This entry is a response to a scholarly article about Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
Bennett wrote an interesting article about the irony of Huck Finn's actions in running away.
One point Bennett makes is that Jackson Island, this "virgin" land Huck first settles on, parallels the puritans settling in American and Columbus setting a little farther south. But the land isn't really "virgin." For Columbus and the Puritans, the Native Americans already inhabited the Americas. For Huck Finn, the remains of a fire that he finds is a sign that someone else lives on this same island with him.
Bennett also makes another interesting connection to "Robinson Coruso." Like Robinson, Huck cannot form his own new world and life without materials and good from his former life. Although Huck finds the raft and canoe, he finds them washed down the river, formerly used by someone else, and formerly part of the world which Huck is trying to leave behind. Obviously, Huck can never truly leave the old world behind as long as he relies on it.
MLA Citation
Kravitz, Bennett. "Reinventing the World and Reinventing the Self in Huck Finn." Papers on Language and
Literature: A Journal for Scholars and Critics of Language and Literature 40.1 (2004): 3-27. Print.
Read on through the link for more information!
Good work, Partick. This is a good example of a peer-reviewed article, and your summary shows you have followed its main points. Twain was writing during the era that would later be romanticized, with elements of The Old South and The Old West. It is interesting to see how the the Crusoe narrative and the Puritan founding narratives are reflected in this story.