Essay 4

Hey folks, here is the start of my 4th essay. It is still a bit short, but I am planning on making it longer, I just need a few more ideas, if you have any please let me know, the more the merrier. I love suggestions, and this essay has been a bit difficult for me, so any advice would be awesome.
Thanks for reading, and comment away!

-Courtney

Courtney Ryan
October 23, 2008
Lauren Servais
English 1A

Oh, Women of Huckleberry Finn

After reading the essay entitled A Response to Fredrick Crews , I began to understand Woodmanses point. In this essay Woodmanse’s begins by analyzing Crews` view of two other critics. Woodmanses` main point is that the meaning of any writing is up for debate, because when we read a text, we always bring our own experiences to the text and for this reason we can never fully understand a text from an unbiased perspective. While Crews` feels that the book is not sexist, I believe that it is, and I plan to challenge what Crews` has said. I will also discuss what Walker has said.

Woodmanse writes that anytime you look at writing through the lenses of gender analysis, this will also change a person’s view because they are more aware of that issue. They will then naturally notice it more when they have been taught to look for it. This is clear when she writes, “one of the major ‘empirical facts’ that Crews seems to ignore is the fact that texts very often have effects that are different from the purposes for which they were intended” (Woodmanse 518). In other words, an author can write something and mean a specific thing, while another may come along and translate the text in a way that is not how the other intended it to be.

Crews writes that “his assessment of two recent feminist considerations of Huckleberry Finn by calling for “empirical accountability in literary study (Crews 516). This means that he wants evidence that is testable using experimentation. In response to Crews, Woodmanse writes, “for Crews gender analysis of the novel is viable only when it proceeds empirically rather than aprioristically.” This means that Crews wants evidence that is testable using experiment and observation, rather then a belief that is based on prior reasoning or principles. He wants direct proof about what people are saying rather then just a thought. He wants aprioristic proof.

According to Dictionary.com, the definition of sexist is: “Discrimination based on gender, especially discrimination against women. The other is: Attitudes, conditions, or behaviors that promote stereotyping of social roles based on gender.” Now I am curious about what Crews would say when it says in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn when Huck writes, “But I warn`t comfortable long, because I happened to think of something. I knowed mighty well that a drowned man don’t float on his back, but on his face. So I knowed, then that this warn`t pa, but a women dressed up in man’s clothes.” This shows that Huck has ideas about how a women and man act about things that were not even related to the sex of a person.

According to Crews, “Jehlen has had to distort all manner of literary fact”. This means that Jehlen is messing with all literary fact to prove her point. I think that Jehlen`s main point is that when we look at literary work through the eyes of gender, we begin to be opened up to new ideas that we might have never thought about before. Woodmanse goes on to say there is an example of this when Jehlen discusses Judith Loftus. While discussing a scene, where she writes, “…the fact that the accepted definition of males and females in our culture are products of social conditioning rather than reflections of the way boys and girls “really are” (Jehlnen 517).

Looking at the text through Woodmanses point of view, gives us another perspective on the way this text is read. Woodmanse argues that with any text, we are always reading with our own opinion in mind. This seems to be true in regards to Crews. Crews` refuses to say that the book is sexist. An example of this is when Huck is at a funeral, “…and so everybody broke down and went to sobbing right out loud- the poor girls too; and every woman, nearly went up to the girls, without saying a word, and kissed them, solemn, on the forehead, and then put their hand on their head and looked up towards the sky, with the tears running down, and then busted out and went off sobbing and swabbing, and give the next woman a show. I never seen anything so disgusting.” Woodmanse would say that we always view text through our own lenses. Perhaps what her main point is that if we are told to look for something, or have had our eyes opened to a new idea, which will directly translate into how we see a text. This scene shows how Twain viewed woman and how they responded to the situation. It is upsetting to see the way that Twain portrays woman.

Walker is also able to see that women are stereotyped in Huckleberry Finn. Walher writes, “All three of these women who attempt to make Huck conform to society’s rules are derived from traditional stereotypes of women who may superficially be seen be seen as mother figures from the same societal mold…” An example of this appeared when our class watched a scene from the film, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. In this scene we see Huck with his family members, and they are sitting very quietly, and they appear to have become very withdrawn and seem to be trying to teach Huck to be like them. Yet Huck is a fourteen year old boy, so it seems a bit peculiar for them to be teaching Huck to be as sophiscated as they are.

One might argue that this is historical realism. Historical realism is the idea that the text is written to be historically accurate. If one is going to follow this idea, we also must look at the way many other aspects of this book are written. When we begin to see this book through lenses of historical realism, it becomes clear that Twain is indeed racist. At one point we see Huck say something along the lines of him realizing that it was now clear to him that Jim was indeed white inside.

Even though Crews` tries to say that the text is not sexist, I find it difficult to agree with this. Sexism is favoring one sex over another and it seems very clear through reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, that both sexes are not treated fairly, or accurately. Even if we consider historical realism, it still appears to not be a fair way to represent the variety of personalities that women have, even during this era. These women never appear to have enough personality to fully understand and become familiar with their character. I think that is very likely that Twain was aware of this, and that that was his intention.