select a thesis statement in the literary criticism concerning huckleberry finn

Literary Criticism on Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Essay

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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which was first published in 1885 , by Mark Twain is regarded by most people as one of the important American works of fiction ever written because of its artistry and evocation of major themes within the United States of America. The book received praises because of its ability to teach crucial lessons as well as entertain its readers.

Through the use of satire, the touching and exciting adventures depicted in the novel portray significant themes that are of essence in the American society. On the other hand, the book is also the subject of major controversies. Since its publication, the work of fiction has been criticized and banned from libraries because of its alleged offenses to propriety. Nonetheless, the popularity of the book has not been affected by these controversies. This essay discusses some of the novel’s critical interpretations.

Most detractors of the novel have labeled Mark Twain to be a “racist writer.” John H. Wallace’s essay, “The Case against Huck Finn,” established the tone for the critical reception of the nineteenth century novel. He says, “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, is the most grotesque example of racist trash ever written” (Leonard, 16).

In the essay, Wallace examines the racism in the novel in a bid to protect the African Americans from “mental cruelty and harassment depicted in the novel. Wallace has been one of the prominent critics of Mark Twain and the essay is a return to the objections he has made about the novel’s historical significance elsewhere. His criticisms mainly points at the racial slurs Mark Twain uses in the novel.

Wallace argues that Mark Twain’s style of writing is offensive to African American readers, especially the young ones. Since it represents a perpetuation of cheap slave-era stereotypes, he claims that it should not be studied in schools. Wallace claims that the representation of the character Jim, who stands for the Blacks in Mark Twain’s text, has a racial inclination. As the story starts, Jim is presented as someone who believes in superstition.

In addition, he does not articulate his grievances and is content in his role as a hardworking slave. When he discovers that his owner, Miss Watson, wanted to sell him to other people in the south, he escapes and travels with Huck along the river. Wallace posits that Jim is portrayed as a model of the stereotypes that were connected with the Black minority in the nineteenth century racist discourse.

Mark Twain presents him as rather ‘subhuman,’ feeble-minded, wicked, and indolent, which shows that he is inferior to the white people. For example, the statement, “Miss Watson’s nigger, Jim, had a hair-ball as big as your fist, which had been took out of the fourth stomach of an ox, and he used to magic with it”( Twain, 17), depicts the subordinate status of Jim. The negative portrayal of Jim by the author is the main reason why Wallace campaigned for the banning of the book from institutions of learning.

Wallace concludes his essay by promoting his own adapted version of the novel “which no longer depicts blacks as inhuman, dishonest, or unintelligent” (Leonard, 24). Moreover, pointing to his own adapted version, he recommends, “this book should not be used with children (Leonard, 24).

Forrest G. Robinson and James Cox also asserted a critical attitude towards the novel. The former claimed that “Jim eventually reverts to a two dimensional character, gullible and superstitious” while the latter “never actually asserts a strong position on the character of Jim, placing him in ambiguity” (Wrobel, 4).

However, it is important to note that the critics did not look at Mark Twain’s ironic representation of the situation. Wallace’s adaptation of the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, undercuts the irony that Twain has intended to use to attack the institution of slavery during the nineteenth century.

His softening of the white bigotry can make people to conclude that the blacks were not treated cruelly and people can also forget the reasons why they were enslaved, to start with. If the novel was out rightly racist, then it could not have been a story about a white boy (Huck) and an African-American (Jim). Although during that time blacks were treated inhumanly, Huck and Jim related well with one another and found pleasure in carrying out common activities.

During the times of slavery, the two races were very different and the whites were thought to be superior. Sharing of common things was unheard of. However, in the novel, Mark Twain points out that one can share common interests with another regardless of his or her racial background. “People would call me a low-down Abolitionist and despise me for keeping mum-but that don’t make no difference.

I ain’t a-going to tell” (Twain, 50). These words were spoken by Huck. He was telling Jim that he wont tell anybody about his escape from slavery. If the novel were racist, Huck could not have even attempted to assist his friend in escaping from the yolk of slavery.

The language of the book has also been a subject of criticism. Notable, is the fact that the word “nigger” has been repeated in the novel more than two hundred times. Langston Hughes, in his autobiography comments that ”the word nigger to colored people of high and low degree is like a red rag to a bull.

Used rightly or wrongly, ironically or seriously, of necessity for the sake of realism, or impishly for the sake of comedy, it doesn’t matter (Webb, para. 15). Since the African-Americans do not like the word, that is why some of them have heavily criticized Twain for using the word so many times in the book. Allan B. Ballard is one of the critics of the language used in the novel.

