Abstract

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, written by Mark Twain, mainly tells an adventurous story about the two main characters Huck and Jim. They escape from the civilized society and experience a series of adventures together on the Mississippi River in order to pursue their self, freedom and independence. This thesis aims to study the unique American flavor of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by analyzing its artistic features, including the unique characterization, the unique plot and the unique usage of language. Mark Twain successfully creates the unique character with typical American characteristics, presents readers a series of unique plots full of American flavor, and uses a humorous and satirical writing style, all of which are the reasons why the novel is so popular in the world.

Key words: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain, artistic features, American flavor

摘要

马克•吐温的小说《哈克贝利•费恩历险记》主要讲述了主人公哈克和杰姆为了追寻自我、自由和独立，逃离文明世界并在密西西比河上经历了一系列冒险的故事。本论文旨在通过分析《哈克贝利•费恩历险记》的艺术特色，主要包括独特的人物塑造、独特的故事情节和独特的语言运用，来研究该小说蕴含的独特的美国风味。正是由于马克•吐温在该小说中运用了一系列带有浓郁美国特色的艺术手法，成功地塑造了具有美国人特性的经典形象，巧妙地设计了使美国人产生共鸣的独特情节并采用独特的语言表现手法，才使得这部小说在美国广受欢迎，而且历久不衰。

关键词：《哈克贝利•费恩历险记》；马克•吐温；艺术特色；美国风味

1.    Introduction
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910), who was better known by his pen name ── Mark Twain, was born in the hamlet of Florida, Missouri, in 1835. He grew up in the Mississippi River town of Hannibal, Missouri which later becomes the symbolic background of lots of his works. When he was 11 years old, his father died, he had to drop out of school and go out to apprentice with others. He did a lot of jobs in his whole life, like a typesetter, sailor on the Mississippi River, soldier and journalist; he also ran a lumber industry, mining and publishing industry, all of which later became the sources of his writing inspiration. In the 1890s, Twain went bankrupt in the failure of his own publishing firm. In order to recover from the bankruptcy, he started a world lecture tour. He toured a lot of places, like New Zealand, Australia, India, and South Africa. At his later years, as his wife and daughters died one by one, Twain reached the low point of his life and became more and more disappointed at the world. Thus his writing style is also changed from humor to bitter satire. Twain died on April 21, 1910.