es of Huckleberry Finn is a masterpiece. I can agree with Andrew Lang on this, but his reasoning behind it, I cannot. Lang sees Huckleberry Finn as, “a vivid and original picture of life . . . naturally displayed . . . possible and plausible.“ All of these are true, but I believe it is Twain’s strong use of irony in his presentation of truth, and the tension between What Huck has been taught and his instinctively good nature that make The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and extremely well crafted novel. Lang acknowledges this at one point, but fails to say that this is the crux of the novel. “Nothing can be more true and more humorous then the narrative of this outcast boy, with a heart naturally good, with a conscience torn between the teachings of his world about slavery and the promptings of his own nature.” Lang also fails to mention that what Huck’s dilemma is not unique to Huck, but is universal. A, “conscience torn between the teachings of his world . . .and the promptings of his nature,” could be the story of any adolescent on the path (or river) to adulthood. Lang has written about a very small part of what makes The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn a classic.The difference between the way Andrew Lang and Mark Twain see truth is the same as the difference between a photograph and a painting. A photograph is a clear and objective picture of the world; it is what it is. A painter can look at the same thing a photographer sees, and paint something dramatically different. So much of what a painting is depends on the artist, how the artist interprets the shadows and the colors of the subject. The same goes for writing. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain has done more than show us a snapshot of his time. He has given us his interpretation of his world. Twain’s ability to craft natural, believable character is secondary to his genius in using irony to convey an ide...
