Narrator in Mark Twains Huckleberry Finn Essay Example for Free

Narrator in Mark Twains Huckleberry Finn Essay Mark Twain chose Huck Finn to be the narrator to make the story more realistic and so that Mark Twain could get the reader to examine their own attitudes and beliefs by comparing themselves to Huck, a simple uneducated character. Twain was limited in expressing his thoughts by the fact that Huck Finn is a living, breathing person who is telling the story. Since the book is written in first person, Twain had to put himself in the place of a thirteen-year-old son of the town drunkard. He had to see life as Huck did and had to create a character that could see life as Mark Twain saw it. Huck is more than Twains mouthpiece because he is a living character and is capable of shaping the story. The language that Huck uses shows what he sees and how he will pass it on to us. Something else that is apparent is that the humor of the book often depends on Hucks language. In chapter fourteen, Huck is telling Jim about royalty in general which is an example of humor through language and incomplete education although sometimes he is not that far from the truth. They [royalty] dont do nothing! Why, how you talk! They just set around. No; is dat so? Of course it is. They just set aroundexcept, maybe, when theres a war; then they go to war. But other times they just lazy around; or go hawkingjust hawkingwhen things is dull, they fuss with the parlyment; and if everybody dont go just so he whacks their heads off. But mostly they hang round the harem. However, by using Hucks language Twain creates character and establishes realism. Huck is capable of making Twain write something merely because it is not the kind of thing Huck would say or do, and he can force Twain to leave something out because Huck would not do or say that kind of thing. Huck is essentially good-hearted, but he is looked down upon by the rest of the village. He dislikes civilized ways because they are too restrictive and  hard. He is generally ignorant of reading and writing, but he has a sharply developed sensibility. He is imaginative and clever, and has a good eye for detail, though he does not always understand everything he sees, or its significance. This enables Twain to make great use of irony. Huck is basically a realist. He knows only what he sees and experiences. He does not have a great deal of faith in things he reads or hears. He must experiment to find out what is true and what is not. With this kind of personality, Huck is able to believe Jims superstition at some times and to distrust others. He also see Huck as he is, the opposite of Tom Sawyer. He is as stated before, a realist, and generally a regular person except when he goes off on Toms adventures or when he follows Toms lead. He is not sivilizable. The end of the book makes this clear. He is where he was in the beginning: he left the Widows house, and he will leave Aunt Sallys. Something in society and civilization appalls Huck. Huck learns from Jim, who is in some ways his substitute father. He does not believe in Jims superstition until the superstition proves itself true. He mocks the snakeskin until the snakeskin does its work. Huck rises to Jims level by accepting Jims superstitions. Huck enters Jims primitive world which, though crude, is more honest and real than Miss Watsons world. He cannot go beyond this world. He wont pray because he has not had any benefits from prayer. Huck is involved in adventures and is continually bothered by his conscience. All during the trip down river, he tries to answer the question whether hes doing  right by the Widows sister and by Jim, or not. The obsession with justice  has him confused. Whatever he chooses to do, hes wrong. Hes wronging Jim if he returns him to slavery; hes wronging Miss Watson if he helps Jim escape. Huck has no way of knowing what is right. He must follow his feelings and the only thing he can do is to learn by experience. And he does. Using Huck Finn as the narrator of the book allowed Mark Twain to add more life, excitement, and realism in his writings. We can only think how good Mark Twain was at languages by how he writes. Twain created Huck, but soon Huck had his own personality and life and Mark Twain had to write with this character.

Instrumental Rationality and the Instrumental Doctrine :: Philosophy Philosophical Papers