He says, “The presentation of the novel as an “American classic” serves as an official endorsement of a term uttered by the most prejudiced racial bigots to an age group eager to experiment with any language of shock value” (Webb, para. 9). For instance, “I see it warn’t no use wasting words-you can’t learn a nigger to argue.”(Twain, 78). Ballard argues that such instances where the word has been used tend to stereotype Jim as a stupid nigger who is incapable of comprehending anything.

Interestingly, in those days when the novel was written, the use of the word “nigger” was not so much debatable as it is now. Writers could use the language even when addressing African-American without much contention. However, just a few yeas ago did people start criticizing Twain for his use of the word. And the use of the “n word” has made critics to label the work of fiction as racist. Critics, like Ballard, have asserted that Jim is only a stereotype in the story.

He cannot think for himself. Therefore, he merely follows the suggestions of Huck (and later Tom) in performing tasks. All through the book, different characters put him down. And at one time, Huck even feels guilty of assisting him in his quest for freedom. Maybe, the critics strongest assertion is that he is not a conventional slave of the nineteenth century. This is because slaves received much worse treatment than the one depicted in the story.

Nonetheless, it is important to note that Mark Twain was just trying to represent the real situation as it was during his time. We are separated from the events in the story by close to one hundred and fifty years so we need to understand the novel in that context. The word “nigger” was used frequently during that time. More so, individuals used to despise the ones who were slaves and the novel is an attempt to depict this situation. The author of the novel seems to be condemning this practice in his sly manner.

Martin Holz claims that although Mark Twain succeeded in using a narrator who speaks vernacular, there are two contradictory voices in the language used. He criticizes the language of the novel by saying that “Hick Finn conveys all kinds of sentiments and perceptions in the language he has at his disposal to articulate his spontaneous reactions to them and in a more or less random order rather than a logical structure”(Holz, 5).

This makes Huck to act like a transmitter instead of a narrator in the story and makes him to seem to have no visual perception of the time. Holz argues that instead of saying general statements or definitive personal opinions, the narrator most of the time does not go beyond giving a mere narration of the things he encounters, and the language he employs in the process makes him to be a less sophisticated narrator having a constrained perspective about his surroundings.

Concerning the second contradictory voice, Holz says that “the second voice emerges in the novel as the first voice with his heavy use of vernacular is replaced by a narrator who used regional lingo only occasionally, thus offering a different outlook on the characters and events in the novel” (5). Although Twain is one of the writers to use this technique in writing, the two contradictory voices used in the novel complicates the process of narration as a reader can fail to understand what is taking place.

In conclusion, despite the critical reception of the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, it is important in directing attention to some issues that the American society has not taken seriously. The themes that are portrayed in the novel are invaluable and to totally discredit the book cannot be a move in the right direction.

This is because readers would not get the advantage of the much needed knowledge and growth that they can reap after going through the humor-filled book. Therefore, the critical look at the novel should also encompass the major themes that it portrays.

Works Cited

Holz, Martin. Race and Racism in “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Norderstedt: GRIN Verlag, 2000. Print.

Leonard, James S. Satire or evasion?: Black perspectives on Huckleberry Finn . Durham: Duke Univ. Press, 1994. Print.

Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn . New York : Chatto & Windus/ Charles L. Webster, 1885. Print.

Webb, Allen.”Teaching Huck Finn: The Controversy and the Challenge.” Resources . Western Michigan University. 2002. Web.

Wrobel, Isabella. Racism in Huckleberry Finn: Mark Twain. Norderstedt: GRIN Verlag, 2007. Print.

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Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Introduction to adventures of huckleberry finn, summary of adventures of huckleberry finn, major themes in adventures of huckleberry finn, major characters adventures of huckleberry finn, writing style of adventures of huckleberry finn, analysis of the literary devices in adventures of huckleberry finn, related posts:, post navigation.

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Critical Ways of Seeing The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in Context

Depiction of Huckleberry Finn on 1917 sheet music cover.

Library of Congress

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn opens with a warning from its author that misinterpreting readers will be shot. Despite the danger, readers have been approaching the novel from such diverse critical perspectives for 120 years that it is both commonly taught and frequently banned, for a variety of reasons. Studying both the novel and its critics with an emphasis on cultural context will help students develop analytical tools essential for navigating this work and other American controversies. This lesson asks students to combine internet historical research with critical reading. Then students will produce several writing assignments exploring what readers see in Huckleberry Finn and why they see it that way.

Guiding Questions

How does a critic's cultural context help explain his or her opinions about a book?

What influences on my cultural context help explain my opinions about a book?

