Mark Twain's Writing Development:Gothicism In The Adventures Of Toym Sawyer And The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn

Mark Twain is a well-known American novelist,short story writer,humorist,critic and lecturer in the late 19th century and early 20th century.He is a leading writer of critical realism who combines humor,bitter irony and Gothic elements in his works.Among his literary works,The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn are the representative works in which extreme terror is felt in the Gothic elements.Gothicism is often adopted by writers to arouse the cognitive understanding of the dark side of society.Also,it is used to reveal the writers' anxiety concerning the collapse of traditional values.This thesis explores the development of Mark Twain's writing in the 1870s by analyzing the changes of Twain's use of Gothicism in the two novels.The thesis is divided into three parts.The first chapter discusses the change of the Gothic settings.In The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,the Gothic settings are traditional and conventional.In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,they are closely related with life and reality.The traditional Gothic settings of castles,churches,and graveyards dating to a feudal past are associated with barbarity,superstition,and even surrealism,while the seemingly more familiar settings of homes,cities,rivers and other places signal an uncanny type of fear,which arises suddenly from life and frightens the readers psychologically.In the second chapter,the distinctive Gothic plots in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn are explored.In The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,a typical "hero motif" plot is presented.Tom and Huck start their anti-villain journey after witnessing Injun Joe's digging Doctor Ransom's buried body and have a series of horrible experiences which ends with the death of Injun Joe as well as the discovery of his hidden treasures.The traditional "hero-motif" plot confirms more to the chivalry romance story,yet also relates to the early Gothic narratives,in which the patriarchal power is established by the presentation of defeated devil or enemy.While in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,the source of fear is found by Twain to be embedded in the self,with evil and cynicism existing in every villain and every seemingly good man,which greatly deepens Twain's criticism of society and(white)men.The third chapter looks into the different types of Gothic characters in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.In The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,the Gothic villain is the "Other"(Indians and African-Americans),while in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,the Gothic villain is a corrupted white man or a racist,which reveals Twain's changed attitude towards American Indians,African-Americans and Anglo-Saxon Whites.In conclusion,Gothic elements in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer are very different from those in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,which undergoes the similar change of Gothic narrative from early traditional Gothic writing to "uncanny" Gothicism closely related to life and reality.This important change reflects the development of Mark Twain's writing and humanity thinking in the 1870s.It also marks his deepened understanding of society and human nature.