Mark Twain, "Huckleberry Finn" : Chapter 19

Résumé du document

Published in 1884, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, describes the epic rambling of two boys, Huck and his Black friend Jim, a runaway slave, and narrates their attempts to reach the free states. But more than an adventure story, the book is an insight to the awakening of a boy, caught between the principles of morality that people try to inculcate in him and his uneasiness in the society. The extract begins after a tragic episode following the death of Buck and Sophia who were sickened by the violence and absurdity of the feud. Huck decides to fetch Jim; they head for the raft, and continue their journey down the Mississippi. Huck gives a long and vivid description of their peaceful life on the river. The most interesting aspect of the book in the text is that it enlightens Huck's relationship with nature. This leaves the reader wondering as to what extent this section is a vernacular modification of the ancient pastoral tradition expressing man's oneness and unity with Nature.

Extraits

[...] The young Huckleberry reveals here a true gift for description and a genuine love for Nature. [...]

[...] Huck presents Nature as a living organism: it is exuberant, energetic and powerful. The picture is that of a Nature that develops, spreads, and becomes omnipresent, a Nature in process where nothing is fixed, but rather in continual expansion. b. A primitive life in harmony with Nature But even if Nature is constantly changing, it appears that Huck and Jim are able to live in harmony with it; they are able to become integrated in this new environment. Huck explores all five senses to feel Nature: -hearing, “a-cluttering” (l.10), (l.16) and 35) -smelling “sweet to smell” (l.23) or (l.25) -seeing, with “watched” (l.32, “looking away” (l. [...]

[...] Mark Twain, "Huckleberry Finn" : chapitre 19 TWO or three days and nights went by; I reckon I might say they swum by, they slid along so quiet and smooth and lovely. Here is the way we put in the time. It was a monstrous big river down there sometimes a mile and a half wide; we run nights, and laid up and hid daytimes; soon as night was most gone we stopped navigating and 5tied up nearly always in the dead water under a towhead; and then cut young cottonwoods and willows, and hid the raft with them. [...]

[...] He has an innate intuition towards Nature. But if he is able to communicate with Nature with his five senses, he lacks of this natural perspicacity with Men: hear them plain” (l.41), but “couldn't see no sign of them” (l.41), (l.35) but don't hear nothing” (l.35), and that lack of discernment towards society even makes him feel (l.41). Nature is his home and through this philosophy shows through the influence of Transcendentalism: Twain was indeed a great reader of Thoreau and Emerson, the leaders of this movement which developed in the early nineteenth century in New-England. [...]

[...] Nature is the source of nourishment, inspiration, beauty, and Man can be freed from society and civilization. An experience lived by Thoreau, who decided to try these theories by living in seclusion for a while at Walden Pond. He related his experience in Walden (1854), with which you can find similitude with Huck's experience I first paddled a boat to Walden, it was completely surrounded by thick and lofty pine, and oak woods, and in some of its cove grape vines had run over the trees next the water and formed bowers under which a boat could pass [ ] I have spent many an hour, when I was younger, floating over its surface as the zephyr willed, having paddled my boat to the middle, and lying on my back across the seats, in a summer forenoon dreaming awake, until I was aroused by the boat touching the sand, and I arose to see what shore my fates had impelled me to, days when idleness was the most attractive and producing industry.” b. [...]