
fabricates a story about witches riding him, an episode sometimes
interpreted as an example of Jim's ability to create narratives that gain
him a degree of power and freedom.  Although Huck fails to recognize Jim's
shrewdness at this point, critics who uphold this interpretation identify
19th-century black folk-tales as Twain's source for his positive
characterization of Jim.  The Menshes, however, take issue with this
interpretation.  They argue that these tales showed African Americans
overcoming or evading the supernatural spirits that chased them.  Moreover,
the stories themselves reflected their knowledge that the "spirits" were
actually masquerading white people hoping to frighten supposedly
superstitious black people into submission.  As the Menshes point out, Jim
does not successfully escape those harassing him.  Rather, his role in each
successive version of the story becomes more and more helpless and abused.
Twain's characterization of Jim is thus more aligned with the minstrel-show
type; he is a comic figure whom Twain encourages us to laugh at.  Whether
readers agree with the Menshes or not, the authors provide a new
understanding of an known historical source that complicates
interpretations of this episode.  In fact, the Menshes relish pointing out
inconsistencies in Twain's depiction of antebellum America.  They take
issue, for instance, with Twain's suggestion that black people could come
from miles around to hear Jim tell his story when, in fact, white people
used night patrols and written passes to prevent blacks from traveling
without their master's consent.

The Menshes use a similar approach to appraise Jim's flight for freedom.
When Jim reaches Jackson Island, his choices fail to tally with the
desperate chances taken by real fugitive slaves in the 19th century.  He
simply remains on the island, content with his pipe and tobacco for three
days, despite the free state of Illinois beckoning him from across the
river.  Its dangers would seem an enticing alternative to waiting
hopelessly on Jackson Island.  Again, the Menshes connect these unrealistic
choices to 19th-century minstrelsy.  Jim's willingness to trust Huck --
notwithstanding evidence that he should not -- points to his naive
dependence on white people and results from the blending of the "two
antithetical traditions" involving fugitive slaves and comic blackface
(45).  Twain was well aware of both traditions, and the Menshes'
explication of these early scenes shows the complex influences at work
within Twain's novel.  They explain their perspective using textual
evidence, historical influences, and recent critical opinions, particularly
those of Shelley Fisher Fishkin, Robert Sattelmeyer, and Louis D. Rubin, Jr..

Throughout the middle chapters, the Menshes admire the verisimilitude of
Huck's unenlightened stance toward Jim.  His pranks, arguments, and crises
portray him as a boy who cannot easily reconcile himself to helping a black
man escape slavery.  However, they continue to question the
characterization of Jim.  For example, after Huck concocts the small-pox
lie to save Jim from the slave-hunters, the Menshes argue that Jim
essentially "renounces his struggle for his own freedom" -- rather than
redouble his efforts to reach safety -- by accepting the inevitability of
the snake-skin's continuing bad luck.  His choices becomes even more
untenable after the raft is smashed and Huck and Jim become separated.  Jim
waits patiently for Huck, a boy whose faithfulness he has reason to doubt.
Then he repairs the raft to continue floating south, even deciding to take
the raft further south by himself if Huck gets killed in the feud.  The
Menshes write, "[H]is behavior becomes willfully antithetical to that of a
fugitive slave" (61).  His odd behavior results from Twain's inability to
imagine realistically the motivations and choices of a black man who hopes
to free himself and his family.  While Huck effectively embodies the traits
of a white boy at this time, Jim fails to exemplify those of a black man.