How does acknowledging my opinions' origins in the culture around me, and recognizing that changes in culture cause changes in opinions, affect the way I state my opinion?

Learning Objectives

Read and write literary criticism

Perform historical/biographical analysis of non-fiction works

Define cultural context and describe aspects of others' contexts as well as their own

Make inferences and develop the ability to provide convincing evidence to support their inferences

Lesson Plan Details

• "Cultural context" is a term that is used often and defined rarely. Consider before starting the lesson how you will define and use this term with your students. Particularly useful in defining culture for this lesson is Eric Miraglia's What Is Culture? , accessible through the EDSITEment-reviewed Internet Public Library and its link to the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association site.
• Review key aspects of cultural contexts that have had an impact on critics of Huckleberry Finn , particularly Victorian morality and more recent debates about race and high school literary selections. In addition to print sources on these topics, the following websites may be useful: On Victorian mores: While it is difficult to find sites that look at the Victorian era in an unromanticized way, these sites provide some unique perspectives:
• Duke University's Ad*Access site, a link from the EDSITEment-reviewed History Matters site, provides an excellent look at popular culture through advertising.
• Gonzaga University's A Brief Timeline of American Literature, Music and Movies, 1890–1929 , a link also from the History Matters site, provides another look at late Victorian popular culture. On African-American status in the 19th century:
• The most succinct site offering a glimpse of 19th century African-American life is The Time Line of African-American History, 1852–1925 , which is part of the EDSITEment-reviewed Library of Congress American Memory Collection.
• See also Lesson 1 of the ArtsEdge curriculum unit on Mark Twain, The Lincoln of Our Literature: Lesson 1, Icon and Iconoclast
• Review the literary critical essays on Huckleberry Finn that students will use in Activity 2 below. Determine whether you want to choose a small group of these essays for your students' use or let students choose from the whole set. You may want to download and print the essays if you choose to work with a subset of the available essays. Two sites contain a wealth of these essays: the EDSITEment-reviewed Mark Twain in His Times , which contains dozens of contemporary reviews of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn .
• If appropriate or helpful, bookmark on computers students may be using the sites for literary essays and historical timelines.

a. The Time Line of African-American History, 1852–1925 , which is part of the EDSITEment-reviewed Library of Congress American Memory Collection. b. The National Women's History Project's A Timeline of the Women's Rights Movement 1848–1998 , a link on the EDSITEment-reviewed History Matters site. c. A Brief Timeline of American Literature, Music and Movies, 1890–1929 , a link also on the History Matters site. d.  Harlem 1900–1940: Timeline , a timeline from the EDSITEment-reviewed Harlem 1900–1940: An African American Community . e. Mark Twain in His Times: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Contemporary Reviews , on the EDSITEment-reviewed Mark Twain in His Times .

• This assignment asks students to refer to several Internet sources. You may want to review your expectations for citing sources and providing proof before the unit begins, or link to a page that gives guidelines for electronic citations, such as this one from Purdue University . It may also be helpful for students to see a rubric for their assessment early in the assignment.
• Determine whether the cultural context of your classroom, most notably the school system and parental preferences, make it prudent for you to require parental permission before students explore this morally and racially challenging text.

Activity 1. Student critique

After reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn , students write a short (200 to 400-word) critique, either of the novel in general or of a specific aspect of the novel. [See PDF file , Introduction to Literary Criticism and Analysis for guidance on writing a critique]

• Rationale: This will sharpen students’ familiarity with the book and with their own opinions of it. It will also help them to analyze other critics' work if they have engaged in the same kind of endeavor, and it will provide a later body of evidence in which they can detect their own biases and cultural influences.
• Planning/Rubric: As you design your instructions for the critique assignment, consider whether you wish students to use "I" in expressing their opinions, and consider the requirements you will give them for providing evidence for their positions. The student-written critique can be useful for this unit whether it is informal and emphasizes students' feelings or more formal and requires substantial evidence from the novel to support those feelings.

Activity 2. Comparing and contrasting two reviews of Huckleberry Finn

Students then compare and contrast the ideas in two published critiques or reviews of the novel, ideally from two different authors and time periods, with their own opinions as expressed in their critiques.

• Resources: A comprehensive sources for criticism of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is the EDSITEment-reviewed Mark Twain in His Times, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Contemporary Reviews .
• Rationale: Considering their own ideas in the same way that they consider those of published critics will help students understand that all writers about a book are readers, and all individual readers notice and evaluate aspects of a text differently.
• Planning: a. Consider whether you want to limit the number of critical essays students can choose from. You may also consider other ways of structuring students' choices: for example, do you want them to pick two reviews that disagree on similar issues? While the unit's goal of exposing students to a variety of cultural contexts is reinforced when students choose critical essays from different eras, you may also consider limiting students' choices to the same time period or issue. b. Consider how you want students to report their findings. Is a simple "Similarities and Differences" chart acceptable? Do you want them to write up their findings in paragraph form? Because the unit requires students to write several texts, a chart might be welcome at this stage.

