Sentimentalism in Huckleberry Finn

The association of Sentimental Literature with a particular gender, the female, has earned the genre a great deal of skepticism and criticism in our patriarchal society. The genre has received critiques such as “Sentimental writing is inherently false in sentiment and/or unskilled in expression” (Dobson 263). Perhaps this is because the sentimentalists were associated with women, who at the time of its emergence, had a lesser voice in our culture. To disregard an entire genre of writing due to the gender of its primary authors is indicative of a sexist society. Although Joanne Dobson's essay “Reclaiming Sentimental Literature” focuses on female writers, Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn can be categorized as sentimental based upon her given definition. If “Literary sentimentalism…. Is premised on an emotional and philosophical ethos that celebrates human connection, both personal and communal, and acknowledges the shared devastation of affectional loss” (Dobson 266), Twain's novel is the ultimate expression of this ideal. However, “the overt sentimentality has been an embarrassment to critics who have considered Twain a "masculine," which in their terms is to say an antisentimental, writer” (Camfield 97).

The idea that the author “of a typical sentimental text subscribes to a worldview that is radically different” (Castelvecchi 4) can serve as an explanation for why The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was extraordinarily controversial. If Twain partook in a feminized genre, he overcame gender barriers simply by authoring the sentimental piece. His text is also radical due to “the book's advocacy of racial equality, though buried in irony, [which] is almost completely sentimental” (Camfield 102). In a highly religious and racist society, a narrator that was a challenger of white supremacy and believed going to church was “one of the roughest Sundays [he] had run across yet” (Twain 129), was not embraced by the society depicted in the novel, and oftentimes the society at the time of it's publication. The novel was so radical that it was even banned from certain libraries. Twain finds a voice in the narrator to express his abolitionist view points.

“Central to the emergence of a sentimental culture… was a new confidence in the fundamental goodness of emotions and their power to act as a binding force between humans” (Castelvecchi 2). This concept is apparent in Huck's inherent morality, which he often doubts due to his conscience that reflects the values instilled upon him by the community. While Huck constantly degrades himself into thinking he is a lesser person due to his aid in Jim's escape during a time of Fugitive Slave Laws, his instinct to help Jim to freedom is the most moral action ever taken in the novel. Huck's decision to abandon the laws of a so-called “civilized” society create the premise of the novel: an unlikely friendship between two “American Isolatos” (Dobson 279).

Through this tale we learn that “Affectional experience, with its contradictory aspects of fulfillment and constraint, are as essential to human existences as food” (Dobson 266). The bond formed between the unlikely pair of a fourteen year old lower class white child and an African slave challenges all preconceived notions of friendship. We are overwhelmed with sentiment when the two exchange verbal affection, such as Huck stating “Jim, this is nice,' I says. “I wouldn't want to be nowhere else but here” (Twain 60) and Jim replying “I couldn't even ben free ef it hadn' ben for Huck; Huck done it. Jim won't ever forgit you, Huck; you's de bes' fren' Jim's ever had; en you's de only fren' ole Jim's got now” (Twain 111). “Such a view of racial harmony stems ultimately from a sentimental view of the world, a view that Twain, though he also disliked to admit it, to a large degree shared” (Camfield 100).

In sentimental literature, “The greatest threat is the tragedy of separation, of severed human ties… (and) failed or disrupted family connections” (Dobson 267). Although understated, as paramount of sentimental literature, these emotionally wrenching losses are indeed prevalent in the novel. For instance, Huck Finn epitomizes the family dysfunction addressed here. Mark Twain never delves into the sadness of orphanhood, nor illustrates Huck as a character locked up in his room and mourning the loss of his absent parents. Instead, it is addressed through conversation with his friends, Tom Sawyer and his Gang of Robbers. “Here's Huck Finn, he hain't got no family” they say, and “He's got a father, but you can't never find him, these days” (Twain 21). Rather than have our narrator mope about his abusive father, Twain writes him observational, saying things like “Pap got too handy with his hickory… I was all over welts” (Twain 37).