Historical and Biographical Approaches

Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn

Mark Twain House from 1871-1891 in Hartford

Historical and cultural background of Huckleberry Finn

•This was part of frontier America in the 1840 and 1850s, a violent and bloody time. It was the era of Jim Bowie, of gunslingers like Jack Slade, of Indian fighters like Dave Crockett and Sam Houston.

Jim Bowie, a hero of the

Battle of the Alamo and a

legendary adventurer.

Sam Houston, General, Statesman, Military Hero, and President of the Republic of Texas

The shooting of Old Boggs by Colonel Sherburn is drawn from the killing of one “Uncle Sam” Smarr by William Owsley on the streets of Hannibal on January 24, 1845.

Characters and events in Huckleberry Finn are based upon actual happenings and persons

Hannibal, Missouri. Mark Twain’s hometown,

During the summer of 1847 Benson Blankenship, older brother of the prototype Huck, secretly aided a runaway slave by taking food to him at his hideout on an island across the river from Hannibal. Benson resolutely refused to be enticed into betraying the man for the reward offered for his capture.

The Adventure of Huck Finn (1993), Elija Wood as Huck and Courtney B. Vance as Jim.

This is undoubtedly the historical source of Huck’s loyalty to Jim that finally resulted in his electing to “go to Hell” in defiance of law, society, and religion rather than turn in his friend. Adventures of

Huckleberry Finn (1985)

"To preach before a king you got to have lots of style goin' on."

The performance of the “Royal Nonesuch” in Bricksville, Arkansas, where the King prances about the stage on all fours as the “cameleopard” was based on some of the bowdier male entertainments of the old Southwest.

The detailed description of the Grangerford house with its implied yet hilarious assessment of the nineteenth-century culture may be traced to a chapter from Life on the Mississippi entitled “The House Beautiful.”

The cover of Life on the Mississippi, written by Mark Twain.

Mark Twain’s vast knowledge of Negro superstitions was acquired from slaves in Hannibal, and on the farm of his uncle, John Quarles, prototype of Silas Phelps. Jim is modeled after Uncle Dan’l, a slave on the Quarles place.

Picture of Mark Twain

Huck was in real life Tom Blankenship, a boyhood chum of Twain’s who possessed most of the trait Twain gave him as a fictional character. Illustration of Huck

from Huckleberry Finn

Although young Blankenship’s real-life father was ornery enough, Twain modeled Huck’s father on another Hannibal citizen, Jimmy Finn, the town drunk.

Towns of any size in Huckleberry Finn contain the industrious, respectable, conforming bourgeoisie.

Like Canterbury Tales, where Dryden found “God’s plenty,” Huckleberry Finn gives its readers a portrait gallery of the times. Scarcely a class is omitted.

Related Sources about Mark Twain• Budd, Louis J, ed. Critical Essays on Mark Tw

ain, 1910-1980. Boston: G.K. Hall, 1983. • Sundquist, Eric J, ed. Mark Twain: a Collectio

n of Critical Essays. N.J: Prentice Hall,1994. • Anderson, Frederick, ed. Mark Twain: the Crit

ical Heritage. London: Routledge,1997. • Bloom, Harold, ed. and Intro. Mark Twain's A

dventures of Huckleberry Finn. New York :Chelsea House P,1986.