Race is not the only controversy that has swirled around Huck Finn. When it was first published in 1884, it was primarily known as a “boy’s book” and was attacked and sometimes banned because of its perceived glorification of a “bad boy,” who smoked, and stole, and used bad grammar.
Contemporary feminist readers have seen in its “quest for freedom” and “coming of age” themes a reinforcement of the “masculine myth” (see Judith Fetterley , The Resisting Reader…, 1978, and others) in which the male hero seeks to free himself from the females in his life (mother, wife, potential wife, etc.) who would domesticate and “civilize” him. (This myth is still alive and well in our own day.) From this perspective, the hero’s “coming of age” is understood in terms of achieving independence from those social forces (often represented by women) that threaten to emasculate him.
With a couple of exceptions, Nancy Walker (“Reformers and Young Maidens…” 1985) finds the women characters in Huck Finn to be based on popular stereotypes of women as either moral reformers of men or as pure, innocent, “sweet” young damsels in need of either protection or rescue. One exception is Judith Loftus who is smart enough to see through Huck’s attempted disguise as a girl and who offers to help Huck rather than turn him in.
The scene with Judith Loftus is seen by another feminist critic, Myra Jehlen (“Reading Gender…” 1990), as evidence of the novel’s consciousness of gender as a socially constructed performance.
Queer theorists have noted that the masculine myth of freedom and independence involves, not only an escape from women’s attempts to form and reform men, but also as homosocial, if not homoerotic, experience of male bonding in a world free of women. (Fiedler, Love and Death... 1948) Christopher Looby (“’Innocent Homosexuality’…” 1995) sees the Judith Loftus disguise scene as just one in a whole series of transvestite scenes in which male characters dress as women, which constitute a motif of “gender masquerade” that provides “an alibi for potentially transgressive male-male encounters.”
So, (1) is Huck Finn a quintessential “boy’s book” representing the psyche and experience of “natural” boyhood when freed from social constraints? Research into the human genome does support the notion of natural gender differences, but research also reveals multiple exceptions and supports the role that social construction plays in gender expression and behavior. Whether you see Huck as an archetypal “boy” or a stereotypical “boy” may depend on whether you lean more toward nature or nurture in explaining gender. My question would be, how do you explain the appeal of the river raft adventure to generations of female readers, who seem just as drawn to the quest for freedom, independence, and autonomy as males?
(2) Is there an implicit misogyny in the masculine frontier myth of freedom and independence from women? The powerful role of nurture has historically steered women into more domestic social roles and has held them to a higher standard of “virtue,” whereas men have been more encouraged and expected to pursue independence outside the domestic sphere and outside strict moral codes. While there may be some genetic basis to this difference, there is no question in my mind that society has taken a general tendency and enforced it as a prescription for gender-based socially acceptable behavior.
There is also no question in my mind that, as a result, healthy gender relations are disrupted, and to the extent that men feel pressured or seduced by women into artificial roles, misogyny can certainly result. Obviously there are many other reasons for misogyny as well since patriarchy and male supremacy send very strong messages of female inferiority. So, yes, to the extent that women in Huck Finn represent all that restricts Huck’s freedom and autonomy, there is an undercurrent of misogyny.
(3) Does the novel reinforce and perpetuate popular 19th century stereotypes of women? Yes, Nancy Walker documents this aspect of the novel very well.
(4) Does the novel offer any alternative female images? Yes, Judith Loftus and Mary Jane Wilks do not fit the common female stock characters. They are active and assertive without being controlling of Huck, and they show more ability to take care of themselves without relying on a male rescuer.
(5) Do the multiple gender disguises, particularly the Judith Loftus scene, in which she instructs Huck in how to “act” like a girl, undermine essentialist readings and expose the social construction of gender. Possibly, but I doubt it is self-conscious and that anyone but a post-modernist reader would notice. The Loftus scene could be also be read as reinforcing an essentialist reading, since Huck has a tough time acting like anything but a “boy.”
(6) Or, do those multiple scenes of gender disguise mask a homoerotic subtext? Given the frequency of these scenes, most of which occur in an all-male environment, and given what we know happens sexually in all male environments, I find this claim persuasive.
(7) Does the male bonding in the novel promote a homosocial, if not homoerotic, message? To the extent that male-male friendship is preferred over male-female relationships, yes; this does not seem to be an extravagant claim.