Instrumental Rationality and the Instrumental Doctrine ABSTRACT: In opposition to the instrumental doctrine of rationality, I argue that the rationality of the end served by a strategy is a necessary condition of the rationality of the strategy itself: means to ends cannot be rational unless the ends are rational. First, I explore cases-involving ‘proximate’ ends (that is, ends whose achievement is instrumental to the pursuit of some more fundamental end) — where even instrumentalists must concede that the rationality of a strategy presupposes the rationality of the end it serves. Second, I draw attention to the counter-intuitive consequences — in cases involving ‘non-proximate’ ends — of substituting (allegedly more manageable) questions about de facto ends for questions about the rationality of ends. Third, I argue-against Nozick — that it is a mistake to suppose that the only question dividing instrumentalists from non-instrumentalists is whether the instrumental doctrine needs sup plementation. Finally, I try to show that questions about the rationality of ends need not be viewed as impossibly daunting. According to the instrumental doctrine of rationality in the version relevant to the argument of this paper, an action (decision, policy, strategy, etc.) is rational provided it is an effective and economical means to the achievement of some de facto objective. If we formulate the instrumentalist position in terms of the familiar doctrine of the practical syllogism, the crucial thesis is that the action which forms the conclusion of the syllogism is rational provided (1) the major premise identifies a de facto objective of the agent's, and (2) the minor premise shows the action to be an effective and economical means to the achievement of that objective. The typical noninstrumentalist position, by contrast, would be that for the action in the conclusion to be one it is rational for the agent to perform, it must serve an objective it is rational for the agent to pursue: the major premise must identify a rational objective of some sort, not simply an objective the agent happens to have . I. The Instrumental Doctrine and "Proximate" Ends One way of denting the instrumentalist position is to explore cases where the action said to be rational is an effective and economical means of enabling the agent to achieve an end he or she is pursuing only because its achievement is (held to be) indispensable to effective pursuit of some more fundamental objective. These are cases where the agent is pursuing (what we might call) a "proximate" end, an end which is thought to be worth pursuing only because its achievement is a means to effective pursuit of a more basic end.

Achievements of Alfred Hitchcock Essay

Alfred Hitchcock, born in 1899 in England, remains a prominent figure in the world of cinema. Hitchcock’s passion for film began in his childhood with his first job as writer of the title cards for silent films and, later on, becoming a director. Influenced by his Catholic upbringing, Hitchcock developed a sense of guilt and sin throughout his life with which he portrays in his work (Kehoe N. P. ). As the leading director in the 1930’s, Hitchcock set the standard for international intrigue with his classic thrillers. His mastery of suspense and his unprecedented technique still makes him one of the most popular and celebrated film directors of all time (Flint N. P. ). Alfred Hitchcock has numerous accomplishments; the most noteworthy being his films Vertigo (1958), Psycho (1960), and The Birds (1963). Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958) raises performance to such a personal level that it addresses the nature of human personality itself (Sterritt 113). The protagonist in the film is John â€Å"Scottie† Ferguson, a former police detective, who has been forced into early retirement due to vertigo and depression. Scottie is then hired as a private investigator to follow a woman, Madeleine Elster, who had been behaving peculiarly. Vertigo is a film that operates on emotions and negative feelings. Hitchcock’s use of â€Å"fade to black† illustrates his tendency to emphasize the film’s most emotionally meaningful moments with a touch of theatricality. This technique intensifies the otherworldliness that becomes Vertigo’s most significant quality (Sterritt 92). Vertigo has a clear association with insanity; Michel Foucault, a French social theorist, states that it â€Å"affords the delirious affirmation that the world is really ‘turning around,’† such delirium being â€Å"a necessary and sufficient reason for a disease to be called madness† (Sterritt 98). The repeated shot of Scottie’s troubled gaze into an abyss below solidifies the ingenuity and peculiarity of Vertigo (Sterritt 82). This shot provides a visual approximation of the psychological condition- extreme dizziness and disorientation- that is affecting Scottie. Hitchcock enhances the approach on point of view by providing information to the audience â€Å"through Scottie’s eyes† (Sterritt 83). Vertigo’s conclusion is unusual for its time because of its depiction of a neurotic hero, not a common feature in mainstream cinema (Sterritt 92). Alfred Hitchcock reached his artistic peak with his filming of Psycho (1960), which set a new level of acceptability for violence, deviant behavior and sexuality in American films (Flint N. P. ). The protagonist Marion Crane ends up at a secluded motel after embezzling money from her boss. She finds herself faced with the motel’s disturbed owner, Norman Bates. Hitchcock described the beginning of Psycho as a way of distracting the audience’s attention â€Å"in order to heighten the murder† (Baer N. P. ). One of the main themes in Psycho is voyeurism or the practice of spying on people engaged in intimate behaviors. Many critics feel that the film not only maintains a general sense of voyeurism, but a specific indictment of voyeurism with the audience- what Hitchcock called â€Å"Peeping Tom audiences. † Psycho manipulates the audience in supporting a thief, Marion Crane, which allows the viewers to become personally involved in the character’s guilt. Joseph Stefano, a writer for Hollywood films, states â€Å"In a more general sense, I think a fundamental essence of watching films is voyeuristic because we intrude so deeply into the characters’ lives—while sitting in the dark. It’s not necessarily sexual, although it can be, but its power to involve us with the characters is incredible† (Baer N. P. ). Alfred Hitchcock introduces a new narrative dimension in Psycho by including his personal appearance in the film; He faces away from the camera indicating his control over the film and keeping with theme of voyeurism (Sterritt 103). Hitchcock viewed his actors’ performance as the very essence of human identity; Psycho’s character Norman’s performance being the most profound of all of Hitchcock’s performances. Norman gives himself up to his character by assuming her voice, her appearance, her movements, and her thoughts. Hitchcock uniquely displays Norman’s performances with his use of window/curtain imagery. The windows and curtains indicate that the viewers are a â€Å"private audience† (Sterritt 113). By distancing the audience from the characters, Hitchcock achieves both an alienation affect and a sense of intimacy between the character and the audience (Sterritt 114). Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963) is the most radical of all his films because of its refusal to return the audience to normality (Sterritt 121). When asked what the film was about, Hitchcock replied â€Å"people’s ‘lack of concern about the fact that nature can turn on them’† (Abrash 153). The Birds takes place in Bodega Bay, California, which suddenly undergoes a series of widespread and violent bird attacks. The Birds is a follow-up to Psycho with Hitchcock attempting to go further beyond the boundaries of rationality. Not only does the film display the irrational, but it also becomes the irrational by prohibiting natural causes to bring real and fantastic elements together. With the filming of The Birds, Hitchcock violates the rules of classical cinematic storytelling in order to actualize the fears that lurk in everyone’s unconsciousness (Sterritt 121). With the lack of a conventional ending, The Birds represents Hitchcock’s ultimate gesture of despair over the power of the characters. The protagonists remain in danger, the antagonists gain even more power, and the emotional relationships of the characters are only partially resolved. The resulting visual allows the characters to work towards a better world (Sterritt 124). The film critic Robin Wood’s interpretation of The Birds was â€Å"a concrete embodiment of the arbitrary and the unpredictable [†¦] a reminder of fragility and instability that cannot be ignored or evaded and, beyond that, of the possibility that life is meaningless and absurd† (Abrash 154). In carefully balancing the ordinary and the bizarre, Alfred Hitchcock was the most noted juggler of emotions in film history. The majority of his films were meticulous creations of nightmares consisting of peril and pursuit relieved by unexpected comic ironies and absurdities. Hitchcock’s style of always stressing imagery over dialogue gave him a distinct reputation. All of these achievements allowed Alfred Hitchcock to be the recipient of the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1967. When asked what his approach was on filmmaking, Hitchcock responded with â€Å"some films are slices of life, mine are slices of cake† (Flint N. P. ).

