The 1880s

The 1880s were a productive decade for Twain as four of his books—The Prince and the Pauper (1881), Life on the Mississippi (1883), Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889)—were published. Huckleberry Finn is replete with religious themes. During the 1880s, Twain promoted social reform through his writing, speaking, and activities in Hartford and condemned racial discrimination. Although he did not share all their theological convictions, Twain applauded and supported the efforts of Social Gospelers to curb industrial ills, decrease poverty, and assist immigrants. Twain especially strove to improve politics, reduce racism, and improve the opportunities and status of women, and he denounced materialism, avarice, and fraudulent business practices.

STRUGGLE AGAINST HEGEMONY IN THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN AND THE KITE RUNNER

Novels The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn written by Mark Twain and The Kite Runner written by Khaled Hosseini have similarities in describing struggle against hegemony. The term of “hegemony” is related to a domination of dominant group to subordinate group through agreement. In addition, this hegemony can also include physical violence to strengthen the domination. Meanwhile the term “Struggle” means that there are also resistances against the hegemony. These two novels were analyzed by comparative literature theory by Susan Basnett and Antoni Gramsci’s theory about hegemony. Focus of this research is how the writers describe hegemony and counter hegemony in social environment through literary work. This research aims to describe hegemony from dominant group to subordinate group in several kinds such as culture, ideology, intellectual and moral leadership, and state. This research also describes about several resistances, such as active, passive, and humanistic resistance. The result of this research is that there are similarities and differences of hegemony and counter hegemony based on state of factor of American and Afghanistan. The similarities can be found in the struggle, such as passive and humanistic resistance. Meanwhile for the difference in hegemony, the novel The Kite Runner includes physical hegemony through war and assassination. For the difference in struggle, The Kite Runner provide an active resistance toward a dominant group.Keywords: Hegemony; Counter Hegemony; Comparative Literature

Racial slurs and perception of racism in Heart of Darkness

The aim of this paper is to investigate the effect of the racial slurs nigger and negro in Heart of Darkness on readers’ perception of dehumanisation, discrimination, and racism. It compares data collected through online questionnaires to test whether the absence or different frequencies of the slurs influence how participants perceive the fictional representation of the African people in the text. Three versions of the same questionnaire are used: one with unmodified passages from Heart of Darkness, one with the same passages but without the racial slurs, and one with the same passages but with more slurs than in the original. Findings show that the absence or overabundance of slurs compared to the original does not alter reader perception of dehumanisation, discrimination, and racism. By comparing the results, this paper makes two interconnected contributions. First, it contributes to the critical discussion about racism in Conrad’s novel, by providing evidence on whether the representation of the Africans is perceived as dehumanising, discriminatory, and racist by readers. Second, it offers an empirical perspective on the usefulness of the “sanitising” (removing or substituting of all racial slurs) of literary texts with potential racist implications, adopted by some publishing houses and applied to novels like Conrad’s The Nigger of the “Narcissus” and Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Psychological motivation of Jim as a runaway slave in Mark Twain�s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

�Adventures of Huckleberry Finn� is a great novel written in the nineteenth century by Mark Twain, the pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens. According to critics, this novel was written to criticise practices of slavery in the United States during his time, especially in states along the Mississippi river banks. This research aimed at explaining the hierarchy of needs of Jim and the motivations of his escape. The method used in this research was qualitative, with humans� hierarchy of needs by Abraham Maslow employed. The analysis showed that the needs of Jim were divided into three phases, i.e., the phase of Jim as a slave, the phase of Jim as a runaway slave, and the phase of Jim as a free man. The results showed that there were four reasons why Jim decided to escape from Mrs. Watson, his master, i.e., 1) the master�s anger at Jim, 2) Jim�s conscience about himself as the object for capital gain, 3) his freedom as a human, and 4) his own happiness. It is concluded from the research that as a slave, Jim feels that his life needs cannot be fulfilled even when he is already free as long as he can never be reunited with his wife and children, who he thinks will give happiness to him. Based on the theory of Maslow�s hierarchy of needs, Jim�s higher level of need is love-and-belonging need.�

The Unsivilized Figure as Cultural Hero of Artifice: Suassuna’s João Grilo and Twain’s Huck Finn

In their close ties to a folkloric past, and in a conscientious effort to dialogue with a far-reaching literary inheritance, the Brazilian Ariano Suassuna (1927-2014) and the U.S.’s Mark Twain (1835-1910) present regional protagonists who negotiate roles as heroes of artifice. As they feed off models of the Trickster and pícaro, an analysis based on cognitive and psychosocial theory reveals a João Grilo and Huck Finn that model valued skills as socioeconomically marginalized figures on the outskirts of civilization. In Auto da Compadecida (1955) and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), both Suassuna and Twain manage to highlight these skills by creating character duos that mimic the cognitive counterpointing between Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quijote and Sancho Panza.