A Psychoanalytic Reading of Mark Twains The Adventures of Huckleberry

A Psychoanalytic Reading of Huckleberry Finn Psychoanalytic conditions, stages and symptoms pervade the seemingly simplistic narration of a child-narrator, Huck Finn. such Freudian psychoanalytic ideas as Thanatos, repressed desires and how they seek their way back through dream work, through parapraxis, can all find examples in this fiction. Besides, Lacanian image of the unconscious as the nucleus of our being, as an orderly network, as well as his famous theory the mirror stage can be apply to this novel as a whole as well. Lacan states that the unconscious, the kernel of our being, is an orderly network, like the structure of a language (Barry 111-113) this statement can be lay out true in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. In this particular picaresque of Huck*s adventures, episodes are ostensibly unrelated to each other just as close picaresque novels are. Huck Finn, however, in the unconscious of the text, follows a family pattern in which families come eventually to d estruction. First take Huck*s six major lies for example. When Huck is in disguise, seeking information from Mrs. Loftus, he pretends to be a girl, Sarah Williams, whose mother is ill, and thus is on her way to get her uncle to come to help. Later, when his lie is discovered, he again invents a family in which both of his parents are dead and he is now a renegade apprentice. Next, in order to save the gang on the Walter Scott from drowning, Huck makes up a whole family including pap, mam, sis, and Uncle Hornbeck. Again, another family with pap, mam, and Mary Ann is invented in order to save Jim from slavery. And when with Grangerfords, Huck identifies himself with George Jackson and tells of the decline of a relatively ... ...erefore explicates his nett decision, justifies the ending of the novel. Works CitedBarry, Peter. Beginning Theory an Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory. Manchester Manchester UP, 1995.Baym, Nina, et al., ed. The Norton Anthology of American Liter ature. 4th ed. New York Norton, 1994. Bradley, Sculley et al., ed. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn an Annotated Text, Backgrounds and Sources, Essays in Criticism. New York Norton, 1962.Eliot, T. S. Mark Twain*s Masterpiece. Huck Finn among the Critics a Centennial Selection. Ed. M. Thomas Inge. Frederick, Md. University Publications of America, 1985.Green, Keith, and Jill LeBihan. Critical Theory and Practice a Coursebook. London Routledge, 1996.Solomon, Eric. The Search for Security. Bradley 436-443.Stone, Jr. Albert E. Huckleberry Finn and the Modes of Escape. Bradley 444- 448.