Activity 3. The cultural context of each Huckleberry Finn reviewer

Students will then explore the cultural context of each critic whose work they are analyzing. They will look at contemporary historical events and social practices during the critic's life, governing such realms as race, gender, age and class-based roles in society.

• Resources: The following EDSITEment-reviewed websites provide diverse information that will help students gain a sense of historical influences and social practices that may influence critics:

a. The Time Line of African-American History, 1852-1925 , from the EDSITEment-reviewed American Memory Collection. b. The National Women's History Project's A Timeline of the Women's Rights Movement 1848-1998 , a link on the EDSITEment-reviewed History Matters site. c. Gonzaga University's A Brief Timeline of American Literature, Music and Movies, 1890-1929 , a link from History Matters . d. Harlem 1900-1940: Timeline , a timeline from the EDSITEment-reviewed Harlem 1900-1940: An African American Community . e. Duke University's Ad*Access site, a terrific look at popular culture through advertising, a link through History Matters .

• Other Resources:

a. Consider how your school's history or social studies department could provide other resources for students; this may be a good opportunity for interdisciplinary cooperation. b. As students find historical and social markers that may influence critics, it will be beneficial for them to note what did not happen or had not yet happened. This may influence their inferences in the next step. For example, how could the fact that the Civil Rights Movement did not happen until after Booker T. Washington's death explain some aspects of how Washington views Huckleberry Finn ?

• Rationale: This background search will help students grasp what cultural context is and will give them a scholarly foundation for the inferences they will make in the next activity.
• Planning: This is the most time-consuming aspect of the unit. You may consider having students work in pairs or groups. Depending on students' access to computers and other research materials outside of class or school, you may need to schedule ample class time with access to computers for students to complete this task. Students may also need quick training in determining which information is relevant to their project.

Activity 4. How do social and historical context influence each reviewer?

Students will reread the two published critical essays they compared earlier, and they will make inferences that answer the central question of the unit: How do the historical and social realities students found in their cultural context research seem to influence critics' views of Huckleberry Finn ?

• Rationale: This will form the core of the students' cultural criticism; through the inferences they make here and the evidence they provide for those inferences, students will identify the relationship between a wider culture and an individual's ideas.
• Planning: Depending on how adept students are at making inferences, some training in that process may be necessary. Consider ways to help students brainstorm lots of possible cause-effect relationships, and then focus their assertions on ones they can provide logic or evidence for. A mini-lesson that may be helpful might include showing students pictures from magazines or family photo albums, and then asking them to guess when the pictures were taken and what evidence they have for their guesses.

Activity 5. The student's cultural context

Finally, students will try to identify key elements of their own cultural contexts, compare their cultural contexts with those of the critics, and demonstrate how these influences appear in their own critiques of the novel.

• Rationale: This will reinforce the inference-making and evidence-providing activities involved in cultural criticism of the most difficult subject to analyze: ourselves.

You might consider before the unit begins how you want students to provide assessable evidence that they have successfully completed steps four and five. If the unit culminates in an essay, consider developing and distributing a rubric for it as students are finishing their cultural context research or refer to the one provided here . You may also consider whether you want students to perform separate assessments of their inferences about published critics' cultural contexts and their own, or whether these two sets of inferences should be combined in one assessment.

Students may go on to use these skills to re-examine Mark Twain as a writer who is also a reader of history and culture—someone who, just as students have just done, examines how historical and social realities affect individuals. They can do this by examining materials that show the difference between the America of Twain's childhood, which heavily influenced the characters and plot of the novel, and the America of the 1880s, which heavily influenced in complex ways Twain's attitude toward the world of his childhood and the tone of his book. A good starting place for analyzing the changes in Twain's understanding of the world, particularly the roles of African-Americans in it, is Shelly Fisher Fishkin's essay " Teaching Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ," part of the PBS website on Huckleberry Finn and linked to the Internet Public Library. While the essay is directed to teachers, it is accessible to sophisticated students who have juggled well this unit's overlapping lenses of their own views, critics' views, and the views seen through Huck's narrating perspective. Fishkin refers readers to some of Twain's later writings, which clarify the differences between the older Samuel Clemens' views and the young, fictional Huck Finn's views on race. This sophisticated exploration might help students navigate historical fiction by detecting the ideas of one era as they show up in a story about an earlier time period.

