Don Quixote And The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn

DON QUIXOTE AND THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN

"He said if I warn't so ignorant, but had read a book called "Don Quixote," I would know without asking."
Don Quixote has been said to be the father of the European and American novel. Before Don Quixote long fiction came in verse form, like The Iliad, The Aeneid, and the medieval romances. Don Quixote is not just a novel, it is a picaresque novel. A picaro is Spanish for a rogue, a tramp, a vagabond. The central figure in a picaresque novel is not a hero but the opposite of a conventional hero, an anti-hero. The Don is an anti-hero: an old knight instead of a young one. He is poor. He reads every book there is on knighthood and makes a fool of himself trying to live his life in imitation of the heros in those books. His companion is not a noble squire but a simple peasant, Sancho Panza. Sancho is the opposite of the Don. He is a realist. He hasn't read any books. The Don's adventures are absurd, lower-class parodies of the adventures of the nobility in the medieval romances. His "fair lady" is a crude prostitute. Perhaps you've read the Don Quixote or seen the Broadway musical version of the story, Man of LaMancha.
Huck Finn is Mark Twain's joyous and inverted take-off on Don Quixote. Tom Sawyer, the secondary character, is the one who reads all the books and tries to make life imitate the books. He is all romantic imagination, as the Don is, and has little interest in reality. Huck, the realist, is the central figure. And he is like Sancho Panza. Huck tries to follow Tom, but in failing to do so, he illustrates the silliness of Tom's romantic nonsense and underlines his own good sense. Tom is middle class and conventional. Huck is an outcast, worse than an orphan, but very clever and very thoughtful. He is full of common sense.
Literary Allusion
The relationship between Don Quixote and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a perfect example of the way literature is created; that is, it is always created in some relation to literature that has already been written, in response to it, in reaction to it, in commentary on it, in elaboration of it.
The Bible is the collected literature of the ancient Jews–a collection of many different writings composed by many authors over many centuries: poetry, narratives, rules for living, law, etc. The poetry refers to the stories. The stories incorporate the laws. Everything is related to everything else. In this way the Bible is a kind of model for all literature. A work of literature is rarely, if ever, written in isolation from the literary tradition of which it is almost inevitably conscious. It takes its place in the body of literature to which it adds itself.
Mark Twain was thinking of Don Quixote as he wrote Huck Finn. When Tom mentions Don Quixote, Twain creates the best kind of literary allusion. Twain isn't showing off, proving that he's read Don Quixote. He is using Don Quixote to throw a special light on Huck Finn. If you've read Don Quixote, and you read what Tom says to Huck in the passage at the head of this piece, it changes, it illuminates your reading of Huck Finn. You see the two central figures, Tom and Huck, as counterparts of the Don and Sancho, only you seem them reversed, so that Huck, who has the characteristics of Sancho, is the central figure; and Tom, who has the romantic characteristics of the Don, is secondary. That's what literary allusion is all about, throwing a light on the literature that uses it.

1.  How are the characters Don Quixote and Huck Finn compared in this excerpt?

2.For what reason does Twain use Don Quixote as a literary allusion in his novel?

Notes on The Picaresque Novel and Realism

Picaresque

-  Began when?

o  Example?

-  Includes what from where?

-  What kind of protagonist is featured?

-  How do these protagonists survive?

-  What kind of conflict does the hero face?

-  What is the purpose of the supporting characters?

-  What does the picaresque novel emphasize?

-  What are some different modes of discourse enabled by the picaresque novel?

-  How is the picaresque novel put together?

Realism

-  What does realism faithfully represent?

-  What is realism a reaction against?

-  What is realism closely linked to?

-  What is detailed in depth?

-  Character is more important than what?

-  What is often emphasized?

-  Realism avoids what?

-  What kind of diction is used in realism?

-  What kinds of tone are in realism?