The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is considered by some to be “The Great American Novel.” Why would readers think that? What is it about this novel that is particularly American? Does it have to do with the subject matter, or the setting, or some quality of the story or the characters or the way the story is told? What about this novel is great, or even especially good? Why do we keep reading it after all these years, especially considering how different our current world is from the world of the novel?
What do you think? Is Huck Finn The Great American Novel? Why or why not? If not, do you have another candidate for The Great American Novel?
When you respond to this post, you don’t need to copy the questions from my post into your response. Make your response a mini-essay that explains itself and doesn’t need a list of questions to help it make sense.
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This book is a Great American Novel. It shows Americas history and how it use to be. Huckleberry Finn explores the country trying to help his old buddy . That is basicaly a description of America to me. People keep reading it becuase it reminds us how it use to be and compares it to our daily lives today.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a story of will and adventure. There are a couple different things that depict American lifestyle in the book. For instance, the Mississippi River respresents freedom, and it often seemed to change with the events in the story to show trials, losses, and victories. Some of the main themes are slavery and the hypocrisy of the American society. In the book, Huck chooses to save an innocent African-American soul instead of doing what he believed was right by returning him to his owner. Also, there are several instances which show the problems with society--such as innocent souls being blamed and crimals escaping punishment.
As you can see from the reasons above, this story symbolizes American culture in many ways; some of the ways are good, and some bad. Also, even though the book was written such a long time ago, the themes are still the same in the lifestyle we have as those in the book, just in different ways.
Huckleberry Finn is a great American novel. It gives a good description of what life was like in American society one hundred and fifty years ago. I think the characters in this book were very interesting. Even though it was a different time, I think everyone can relate to a character in some way or they know someone who’s like a character in the book.
Another reason this book is a great American novel is because there are many ways in which society today is similar to society back then. For example, when Huck was debating whether to save Jim or send him back to his owner, the rules of society told him to send Jim back to his owner, but his conscience told him to save Jim. So you see, what the convention in society is may not always be the right thing to do. Sometimes you have to figure out what’s right and what’s wrong yourself. Not only was this true one hundred fifty years ago, but it is still true today.
After reading this book I found that even though today we are more scientifically and technologically advanced, people are as gullible today as they were then. For example, you can compare the way the Duke and King tricked the townspeople to an Internet scammer telling you that you’ve won a million dollars.
These are some of the reasons that I think Huckleberry Finn should be considered a great American novel.
Although Huckleberry Finn is an epic story, by far one of the greatest, I do not consider it to be “The Great American Novel.” People who think this might have reasons like the language structure, American setting, and the subject of freedom. They read this novel because it gives a clear vision of what Americans state for…freedom, but what is there to freedom when it comes to slavery? This is what Huckleberry is trying to say.
I do not think that this novel should be given such an honorary title because it was not written in the best form. When somehow Huck miraculously met up with Tom Sawyer again, becoming Tom’s puppet again, messed the entire book up. It upset me to know that Huckleberry Finn was not going to be the character he was in the beginning ever again.
I think To Kill a Mockingbird is the “Great American Novel” because it tells about greater things. Harper Lee had the ability to explain the events in her book a lot better then Mark Twain could in his books. I must give credit to Harper for everything she has done. This is what I firmly believe.
I do think that Huckleberry Finn is “The Great American Novel.” Huck Finn, in my view, is the great American Novel because it talks about America’s history while entertaining you. It shows you how people used to talk, act, and their opinions, which are different than ours now. When people read this book, they see how people used to think about certain things and they are able to compare how people’s train of thought has changed. I think that is the reason people like Huckleberry Finn so much.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a Great American Novel. Mark Twain’s ways of using the history in our past shows and teaches us about our history. The main viewpoints in this book are about slavery and the ways American life. Huck Finn is an inspiring book that allows other viewers to acknowledge old days of American slavery and the way people were treated.
In my own opinion, I do not really consider "Huckleberry Finn" to be "The Great American Novel." I think the book is interesting and I enjoyed reading it, but it is not the best book ever written. Mark Twain wrote about a lot of different subjects in the book at the same time which kind of confused me. This book is very American in its setting and main idea of freedom of slavery. We still read this book today because it gives us an idea of what life was like in Huck's time and how cruel slavery once was.
This book is a great American novel mainly because it shows how America was without trying to make it look like this great place where you can be free.Honestly it was the total opposite. This book reminds us of the huge mistakes we made back then and serves as a reminder of what could happen in a blink of an eye.
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