Death and Humor in Mark Twains The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Essa

Death and Humor in Huckleberry Finn Huckleberry Finn can be read as a boys adventure overbold, as a work of serious literature, as a humorous historical account, as biting social mockery . . . Im sure I could go on. This is a book that has delighted generations of readers - its rollingly funny, prevalent with adventure - and hopelessly morbid. Thats right. I read Huckleberry Finn and it made me think of death. The novel has a strange way of dealing with death. Theres a pretty juicy body count, yet each individual demise becomes an opportunity for uplifted comedy. We laugh, and the novel will laugh with us. But it wont cry. Perhaps this was a nod to time and place. As far as the poetry of the time suggests, feel in America in the late nineteenth century was not exactly cheerful. Take this poem, published less than a year onwards Huckleberry Finn, as just one example When I am gone - Say Will the glad wind wander, wander on crouch with tenderest touches, yet With frolic care beset, Lifting the long gray rushes, where the Stream And I so idly dream? I feel its soft sensitivele The toying of its wild-wood tenderness On brow and lips and eyes and hair, As if by means of love aware That days must come when no fond wind shall creep Down where my hearts asleep Hast thou a sympathy, A soul, O wandering Wind, that thou dost sigh? Or ist the heart at heart us still That aches for good or ill, And deems that Nature whispers, when alone Our inward Self makes moan? Longing, by Wi... ...ems, amongst others, by Walter Blairs moderate distich and Huck Finn. (California University of California Press, 1960). 5 Mark Twain. Following the Equator. England Dover Publications, 1988. 6 Julia A. Moore. Mortal Refrains The fare Collected Poetry, Prose, and Songs of Julia A. Moore, The Sweet Singer of Michigan. Thomas J. Riedlinger, Lansing Michigan reconcile University Press, 1998 (5). 7 Mark Twain. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, London W.W. Norton an d Company, 1999 (124). 8 Mark Twain. Post-Mortem Poetry, The Complete Humorous Sketches and Tales of Mark Twain, ed. Charles Neider. New York Doubleday, 1961 (156). 9 Mark Twain. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, London W.W. Norton and Company, 1999 (295). 10 Mark Twain. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, London W.W. Norton and Company, 1999 (194).