A re-evaluation of the structure of Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to explore and to explain why Mark Twain's novel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, is a great piece of American and world literature. Chapter One examines Twain's theory of composition and his idea of story structure. Chapter Two summarizes and reviews the arguments of four critics, Leo Marx, Edward Wasiolek, Henry Nash Smith and William O'Connor, who find flaws in the structure of the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Chapter Three treats the arguments of critics such as Lauriat Lane, Lionel Trilling, T. S. Eliot and Richard Adams who praise the novel for its strong structural elements. Chapter Four analyzes and re-evaluates the structural elements of the novel in order to demonstrate its overall formal unity. I gratefully acknowledge appreciation to my thesis director, Dr. Gerrit W. Bleeker, for his guidance and helpful suggestions, and I also wish to thank my second reader, Dr. Charles E. Walton. Finally, I thank Ken Fousek for making it all worthwhile.