Selected EDSITEment Websites

• African-American Perspectives: Pamphlets from the Daniel A.P. Murray Collection: 1818–1907
• The Time Line of African-American History, 1852–1925
• A Brief Timeline of American Literature, Music and Movies, 1890–1929
• Living the Legacy: The Women's Rights Movement, 1848–1998
• A Timeline of the Women's Rights Movement 1848–1998
• Teaching Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
• Popular Culture Association and American Culture Association
• What Is Culture?
• Mark Twain in His Times: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Contemporary Reviews
• Mark Twain, The Lincoln of Our Literature: Lesson 1, Icon and Iconoclast

Materials & Media

Critical ways of seeing the adventures of huckleberry finn in context: introduction to literary criticism and analysis, critical ways of seeing the adventures of huckleberry finn in context: rubric, related on edsitement, american literary humor: mark twain, george harris, and nathaniel hawthorne, twain & american humor, american literature lessons — nineteenth century, a literary glossary for literature and language arts.

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The Critical response to Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn

Available online, at the library.

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Description

Creators/contributors, contents/summary.

• Early resonse
• Mark Twain in a dilemma - a victim of a joke he thinks the most unkindest cut of all
• Estes and Lauriat Lawsuit
• the Concord library Committee's banning of "Huckleberry Finn"
• the adventures of Huckleberry Finn attributed to William Ernest Henley
• "Huckleberry Finn", Brander Matthews
• "Huckleberry Finn"
• modern comic literature attributed to Andrew Lang
• Mark Twain, Thomas Sergeant Perry
• criticism 1930-1959
• "Huckleberry Finn" is fifty years old, yes
• but is he respectable?, Asa Don Dickinson
• books in general, Leslie Fiedler
• introduction by T.S. Eliot
• Mr. Eliot, Mr. Trilling, and Huckleberry Finn, Leo Marx
• criticism 1960-1985
• a sound heart and a deformed conscience, Henry Nash Smith
• the raft episode in Huckleberry Finn, Peter G. Beidler
• the form of freedom in adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Alan Trachtenberg
• the paradox of liberation in Huckleberry Finn, Neil Schmitz
• was Huckleberry Finn written?, Walter Blair
• the dialects in Huckleberry Finn, David Carkeet
• Mark Twain, Huck Finn, and Jacob Blivens - gilt-edged, tree-calf morality in the adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Harold H. Kolb, Jr
• the making of a humorist - the narrative strategy of Huckleberry Finn, Barry A. Marks
• Huckleberry Finn is a moral story, Robert Nadeau
• Huck finn is offensive, John H. Wallace
• "Sivilising" Huck Finn, Roger Sutton
• Reagan and Huck Finn - the Twain meet - the president defends the values of an American classic, Lawrence Feinberg
• Huckleberry Finn - literature or racist trash?
• centennial celebration
• Huck Finn - 100 years of Drun fool problem, Lou Willett Stanek
• Huck at 100, Leo Marx
• further adventures of Huckleberry Finn, David Heim
• a hard book to take, James M. Cox
• contemporary criticism
• run, nigger, run, Harold Beaver
• the recomposition of adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Forrest G. Robinson
• adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Tom Quirk
• Mark Twain and the fires of controversy - teaching racially-sensitive literature - or, "Say that "N" word and out you go, Jocelyn Chadwick-Joshua
• critical views on adaptations of Huckleberry Finn, Laurie Champion
• selected additional readings.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

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Chapter 5: Thesis Statements and Introductions

Effective thesis statements, an effective thesis statement:.

• identifies—or PREVIEWS—what you plan to argue, and it “telegraphs” how you plan to argue; that is, it communicates what particular support for your claim is going where in your essay
• the subject, or topic, of an essay might be World War II or Moby Dick; a thesis must then offer a way to understand the war or the novel
• not only grabs the interest of your reader, who now wants to see you support your unique interpretation, but also provides a focus for your argument, one to which every part of your paper refers in the development of your position
• keeps the writer centered on the matter at hand and reduces the risk of intellectual wandering

A simple equation for what a thesis might look like this:

What you plan to argue + How you plan to argue it = Thesis Specific Topic+ Attitude/Angle/Argument=Thesis

Steps To Write Effective Thesis Statement

• Choose a prompt or, if appropriate, select a topic: television violence and children
• What are the effects of television violence on children?
• Violence on television increases aggressive behavior in children.
• Avoid general phrasing and/or sweeping words such as “all” or “none” or “every”.
• Lead the reader toward the topic sentences (the subtopics needed to prove the thesis).
• While poor parenting and easy access to weapons may act as contributory factors, in fact when children are exposed to television violence they become less sensitive to the pain and suffering of others, are more fearful of the world around them, and are more likely to behave in aggressive or harmful ways toward others.