Contributing Factors for the Degradation in Mental Illness...

Melissa Mills Compare/Contrast October 5, 2011 Intro to Lit. MW 3:00 Contributing Factors for the Degradation in Mental Illness of the Nameless Narrator and Bartleby Until the late 1800’s when psychoanalysis was introduced, there was little to no distinction between classifications of mental illness. The female protagonist in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper† and Bartleby of Herman Melville’s â€Å"Bartleby the Scrivenor† are both characters that seem to suffer from depression. Gilman’s narrator suffers from a ‘temporary nervous depression—a slight hysterical tendency’ that regresses into insanity and irrational behavior as Bartley is unmotivated, passive resistant and reticent. The regressing mental illnesses of the†¦show more content†¦Bartleby can also contribute oppression from a previous job as a Dead Letter Office worker in which one can assume would contribute to depression and possibly fear. Therefore, the nameless narrator and Bartleby’s oppression is a possible aspect in contributing to their mental illness. Similarly, the narrator of â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper† and the character Bartleby both experience a state of isolation that could contribute to their mental illnesses, however, Gilman’s narrator is suffocated by the coerced isolation by John, and yet Bartleby’s isolation is a product of his own free-will. Gilman’s protagonist is locked in a top floor room with bars on the window and minimal, controlled social interactions and forced feedings. She is isolated from true expression to her husband for fear of his thoughts about her. This isolation and repressing seems to bring about the obsession to decode the wall paper, hallucinations about a woman trying to escape the multi-layered print and irrational thoughts that she is the woman that needs to get out; all indicate mental illness. Melville’s Bartleby isolates himself by not communicating his intentions or responding, refusing assistance and exhibiting inaction in his life. Isolation can also be s een in this story when Bartleby is imprisoned for failing to comply with authority in removing himself from the law office building in