Universität zu Köln, Englisches Seminar
Übung der Hauptstufe: 19th Century British
and American Children’s Literature
SS 2002

Social Criticism in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and
Huckleberry Finn

by: Barbara Groß-Langenhoff

Table of Contents

I. Introduction ... 1

I.1. From didacticism to romanticism in 19th century American children’s literature ... 1
I.2. Rewarded misconduct in Mark Twain’s two children’s classics ... 2

II. Social criticism in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn ... 3

II.1. The country school and the quality of former popular literature ... 4
II.2. The institution of church and Presbyterian double standards ... 6
II.3. The controversial depiction of racism ... 8

II.3.1. Huck Finn’s “sound heart” set against white brutality ... 9
II.3.2. Maltreatment of slaves and Injun Joe in Tom Sawyer ... 10

II.4. The “fickle unreasoning world” ... 12

II.4.1. The mob ... 12
II.4.2. The individual versus society ... 13

III. Evaluation ... 14

III.1. Twain’s criticism of the Old South and post-Civil War society ... 14
III.2. Twain’s social criticism – still relevant today? ... 15

Bibliography ... 16
 

I. Introduction

Mark Twain’s novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, first published in 1876, and its sequel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn of 1885 are widely known and praised as boyhood adventure stories. Both young and old are fascinated by the nostalgic portraits of American childhood, which are also blended with a good portion of social criticism. This essay will concentrate on the novels’ depiction of South American society and on critical observations and comments made by the author. His attitude towards societal concepts of education, religion and slavery will be examined, as will the conflict between individual and social morality, which is highlighted in the two novels. The subsequent evaluation will consider the question whether Twain’s criticism of his generation continues to be relevant today. Before I can embark, though, on the study of social criticism in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, it is useful to have some background information about the period of writing and the author’s notion of childhood, which will make it easier to analyse the novels in the context of 19th century American children’s literature. Therefore, I am going to begin with a brief outline of the entirely opposing trends in juvenile fiction in the first and the second half of the 19th century.

I.1. From didacticism to romanticism in 19th century American children’s literature

Adventure and celebration of childhood was the last thing on the mind of American authors when they started writing juvenile fiction in the 1820s. At a time of rapid development and progress, the young American republic was highly concerned with the right moral upbringing of their children – who would soon become the country’s active citizens – to secure the future of their new nation: “The nature of American institutions was settled, they believed; what remained was to make them work, to insure that the republic survived” (MacLeod 1994: 89). This is why the first American books were intended to teach morality, to shape characters by defining and encouraging model behaviour. The stories thereby reflected the expectations held by adults “of and for the next generation” (MacLeod 1994: 89). For the sake of unmistakable instruction in obedience, virtue, discipline and social responsibility, the pattern of each children’s tale was purposefully simple: As Anne S. MacLeod (1994: 91) points out the always “staid, domestic, and predictable” narratives focused on a child with some moral flaw and the way he or she overcame that weakness. Topics like the American past or everyday life were more or less completely ignored, as were industrialisation and slavery, both important issues in the period.

Only in the 1850s did the growing urban poverty bring about a change in the level of homogeneity of juvenile fiction. Authors began to portray the misery of the poor children living on the streets to rouse sympathy and a feeling of responsibility on the part of the American society. Furthermore, the increasing partiality for romanticism and sentimentality in adult fiction eventually led to a re-orientation in children’s literature. By the end of the 19th century, the notion of childhood as a crucial period for moral training was replaced by a concept in which childhood was valuable in itself. Innocence, beauty and moral purity were now presented as innate qualities of children. The sober didacticism conveyed in earlier fiction was superseded by the romantic view that the joyous and carefree nature of childhood was a desirable state of being.

I.2. Rewarded misconduct in Mark Twain’s two children’s classics

Mark Twain rejected the concept of moral lessons as being the sole motive of juvenile literature. He became one of the first American authors to write about misbehaving children who were not corrected but even rewarded. There are numerous examples in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Tom runs away from home and has the pleasure of attending his own funeral; he does not learn his verses for Sunday school, but he is rewarded with a Bible; or Tom has to whitewash a fence as a punishment, but he avoids it by cunningly convincing his friends to do the work, who even pay him for the “privilege”. Although Tom steals, lies, sneaks out of the house at night, shows interest in neither school nor church and does not obey his aunt, the novel ends with him and Huck being rich and the heroes of the village: “Wherever Tom and Huck appeared they were courted, admired, stared at” (216).

Even Huck, who is in no way inferior to Tom with regard to social misconduct, is rewarded. Being the pariah boy of the community, Huck attends neither school nor church, steals, smokes, swears and idles away his time. His aversion to the conventional way of life urges him to run away from St Petersburg in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and at the end of the long journey his reluctance to adapt himself to society is still the same: “I reckon I got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she’s going to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can’t stand it” (281).

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