The Menshes also present challenges to other popular interpretations of
Huck and Jim's journey down the Mississippi River.  For example, they
underscore how the King and the Duke do not invade the raft and its
supposed sanctuary.  Rather, Huck invites them onto the raft and thus
endangers Jim again.  The Menshes make a compelling counter-argument to the
critical stance that views the Duke-and-the-King episodes as delightfully
comic shenanigans satirizing the ignorant people of the Mississippi River
Valley.  Whereas Huck is able to identify with the white con-men, Jim
reacts to his increasingly precarious situation with a mixture of fear and
anger barely hidden under a subservient mask.  The Menshes also question
the historical accuracy of Twain's information.  For example, after the
King and the Duke separate and sell Mary Jane's slaves, Huck gives his
assurances that they will be returned once the sale is exposed as
fraudulent.  Not only is it likely that the slave traders supplied fake
identities (to con, in their turn, the King and the Duke), but, as the
Menshes argue: "One trader took the mother to New Orleans, the other took
the sons to Memphis -- or so they said.  The traders would have sold the
family members, either in the slave markets in those cities or elsewhere,
to two or even three buyers, who may have kept them or resold them; the
unknown owners, whose identities may also be open to question, could then
have taken the grieving family members anywhere" (83).  Although this may
seem like a relatively minor detail within the novel, it exposes another
set of false assumptions that guides Huck.  The Menshes accuse Twain of
encouraging readers to adopt Huck's statement as truth, writing: "the novel
undergoes a seismic shift: instead of demonstrating that cruelty and deceit
lie at the heart of the society, it tells us that the society undoes fraud
and mends heartbreak" (84-85).

The final chapters of _Black, White, and Huckleberry Finn: Re-imaging the
American Dream_ explore the controversial ending as well as the sometimes
contentious discussion surrounding it.  Rather than seeing the "evasion"
chapters as a flawed departure from earlier developments, the Menshes find
thematic links that facilitate the ongoing narrative.  Huck's apparent
delight at Jim's discomfort (as a result of the rats, spiders, snakes,
chains, etc.) originates, according to the Menshes, from his annoyance that
Jim has exacted revenge upon the King and the Duke, for whom Huck continues
to feel great sympathy.  They regard Huck as "an often good-hearted but
abidingly racist boy who feels bound to a commitment he was loath to make"
(92).  Jim finally redeems himself in Huck's eyes by sacrificing his
freedom for the wounded Tom, an act that earns him the dubious honor of
Huck's statement: "I knowed he was white inside" (94).  Their discussion of
Huck's final thoughts and actions show the complex psychological and
historical influences at play within Twain's work, a novel that gave us the
character they label -- for better or worse -- "America's child" (101).

This study ends with a useful discussion of the continuing controversy over
the novel's place in America's schools.  The Menses take pains to
distinguish the student-initiated efforts to remove _Huck Finn_ from
required reading lists from those rare efforts to ban the book entirely.
This distinction shows the falseness of linking today's reaction to the
Concord book banning in Twain's time.  Concord officials sought to protect
white children from the bad influence of Huck, whereas efforts today are
prompted by the children themselves who are rebelling against the supposed
authority of an adult classic.  According to the Menshes, these students
are acting in the true spirit of Huck Finn and Mark Twain: "Those who brush
aside these children's pain and protests no doubt believe they defend
Twain's legacy, may even believe they speak on his behalf.  We do Twain a
grave injustice, though, if we presume he would agree" (115).


ABOUT THE REVIEWER:
Joe Coulombe grew up in the Mississippi River town of LaCrosse, Wisconsin
(mentioned briefly in _Life on the Mississippi_).  He completed his PhD at
the University of Delaware in 1998, and he currently teaches American
literature at the University of Tennessee at Martin.  Among other projects,
he is finishing his manuscript, _Mark Twain and the American West_, that
explores the interconnections of masculinity, wealth, and race in Twain's
Western persona and writings.  He has also published essays on the literary
indebtedness of Walt Whitman, the frontier romances of Emerson Bennett, and
the construction of masculinity in Edith Wharton.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Joseph L. Coulombe
Assistant Professor
English Department
University of Tennessee at Martin
128 Humanities Building
Martin, TN  38238

http://fmc.utm.edu/~jcoulomb/homepage.htm
901-587-7291
[log in to unmask]
fax: 901-587-7276

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