The Components of an Effective Thesis Statement

• You can’t just pluck a thesis out of thin air. Even if you have a terrific insight concerning a topic, it won’t be worth much unless you can logically and persuasively support it in the body of your essay. A thesis is the evolutionary result of a thinking process, not a miraculous creation. Formulating a thesis is not the first thing you do after reading an essay assignment .
• Substantial – Your thesis should be a claim for which it is easy to answer every reader’s question: “So what?”
• Supportable – A thesis must be a claim that you can prove with the evidence at hand (e.g., evidence from your texts or from your research). Your claim should not be outlandish, nor should it be mere personal opinion or preference (e.g., “Frederick Douglass is my favorite historical figure.”) It tackles a subject that could be adequately covered in the format of the project assigned.
• Precise – It is focused and specific. A strong thesis proves a point without discussing everything. It clearly asserts your own conclusion based on evidence. Note: Be flexible. It is perfectly okay to change your thesis!
• Arguable – It should be contestable, proposing an arguable point with which people could reasonably disagree.
• Relevant – If you are responding to an assignment, the thesis should answer the question your teacher has posed. In order to stay focused, pay attention to the task words in the assignment: summarize, argue, compare/contrast, etc.
• Aware of Counters – It anticipates and refutes the counter-arguments.

The best thesis statement is a balance of specific details and concise language. Your goal is to articulate an argument in detail without burdening the reader with too much information.

How do I know if my thesis is strong?

If there’s time, run it by your instructor or make an appointment at the Writing Center to get some feedback. Even if you do not have time to get advice elsewhere, you can do some thesis evaluation of your own. When reviewing your first draft and its working thesis, ask yourself the following:

• Do I answer the question ? This might seem obvious, but it’s worth asking. No matter how intriguing or dazzling, a thesis that doesn’t answer the question is not a good thesis! Re-reading the question prompt after constructing a working thesis can help you fix an argument that misses the focus of the question.
• If your thesis contains vague words like “good” or “successful,” see if you could be more specific: why is something “good”; what makes something “successful”?
• If your thesis simply states facts that no one would, or even could, disagree with, it’s possible that you are simply providing a summary, rather than making an argument.
• Is my thesis statement specific enough ?  Does my thesis pass the “how and why?” test? If a reader’s first response is “how?” or “why?” your thesis may be too open-ended and lack guidance for the reader. See what you can add to give the reader a better take on your position right from the beginning.
• Can my essay support my thesis specifically and without wandering ? If your thesis and the body of your essay do not seem to go together, one of them has to change. It’s o.k. to change your working thesis to reflect things you have figured out in the course of writing your paper. Remember, always reassess and revise your writing as necessary.
• Does my thesis statement adequately address the direction words of the prompt: summarize, argue, compare/contrast, analyze, discuss, etc. ?

Suppose you are taking a course on 19th-century America, and the instructor hands out the following essay assignment: Compare and contrast the reasons why the North and South fought the Civil War. You turn on the computer and type out the following:

The North and South fought the Civil War for many reasons, some of which were the same and some different.

This weak thesis restates the question without providing any additional information. You will expand on this new information in the body of the essay, but it is important that the reader know where you are heading. A reader of this weak thesis might think, “What reasons? How are they the same? How are they different?” Ask yourself these same questions and begin to compare Northern and Southern attitudes (perhaps you first think, “The South believed slavery was right, and the North thought slavery was wrong”). Now, push your comparison toward an interpretation—why did one side think slavery was right and the other side think it was wrong? You look again at the evidence, and you decide that you are going to argue that the North believed slavery was immoral while the South believed it upheld the Southern way of life. You write:

While both sides fought the Civil War over the issue of slavery, the North fought for moral reasons while the South fought to preserve its own institutions.

Now you have a working thesis! Included in this working thesis is a reason for the war and some idea of how the two sides disagreed over this reason. As you write the essay, you will probably begin to characterize these differences more precisely, and your working thesis may start to seem too vague. Maybe you decide that both sides fought for moral reasons, and that they just focused on different moral issues. You end up revising the working thesis into a final thesis that really captures the argument in your paper:

While both Northerners and Southerners believed they fought against tyranny and oppression, Northerners focused on the oppression of slaves while Southerners defended their own right to self-government.

Compare this to the original weak thesis. This final thesis presents a way of interpreting evidence that illuminates the significance of the question. Keep in mind that this is one of many possible interpretations of the Civil War—it is not the one and only right answer to the question . There isn’t one right answer; there are only strong and weak thesis statements and strong and weak uses of evidence.

