Thoughts of a Cynical Bastard

Assigned Text: Scott, Kevin Michael '''There's More Honor': Reinterpreting Tom and the Evasion in Huckleberry Finn''

When Leo Marx, in 1953, published his landmark essay, "Mr. Eliot, Mr. Trilling, and Huckleberry Finn," he could not have anticipated the avalanche of scholarly reactions to his critique that would proliferate during the next fifty years and that would help make Adventures of Huckleberry Finn the most controversial book in American literature. Marx's essay attempted to undercut existing defenses of the ending of Huckleberry Finn by describing that part of the text as an evasion, on the author's part, of the moral responsibilities created by the experiences Huck and Jim share on the river. According to Marx, to avoid the pain of the ending that would logically have developed (presumably, Huck hanged and Jim sold down the river), Twain has Tom Sawyer re-enter the narrative and assume command. Tom, a representative of romanticized Southern society, is responsible for subjugating Huck and subjecting Jim to farcically inhumane treatment. It is an ending, Marx argues, that betrays Huck and Jim and exposes Twain's "glaring lapse of moral imagination" (435).

I know it's not the writer of this particular essay saying this, but I have to do disagree here.

I, as a learned scholar and future author know that What Clemens did was not write the ending to appease people--what he did was write to help himself get out of a tough spot. I highly doubt that if the book would have ended with Huckleberry Finn being hung and Jim sold down the river, it would be as successful as it is today.