Abstract

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, narrated by the protagonist, Huck, depicts the southern society of the United States before the Civil War. As one of the classics of American initiation stories, this novel not only corresponds to features of initiation stories but also is heavily tinted with Mark Twain’s style. Therefore, this paper mainly inquires the characteristics of this novel as a unique initiation story of Mark Twain’s style from three aspects: how a white boy is manipulated as the major character; how the Mississippi River and the raft are taken as the site of initiation; and how the unique escape and epiphany are set as the plot line. Mark Twain's development of American initiation story not only helps convey the theme of racial equality in the novel and the social reality of America at that time, but also enriches the tradition of American initiation story.

Key words: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, initiation story, Mark Twain’s style

摘 要

《哈克贝利•费恩历险记》采用主人公哈克自述的形式，描述了内战前的美国南方社会。作为一部经典的美国成长小说，该小说不仅符合成长小说的特点，还具有浓重的马克•吐温式风格。作为一部具有独特的马克•吐温式风格的成长小说，该论文主要从三个方面探讨该小说的特点：白人男孩作为主人公；密西西比河、竹筏作为成长地点；独特的逃离、顿悟作为主线。马克•吐温发展了美国成长小说，这不仅有助于传达小说中种族平等的主题、揭示美国当时的社会现实，还丰富了美国成长小说的传统。

关键词：《哈克贝利•费恩历险记》；成长小说；马克•吐温式风格

1.    Introduction
Mark Twain, the pseudonym of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, is one of America’s first and foremost realists, humorists and social critic. Born on November 30, 1835, in the village of Florida, Missouri, but when he was four years old, his family moved to Hannibal, Missouri, a small town on the Mississippi. Unfortunately, he had to drop school and went to work in his brother’s print shop after his father died. At the age of eighteen he started out to see the world and led an adventurous youth, working successively as a printer’s apprentice, a tramp printer, a sliver miner, a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi, a frontier and so on.