Me Against the World

     Of all the articles that I read, I disagreed the most with the critique of Jane Smiley. Though her criticism was clear and coherent, and she made valid points against the novel, I felt that Jane  was mostly angry at Twain's novel  for not being Uncle Tom's Cabin and that she was wrong in her crititicm against Mark Twain.

Throughout  the whole article  Jane Smiley, on numerous occasions expressed anger at  Mark Twain's novel for what  I see as jealousy. It seemed to me that Smiley is angry at the praise or The novel's  "Canonization". She constantly criticized the novel for not exhibiting the same characteristics of another novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, of which she feels should be worthy of praise. Smiley says in quote that "The power of Uncle Tom's Cabin is the power of brilliant analysis married to great wisdom of feeling"(Smiley, 359). This quote exhibits just one of the few points in which Smiley expressed the feelings about Stowe's novel. Smiley also explains why Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin did not spawn American literature. Smiley states that the reason lied in Twain's novel and it's distracting properties. Personally agree with her that the Stowe's novel is brilliant and deserved praise however, I would have to say that Smiley needs to realize that the Twain's novel is not Stowe's novel and vice-versa.

I absolutely do not agree with smiley's criticsm of Twain. She criticizes Mark Twain by saying that "He knew how to give Huck a voice but didn't know how to give him a novel" (Smiley, 356). This statement is a blatant attack at his writing ability. I thoroughly disagree with the quote. To me Twain's novel is a masterpiece for one of two reasons. The first of the two is Twain's ability to capture the innocence of a child and through the child express his criticism of the society as a whole. Twain painted a picture of Huck's world and allowed Huck to grow and mature. Instead of accepting the social and religious conventions of his world, he went against them in his decision to help free Jim from captivity and Risk going to hell for it. It's easy for a mature adult to have the capacity to understand society and it's flaws but when a child begins to understand those concepts that are out of their realm of understanding it is absolutely brilliant. The latter of the two reasons why I see Mark Twain as an excellent writer lies in his ability to mix dialect and form to contribute to the function or theme of the novel. Twain's novel exhibited the idea of the archetypal hero's journey. The journey down the river with Jim resembled that of Conrad's novel. Twain used the river to symbolize freedom from the constraints of social conventions, and the journey to symbolize the inner growth of Huck. Both of these parts of the novel contribute to the themes of the novel. What's more is that these idea's are all expressed with humor, most of which was from the dialect. Because of these reasons again I feel that Smiley was wrong in her assessments of Twain and the brilliance of his novel