English 211: Fiction
Discussion Question 4
Directions: Choose ONE of the following questions and write an answer. Be sure to use specific details and direct quotes from the novel to support your ideas. Your answer should be 2-3 paragraphs long. This question is due no later than Thursday, October 22.
Your responses to other students' answers are due by midnight on Sunday, October 25. In order to get the full 20 points, you MUST respond thoughtfully to at least 3 or 4 other people's postings.
We will be using the ETUDES Discussion Board for this class. Click on the link below to get to the ETUDES portal, sign in, and then click on the tab for this class. You will find the "Discussion and Private Messages" link on the left side of the screen:
Remember: This discussion question is worth a possible 20 points. Late answers will receive 0 points. Points will be assigned according to the thoughtfulness of your answer, not by whether it is "right" or not, since sometimes there is no "right" answer. Just be sure your ideas are supported by the material in the novel.
Twain, The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn
1. Daniel G. Hoffman, in Form and Fable in American Fiction, says that a central theme of the novel is the conflict between freedom and "sivilization," and that by the end of the book, Huck has lost his freedom and been reabsorbed into the world of "Tom and Aunt Polly and the Phelpses." Thus, he argues, the lesson of the book is that "never again can we accept our fate--being 'sivilized'--without the poignant awareness of how much of our soul's innocence and freedom we, like Huck, must surrender if we are to live in a world that others have made." Thus, although the book seems comic, it is actually tragic. Would you agree with Hoffman's argument?
2. In The Adventurous Muse, William Spengemann argues that Twain loses control of the end of the novel. Huck, he argues, has really learned nothing; he is at the end, as he has been throughout the book, passive, a character who reacts to situations rather than taking action to control his life. At the end of the novel, "Twain simply restored Huck's old condition by moving St. Petersburg downstream under a new name...the novel ends where it began...with nothing essentially changed by the hero's travels." Do you agree with this assessment of the end of the novel?
