Essay about Response To Smileys Critique of Huckleberry...

Smiley has missed the point of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and has depressed the book to a fractions of its ideas. She sees the book as a failed social commentary on racism and enabling the reader to avoid responsibility. A Short sighted sentiment from Mrs. Smiley, but Mark Twain has a light directed elsewhere. He lights out the territory of social improvements by vexing the reader to view from different vantage points. Huckleberry Finn deals with the issue of racism. Racism, however, is only a single scourge of society. The book is suggesting social change in any form it may take (and it takes quite a few). Racism is only a readily available example that people where already taking notice of, easy pickings for mister†¦show more content†¦While Twains book was rubbing Mrs. Smiley the wrong way, she grew critical of American Literature all together. She pondered about the definition of American Literature and concluded that â€Å"we have lost the subject of how various groups who may not escape to the wilderness are to get along in society†. This notion, valid as it may be, is in the end a moot point. It is just not possible for a vast majority of the people to escape to the wilderness due to the various social relations that reside. Few of us can be in Hucks situation, to not have a family or a place to call home, a rather lonesome position, but an advantageous one for sailing down the Mississippi. Huck is lucky to have a friend such as Jim to sail along side him, because the trip could have been a quite deal more lonesome. Escaping to the wilderness can be just as unattractive as being restricted by society. Like Huck dashing towards the towns and fleeing straight back to the river, we always dream of the opposite of what we already have, but never truly reaching an equilibrium. What, then, is even the point of romantic freedom if it but an illusion? We can take the alluring aspects from the illusion and learn from them. It isnt the illusion that we want, for it has its own problems like an angry town victim to a scam or a wreckage filled with robbers, but the thought experiments from it which brings us a step closer to a perfect world.