scholarly journals Huckleberry Finn’s Conscience: Reckoning with the Evasion

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 485-508
Author(s):  
Steve Clarke
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Race Relations ◽  
Final Part ◽  
Moral Deliberation ◽  
Literary Scholarship ◽  
Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Civil War ◽  
Moral Guidance ◽  
Huckleberry Finn

Abstract Huck Finn’s struggles with his conscience, as depicted in Mark Twain’s famous novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (AHF) (1884), have been much discussed by philosophers; and various philosophical lessons have been extracted from Twain’s depiction of those struggles. Two of these philosophers stand out, in terms of influence: Jonathan Bennett and Nomy Arpaly. Here I argue that the lessons that Bennett and Arpaly draw are not supported by a careful reading of AHF. This becomes particularly apparent when we consider the final part of the book, commonly referred to, by literary scholars, as ‘the evasion’. During the evasion Huck behaves in ways that are extremely difficult to reconcile with the interpretations of AHF offered by Bennett and Arpaly. I extract a different philosophical lesson from AHF than either Bennett or Arpaly, which makes sense of the presence of the evasion in AHF. This lesson concerns the importance of conscious moral deliberation for moral guidance and for overcoming wrongful moral assumptions. I rely on an interpretation of AHF that is influential in literary scholarship. On it the evasion is understood as an allegory about US race relations during the 20-year period from the end of the US Civil War to the publication of AHF.

Women, the Civil War, and Reconstruction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannah Rosen
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Postwar Period ◽  
Native American Women ◽  
Black And White ◽  
The Us ◽  
Women's Lives ◽  
Class Hierarchies ◽  
Us Civil War

The rapid transformations brought on by the US Civil War and its aftermath touched women’s lives in contradictory ways. The disruption caused by war and the destruction of slavery opened up space, and at times created the necessity, for radically new roles for women that challenged antebellum gender norms and racial and class hierarchies. This essay examines the wartime and postwar experiences primarily of black and white but also Native American women. In this period, many women faced new circumstances that inspired them to confront power in novel ways—by, for instance, fleeing slavery, petitioning governors, organizing bread riots, participating in political parades, or protesting segregation. The chapter also explores political violence in the postwar period that affected women differently across class, race, and region and that eventually helped to shut down the radical potential of the era.

scholarly journals Translating national history for children: a case study of a classic

2018 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-116
Author(s):  
B.J. Epstein
Keyword(s):  
Race Relations ◽  
Adult Readers ◽  
National History ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn ◽  
Black Characters ◽  
History Of ◽  
Child Readers ◽  
Huckleberry Finn

Mark Twain’s classic novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is arguably about the history of theUnited States in terms of slavery and race relations. How, then, can this be translated to another language and culture, especially one with a very different background in regard to minorities? And in particular, how can this be translated for children, who have less knowledge about history and slavery than adult readers? In this essay, I analyse how Twain’s novel has been translated to Swedish. I study 15 translations. Surprisingly, I find that instead of retaining Twain’s even-handed portrayal of the two races and his acceptance of a wide variety of types of Americans, Swedish translators tend to emphasise the foreignness, otherness, and lack of education of the black characters. In other words, although the American setting is kept, the translators nevertheless give Swedish readers a very different understanding of theUnited Statesand slavery than that which Twain strove to give his American readers. This may reflect the differences in immigration and cultural makeup inSwedenversus inAmerica, but it radically changes the book as well as child readers’ understanding of what makes a nation.

scholarly journals Intergenerational transmission of paternal trauma among US Civil War ex-POWs

2018 ◽  
Vol 115 (44) ◽  
pp. 11215-11220 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dora L. Costa ◽  
Noelle Yetter ◽  
Heather DeSomer
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Maternal Nutrition ◽  
Prisoner Of War ◽  
Cultural Effects ◽  
The Us ◽  
Before And After ◽  
In Captivity ◽  
Us Civil War ◽  
Rule Out

We study whether paternal trauma is transmitted to the children of survivors of Confederate prisoner of war (POW) camps during the US Civil War (1861–1865) to affect their longevity at older ages, the mechanisms behind this transmission, and the reversibility of this transmission. We examine children born after the war who survived to age 45, comparing children whose fathers were non-POW veterans and ex-POWs imprisoned in very different camp conditions. We also compare children born before and after the war within the same family by paternal ex-POW status. The sons of ex-POWs imprisoned when camp conditions were at their worst were 1.11 times more likely to die than the sons of non-POWs and 1.09 times more likely to die than the sons of ex-POWs when camp conditions were better. Paternal ex-POW status had no impact on daughters. Among sons born in the fourth quarter, when maternal in utero nutrition was adequate, there was no impact of paternal ex-POW status. In contrast, among sons born in the second quarter, when maternal nutrition was inadequate, the sons of ex-POWs who experienced severe hardship were 1.2 times more likely to die than the sons of non-POWs and ex-POWs who fared better in captivity. Socioeconomic effects, family structure, father-specific survival traits, and maternal effects, including quality of paternal marriages, cannot explain our findings. While we cannot rule out fully psychological or cultural effects, our findings are most consistent with an epigenetic explanation.

The U.S. Civil War: A Very Short Introduction

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louis P. Masur
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
American History ◽  
Short Introduction ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Civil War ◽  
Government Authority ◽  
The U.S

The US Civil War: A Very Short Introduction covers a period in American history characterized by decades of intensifying conflict over slavery and government authority, culminating in Abraham Lincoln’s election and eleven states seceding from the Union. The Civil War began as a limited conflict with the aim of restoring the Union. It became a diffuse, violent war that lasted four years, claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, and ultimately led to the abolition of slavery and a vigorous debate over the terms by which the seceded states would be restored to the nation. This VSI ends with a chapter on the aftermath of the war and the remaking of America.

The US Civil War: Looking across the Southern Border

2020 ◽  
Vol 66 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-180
Author(s):  
Erika Pani
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
The Us ◽  
Southern Border ◽  
Us Civil War

scholarly journals The restoration of the gold standard after the US Civil War: A volatility analysis

2014 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 37-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Max Meulemann ◽  
Martin Uebele ◽  
Bernd Wilfling
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Gold Standard ◽  
The Us ◽  
Volatility Analysis ◽  
Us Civil War

scholarly journals US CIVIL WAR MENURUT FORREST CARTER

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 116
Author(s):  
Suryo Sudiro ◽  
Sayit Abdul Karim ◽  
Juhansar Juhansar
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
Us Army ◽  
Political Interests ◽  
The Us ◽  
Women And Children ◽  
History Books ◽  
Us Civil War

A novel may reflect the political interests and actions of the author. The author can make a story that is purposed to alter common consciousness. This article uses historicism as an interpretation theory. Historicism is used to avoid careless interpretation. With historicism, the story written in the novel is matched with historical events written in some history books. Forrest Carter writes a lot about US Civil War. He, in purpose, does not write about slavery that is commonly read as the cause of the US Civil War. He writes a lot about the murder of women and children by the northern US army soldiers in southern districts. He also writes a lot about the cooperation of his white character with a Cherokee. Above all written by Forrest Carter, the influence of his life and his political interests are seen. 

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