Let’s look at another example. Suppose your literature professor hands out the following  assignment in a class on the American novel: Write an analysis of some aspect of Mark Twain’s novel Huckleberry Finn. “This will be easy,” you think. “I loved Huckleberry Finn!” You grab a pad of paper and write:

Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn is a great American novel.

Why is this thesis weak? Think about what the reader would expect from the essay that follows: you will most likely provide a general, appreciative summary of Twain’s novel. The question did not ask you to summarize; it asked you to analyze. Your professor is probably not interested in your opinion of the novel; instead, she wants you to think about why it’s such a great novel— what do Huck’s adventures tell us about life, about America, about coming of age, about race relations, etc.? First, the question asks you to pick an aspect of the novel that you think is important to its structure or meaning—for example, the role of storytelling, the contrasting scenes between the shore and the river, or the relationships between adults and children. Now you write:

In Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain develops a contrast between life on the river and life on the shore.

Here’s a working thesis with potential: you have highlighted an important aspect of the novel for investigation; however, it’s still not clear what your analysis will reveal. Your reader is intrigued, but is still thinking, “So what? What’s the point of this contrast? What does it signify?” Perhaps you are not sure yet, either. That’s fine—begin to work on comparing scenes from the book and see what you discover. Free write, make lists, jot down Huck’s actions and reactions. Eventually you will be able to clarify for yourself, and then for the reader, why this contrast matters. After examining the evidence and considering your own insights, you write:

Through its contrasting river and shore scenes, Twain’s Huckleberry Finn suggests that to find the true expression of American democratic ideals, one must leave “civilized” society and go back to nature.

This final thesis statement presents an interpretation of a literary work based on an analysis of its content. Of course, for the essay itself to be successful, you must now present evidence from the novel that will convince the reader of your interpretation.

Myths about Thesis Statements

• Every paper requires one . Assignments that ask you to write personal responses or to explore a subject don’t want you to seem to pre-judge the issues. Essays of literary interpretation often want you to be aware of many effects rather than seeming to box yourself into one view of the text.
• A thesis statement must come at the end of the first paragraph . This is a natural position for a statement of focus, but it’s not the only one. Some theses can be stated in the opening sentences of an essay; others need a paragraph or two of introduction; others can’t be fully formulated until the end.
• A thesis statement must be one sentence in length , no matter how many clauses it contains. Clear writing is more important than rules like these. Use two or three sentences if you need them. A complex argument may require a whole tightly-knit paragraph to make its initial statement of position.
• You can’t start writing an essay until you have a perfect thesis statement . It may be advisable to draft a hypothesis or tentative thesis statement near the start of a big project, but changing and refining a thesis is a main task of thinking your way through your ideas as you write a paper. And some essay projects need to explore the question in depth without being locked in before they can provide even a tentative answer.
• A thesis statement must give three points of support . It should indicate that the essay will explain and give evidence for its assertion, but points don’t need to come in any specific number.

Progressively Complex Thesis Statements

• Effective Thesis Statements. Provided by : Writing Guide Wikispaces. Located at : https://writingguide.wikispaces.com/Effective+Thesis+Statements . License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike

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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

by Mark Twain

Editor's Choice

What is a good thesis statement on Huck's personal growth in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ?

Quick answer:

characters: Huck Finn

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Who are the experts? Our certified Educators are real professors, teachers, and scholars who use their academic expertise to tackle your toughest questions. Educators go through a rigorous application process, and every answer they submit is reviewed by our in-house editorial team.

Teacher (K-12), Professional Writer

B.A. from Colby College M.A. from Middlebury College

Educator since 2019

Hannah earned her B.A.

While the previous two answers both offer thesis statements about the way Huck grows in his understanding of morality, I encourage you to think instead about the ways Huck doesn't grow in his views around slavery, the humanity of black people, and his own moral conduct.

While it's true that...

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Huck doesn't send the letter he writes notifying Miss Watson about Jim's whereabouts, it's worth considering if that single act makes Huck a morally changed person. When Tom Sawyer reenters the novel in the final ten chapters, he concocts an elaborate scheme to "help Jim escape" the Phelps'. This scheme entails putting Jim through a pretty miserable ordeal, including forcing him to share his living quarters with rats, spiders, and snakes. Despite all that Huck and Jim have shared together in their adventures on the raft, and in rebuttal of the argument that Huck now sees Jim as "human," Huck has no problem subjecting Jim to the whims and absurd ideas of Tom Sawyer. Even worse, Huck still believes that Jim is a runaway slave, and every moment that Jim spends imprisoned in that hut puts Jim's life in even greater danger. Yet Huck gets swept up in the "fun" of the games he plays with Tom Sawyer, choosing this fun over helping a man keep his life.

