American Literature II First Written Assignment (03-18-12).

Joseph Melanson

American Lit II

Prof. McAllister

19 February 2012

First Written Assignment

1). How can The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn be understood as a tale of Huck's personal moral development?

           Huck overcomes all kinds of obstacles that would keep him as much a slave in his own community, in his own reality, as much as Jim, who was an actual slave in these times. Huck escapes all kinds of prisons of life; the indoctrination of hypocrisy by the Widow Douglas and her sister Miss Watson, his backwards and brutalizing father, one that wants to drag him down to his own level of savagery, friends who are more likely to end up hurt or imprisoned if they were to carry through with their plans, and a greater society of people who do what they see is just despite the harm they cause. Huck does not succumb to trying to fit in, at least not with people that do not match his own sense of morality. Huck adapts to all the people he meets, but he always chooses to rise above them.  

           Traveling with Jim through various places, and through various circumstances, Huck sees how his civilized, “white society” treats Jim based solely on his race. Getting to know Jim personally on their travels changes how Huck sees his own society, and his place within it. Through his own sense of alienation, he becomes so full of conviction in his belief that he is willing to go to hell for doing what he feels is just and moral, rather than what society tells Huck is just and moral.

3). How does Crane's story, "Maggie: A Girl of the Streets" work to create a compassionate response to the main character?

            Crane starts the story by following Maggie’s eldest brother Jimmie through his typical routine of fist fights and gang warfare in the streets of the slum. 

            “A very little boy stood upon a heap of gravel for the honor of Rum Alley. He was throwing stones at howling urchins from Devil’s Row who were circling madly about the heap and pelting him” (Crane 706).

            This introduction provides the typical savagery to be found in the streets and back alleys of the slum where Maggie lives. Other descriptors like Devil’s Row for the name of the rival gang, and the reference to the building which “quivered and creaked from the weight of humanity stamping about in its bowels” gives the reader the impression that this environment is not anywhere near paradise.

            She is in charge of her baby brother Tommie, who she drags around in her travels around the slums. This child was probably her only companion in an environment which consisted of debris “in all unhandy places”, where infants, “played or fought” or “sat stupidly in the way of vehicles” (Crane 709).
            “Formidable women”, disheveled, role models of what Maggie is expected to become, gossip or scream in “frantic quarrels” (Crane 709). Drug addicts and alcoholics sit “smoking pipes in obscure corners” (Crane 709). Crane informs the reader that Maggie is surrounded by shady and violent people.

            The father and mother are alcoholics, who fight and beat the children without remorse. The father displays his lack of concern for the children.
            “Let the damned kid alone for a minute, will yeh, Mary? Yer allus poundin’ ‘im. When I come nights I can’t git no rest ‘cause yer allus poundin’ a kid. Let up, d’yeh hear? Don’t be allus poundin’ a kid” (Crane 710).

            Through the words of the father Crane lets us know by not referencing either Jimmie or Maggie specifically, that both of them are often the target of their mother’s instability, probably the toddler Tommie as well.

            Maggie goes on to suffer physical and emotional abuse from her family for a number of years, gets a job doing mindless manual labor, and probably foreseeing this as what she would doing for the rest of her life. When Pete comes, she has no knowledge of the outside world, how men really are. When she is offered the chance of escape from the misery of her family, she leaps. Only this time its into the arms of someone who will abuse her like everyone else.

5). What is Edna's greatest strength? Did you find her an admirable character?

            Edna is a free spirit, a person who wants to live as she sees fit, and not allow herself to be limited to what the society of her time says is permissible for her gender. She pursues a man that she is interested in, going against the social norms of the time, which even intimidates the object of her desire, Robert. She loves her children and her husband Leonce, but it is a marriage of convenience, and not a true love of the heart. The couple has an understanding that both can do as they please. He can go off to his own pursuits, whether it is spending time at the club on the island, or going off to the city for his own adventures. It is an empty marriage and Edna is getting tired of merely going through the motions of life.

            “He reproached his wife with her inattention, her habitual neglect of the children, If it was not a mother’s place to look after children, whose on earth was it?” (Chopin 544). This statement not only summarized her husband’s confining position, but also was the predominant philosophy of the day towards the extent with which women may live their lives.

            She is unable to live this unnatural, repressed way of living, and pursues her desire for Robert without shame. When he leaves, she chooses to end her life by drowning herself, rather than succumbing to the slow suffocation and strangulation within the life she knows she will never escape other wise. I find her an admirable character, a person who can live only as she sees fit, rather than a life of only being in servitude and a convenience to others.

“The artist must possess the courageous soul that dares and defies” (Chopin 627).

Works Cited:

Chopin, Kate. “The Awakening”. Perkins and Perkins 540-627.

Crane, Stephen. “Maggie: A Girl of the Streets”. Perkins and Perkins 706-747.

Perkins, George, and Barbara Perkins, eds. The American Tradition in Literature.

 12^th ed. Ed. Vol. 2. New York: McGraw Hill, 2009. Print.

Twain, Mark “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” Perkins and Perkins 154-327.