(8) Do all these questions over-analyze a text that is “just a story” told for entertainment purposes? If we answer “yes,” then are we trivializing the novel? Yes, Twain wrote that anyone “attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.” But, is this (obviously exaggerated) statement to be taken a face value or is it tongue-in-cheek? It could just as well be read as an ironic statement and/or an attempt by Twain to deflect criticism, especially from readers who might be offended at the way white Southerners are depicted. If the novel is to be taken seriously, if it is worthy of being taught in schools and held up as an American classic, then it is worthy of being analyzed as a novel of serious significance, not dismissed as mere entertainment.
(9) Is Huck Finn a sexist novel? Heterosexist? So, yes, it is a sexist novel, though not without redeeming merit, even in the eyes of feminist readers. And, yes and no; it is both a heterosexist novel and one that can be read as homosocial and even homoerotic.
Controversy does not have to lead to polarization if one takes a "both...and" approach rather than an "either...or" approach and preserves what is of value in each contrasting position.
Showing posts with label African Americans in literature. Show all posts
Showing posts with label African Americans in literature. Show all posts
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn I
Recent controversy over The Help by Kathryn Stockett has reminded me of the continuing controversy over The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain.
It seems reasonable to me that a novel by a white author representing African American characters and experience would be subjected to critical scrutiny. It also seems reasonable to expect that a white writer will depict that experience through a white lens, just as black writers will portray white characters and experience through a black lens. Does that mean that whites should not write about blacks and vice versa? I hope not. Even if that means white novels will bear vestiges, at the very least, of racism and black novels will exhibit prejudice toward whites.
One problem of American publishing history, however, in a white dominated culture, is that black writers have had to get past white editors and publishers while white writers have rarely been screened by black publishing filters. As a result, historically, more racism in white novels has been published than has the critique of white supremacy in black novels. It should be no surprise that black readers will react more strongly to and scrutinize more closely the way their experience is depicted by white writers.
Instead of being hypersensitive and resentful, white readers and writers might want to pay attention. They could learn something.
For the most part, though, criticism of Huck Finn as a racist novel has been met with furious defensiveness. Mark Twain, after all, is an American literary hero and Huck Finn has been considered his “masterpiece” (interesting word choice). To label Twain and his novel as “racist” seems unpatriotic at best and downright sacrilegious at worst.
How could Huck Finn be racist? The escaped slave, Jim, is a sympathetic character and the white Southerners are mostly unsympathetic objects of ridicule and satire. But, is an anti-slavery message the same as an anti-racist message? Can an abolitionist still be a white supremacist? Slavery had been abolished some twenty years before the 1884 publication of Huck Finn, but racism continued to run rampant. Does the anti-slavery message absolve the novel of racism?
Defenders argue that Jim is not only sympathetic but humanized as a man equally deserving of freedom as the white runaway, Huck. Huck, himself, must struggle with and overcome his own conditioned racism in order, not only to help Jim escape, but also to bond with him as a companion and fellow seeker of freedom. Some even see Jim as a father figure to Huck, putting Jim in a psychologically superior position.
Detractors counter that (1) Jim is hardly represented as “equal” to Huck, (2) even if he were, then he, a grown man with a wife and children, is being equated with a child, thus reinforcing a common stereotype of blacks as “childlike,” and (3) while Jim may be allowed moments of genuine humanity, he is largely portrayed as a caricature based on popular minstrel show “Jim Crow” stereotypes. Critics also question Huck’s moral progress and human bond with Jim, given the way Huck joins with Tom Sawyer in tormenting Jim when he is held captive at the Phelps farm at the end of the novel.
Defenders counter that, after all, how much moral progress can you expect a fourteen-year-old boy to make in such a short time span? Just the fact that Huck does have those pangs of conscience over Jim’s treatment is anti-racist enough. And, while Twain may not have completely transcended his own white supremacist and racist environment, he went further in challenging that ideology than any other white writer of the 19th century. (I would submit that Herman Melville, writing before abolition, went further than Twain did, though his subtlety in Benito Cereno, for example, would have escaped many readers.)
I wonder if the defenders and detractors are both right. I wonder if Twain himself was torn between challenging the morality of his white readers and placating them in order to promote his own popularity and book sales. The result is a novel that promises much in terms of an anti-racist message but falls far short of full delivery.