In Jane Smiley's fantastic essay "Say It Ain't So, Huck: Second Thoughts on Mark Twain 's 'Masterpiece,'" Smiley contends,

Neither Huck nor Twain takes Jim's desire for freedom at all seriously; that is, they do not accord it the respect that a man's passion deserves. ... All the claims that are routinely made for the book's humanitarian power are, in the end, simply absurd. Jim is never autonomous, never has a vote, always finds his purposes subordinate to Huck's, and, like every good sidekick, he never minds.

Whether or not you agree with Smiley's argument, it's worth acknowledging that perhaps Huck isn't the "morally righteous" boy at the novel's end that literary history likes to claim. Perhaps Huck is just as passive, and just as much of a follower, as he is in the beginning of the novel when he joins Tom Sawyer's "gang." And, rather than grapple with the morality of slavery and his own racism, Huck, at the end of the novel, "lights out for the west," abandoning his moral uncertainty in favor of more exciting adventures.

A strong thesis statement, thus, might contend the following:

While critics and readers conventionally read Twain's Adventures of Huck Finn as the story of a young boy's moral growth in the antebellum American South, the novel may conversely be seen as one of the earliest examples of America's inability to confront its racist history, for its young protagonist ultimately avoids taking a principled stand about Jim's humanity.

Further Reading

• http://www.en.utexas.edu/Classes/Bremen/e316k/316kprivate...

Cite this page as follows:

Wentworth, Joann. "What is a good thesis statement on Huck's personal growth in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ?" edited by eNotes Editorial, 24 Feb. 2020, https://www.enotes.com/topics/adventures-of-huckleberry-finn/questions/what-good-thesis-statement-how-huck-grows-person-300550.

College Lecturer, Professional Writer

M.A. from Earlham School of Religion

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14,730 answers

Reynolds has taught for more than ten years at the university level.

One of the chief ways Huck grows is in learning to think for himself morally.

When Huck embarks on his raft adventure with Jim, he primarily welcomes him as a safeguard against loneliness. Huck may be leaving his society, but he doesn't question the moral values of the Old South. He accepts white supremacy.

As time goes on, however, Huck experiences Jim's full humanity. Jim is loyal, Jim is a loving father, and Jim has often gone above and beyond in caring for Huck. In the end, although his society tells him that the morally right thing to do is to turn Jim in as an escaped slave, Huck uses his own moral reasoning and moral compass to determine what to do. He shows his maturity by valuing his relationship with Jim and Jim's humanity over the moral code he has been taught that tells him Jim is chiefly a piece of property. Unbeknownst to himself, Huck displays moral greatness when he reasons that even if it means he will go to hell, he won't betray Jim. He is willing to sacrifice even his soul to help a person he by now truly loves.

A good thesis statement might be that in Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn , Huck grows as a person and achieves moral greatness in his willingness to protect and sacrifice himself for Jim.

Reynolds, D.. "What is a good thesis statement on Huck's personal growth in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ?" edited by eNotes Editorial, 17 Oct. 2018, https://www.enotes.com/topics/adventures-of-huckleberry-finn/questions/what-good-thesis-statement-how-huck-grows-person-300550.

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B.A. from Swarthmore College

Educator since 2012

3,630 answers

Writer and educator with an MA in the study of English Literature.

Huck learns to decide for himself in various situations the right thing to do.

One of the central themes of the novel and of Huck's development relates to the notion of conscience. Huck is challenged to come to terms with society's moral code and/or balance it with his own native sense of morality. 

Huck faces a dilemma with Jim that characterizes his larger moral conflict when he has to decide which side to choose - to agree with society, write a letter to Miss Watson and abandon Jim to captivity or to follow his own conscience, help Jim escape, and accept condemnation for his transgressive act. 

Although Huck feels that helping Jim escape is the morally necessary act, he also believes that society will see him as a criminal. For Huck, being an abolitionist is identical with being a criminal, aiding in the theft of property. 

Huck's development is largely effected by his growth toward independence in his moral thinking. As he develops, Huck becomes increasingly capable making up his own mind about what is right and what is wrong.

Bergman, Bruce. "What is a good thesis statement on Huck's personal growth in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ?" edited by eNotes Editorial, 15 Feb. 2013, https://www.enotes.com/topics/adventures-of-huckleberry-finn/questions/what-good-thesis-statement-how-huck-grows-person-300550.

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