Van Wyck Brooks, in his critical study The Ordeal of Mark Twain (1933), claims that, just as this iconic author had two names, Samuel Clemens and Mark Twain, so he had a conflicted psyche, one that aspired to be, on one hand, a serious artist using satire to critique his contemporary society, and on the other hand, a popular humorist, using folksiness to endear and promote himself to the reading public. Brooks traces this split throughout Twain’s career and argues that his increasing cynicism and misanthropy was the result of his own self-hatred for having “sold out” his highest and best artistic and moral promise. If Brooks is right, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is but one episode in the sad psychological story of our revered American author Mark Twain.
This commentary is not meant to reflect on The Help. That will have to wait for a future blog post.
It seems reasonable to me that a novel by a white author representing African American characters and experience would be subjected to critical scrutiny. It also seems reasonable to expect that a white writer will depict that experience through a white lens, just as black writers will portray white characters and experience through a black lens. Does that mean that whites should not write about blacks and vice versa? I hope not. Even if that means white novels will bear vestiges, at the very least, of racism and black novels will exhibit prejudice toward whites.
One problem of American publishing history, however, in a white dominated culture, is that black writers have had to get past white editors and publishers while white writers have rarely been screened by black publishing filters. As a result, historically, more racism in white novels has been published than has the critique of white supremacy in black novels. It should be no surprise that black readers will react more strongly to and scrutinize more closely the way their experience is depicted by white writers.
Instead of being hypersensitive and resentful, white readers and writers might want to pay attention. They could learn something.
For the most part, though, criticism of Huck Finn as a racist novel has been met with furious defensiveness. Mark Twain, after all, is an American literary hero and Huck Finn has been considered his “masterpiece” (interesting word choice). To label Twain and his novel as “racist” seems unpatriotic at best and downright sacrilegious at worst.
How could Huck Finn be racist? The escaped slave, Jim, is a sympathetic character and the white Southerners are mostly unsympathetic objects of ridicule and satire. But, is an anti-slavery message the same as an anti-racist message? Can an abolitionist still be a white supremacist? Slavery had been abolished some twenty years before the 1884 publication of Huck Finn, but racism continued to run rampant. Does the anti-slavery message absolve the novel of racism?
Defenders argue that Jim is not only sympathetic but humanized as a man equally deserving of freedom as the white runaway, Huck. Huck, himself, must struggle with and overcome his own conditioned racism in order, not only to help Jim escape, but also to bond with him as a companion and fellow seeker of freedom. Some even see Jim as a father figure to Huck, putting Jim in a psychologically superior position.
Detractors counter that (1) Jim is hardly represented as “equal” to Huck, (2) even if he were, then he, a grown man with a wife and children, is being equated with a child, thus reinforcing a common stereotype of blacks as “childlike,” and (3) while Jim may be allowed moments of genuine humanity, he is largely portrayed as a caricature based on popular minstrel show “Jim Crow” stereotypes. Critics also question Huck’s moral progress and human bond with Jim, given the way Huck joins with Tom Sawyer in tormenting Jim when he is held captive at the Phelps farm at the end of the novel.
Defenders counter that, after all, how much moral progress can you expect a fourteen-year-old boy to make in such a short time span? Just the fact that Huck does have those pangs of conscience over Jim’s treatment is anti-racist enough. And, while Twain may not have completely transcended his own white supremacist and racist environment, he went further in challenging that ideology than any other white writer of the 19th century. (I would submit that Herman Melville, writing before abolition, went further than Twain did, though his subtlety in Benito Cereno, for example, would have escaped many readers.)
I wonder if the defenders and detractors are both right. I wonder if Twain himself was torn between challenging the morality of his white readers and placating them in order to promote his own popularity and book sales. The result is a novel that promises much in terms of an anti-racist message but falls far short of full delivery.
Van Wyck Brooks, in his critical study The Ordeal of Mark Twain (1933), claims that, just as this iconic author had two names, Samuel Clemens and Mark Twain, so he had a conflicted psyche, one that aspired to be, on one hand, a serious artist using satire to critique his contemporary society, and on the other hand, a popular humorist, using folksiness to endear and promote himself to the reading public. Brooks traces this split throughout Twain’s career and argues that his increasing cynicism and misanthropy was the result of his own self-hatred for having “sold out” his highest and best artistic and moral promise. If Brooks is right, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is but one episode in the sad psychological story of our revered American author Mark Twain.
This commentary is not meant to reflect on The Help. That will have to wait for a future blog post.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)