Literature: Optometrist for Existential Perception
Innumerable variations in the mental complexities of human individuals produce a vast spectrum of human perspectives on the world. Though many views are similar, few, if any, are exactly alike, as many factors, including social status, upbringing, childhood environment, and education, can influence a person's outlook on life. Through the five central characters of his novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain suggests that the experience of literature can also alter a human's perception of the world.
First of all, Jim, the illiterate runaway slave, sees the world as others present it to him. When he and Huck encounter two men claiming noble descent, Jim takes it for granted that they are speaking truthfully, and Huck determines that "it ain't no use to tell Jim" (137) otherwise. The ignorant escapee has little reason to believe that the men's claims could be anything other than the truth, a misconception that most likely stems in part from a naivety towards such fabri-cation. Because of his limited exposure to fiction, his ability to recognize falsehood is somewhat underdeveloped, causing him to believe most of what others say is the truth and thus obscuring his view of reality. Huck sees no sense in enlightening Jim to the imposters' deception as such contradiction may only serve to confuse his friend. Jim is not without logic though, as he "[can]'t see no sense" (262) in Tom Sawyer's ludicrously elaborate scheme to liberate him from the Phelps' farm where he is imprisoned after his recapture. He follows along, however, because Tom and Huck "[are] white folk and [know] better than him" (262). Jim finds Tom's plan, which can be attributed to literature, incomprehensible because he is unaccustomed to its fictional sources. Although the purposes of most aspects of Tom's scheme remain unclear, he feels the tasks outlined for him are necessary because the well-read and seemingly well-informed Tom Sawyer tells him so. White people, in his eyes, represent the ultimate authorities on worldly matters because they, unlike slaves, are seldom forcibly kept illiterate and have the opportunity to absorb the greater knowledge that books provide. This belief is also partly responsible for why he remains unsuspicious of the men who accompany him and Huck for a time.
Having taken Jim's perception into account, these two men, the king and duke, see their sketchy literary knowledge as a means of exploiting the illiterate and uniformed, such as Jim, and as proof of their superiority to the rest of the world. When they first meet up with Huck and Jim, they assume the identities of "the rightful Duke of Bridgewater" (134) and the "disappeared Looy the Seventeen" (136) in a combined attempt to outdo each other and impress their traveling companions. By impersonating nobility, they establish a fallacious superiority over Huck and Jim, who have rarely immersed themselves in literature as the conmen appear to have done. Though Huck sees through them from the start, his willingness to participate in their schemes demonstrates subservience to their falsely imposed authority which stems from an obviously su-perior education. When the two charlatans plot a "Shaksperean Revival" (150), complete with a gallimaufry version of Hamlet's soliloquy interspersed with misappropriated phrases, they hope to make a profit in "a little one horse town" (149), but their scheme fails because the "Arkansaw lunk-heads [can't] come up to Shakespeare" (161). The two men use their garbled knowledge of Shakespearean literature to cash in on a community of illiterate farmers and ignorant shopkeepers, their elaborate discourses again creating a false impression of intelligence and authority. The king and duke apparently feel that their so-called education earns them the right to both the attention and the purses of their inferiors. But to their misfortune, these people have little use for such sophisticated language and even less comprehension of it.
Thirdly, though Huck is semi-literate at least, his aversion to reading leaves him with a strictly literal worldview. He sees the world as it is and has great difficulty accepting Tom Sawy-er's view of a playground for imagination and fantasy. Even though Huck can "spell, and read, and write" (25), Tom feels his friend "[doesn't] seem to know anything, somehow" (22). As he sees it, the only true knowledge comes from books, which Huck purposely avoids. Because Huck's exposure to literature has thus been severely limited, "educated" opinions have not great-ly influenced his perception of the world. Rather, the knowledge that he gains from true-life ex-perience allows him to formulate his own beliefs based entirely on real-world situations and fac-tual information. While off on one of Tom's wild adventures, for instance, Huck sees "no Spa-niards and A-rabs . . . no camels nor no elephants" (21) as his overly-imaginative friend does, but instead recognizes the "Sunday-school picnic" (21) that is actually at hand. Despite Tom's insis-tence as to the presence of such exotic individuals, Huck cannot see past the picnic group on the surface. For him, the world and all its aspects have singular meanings; a Sunday-school is a Sunday-school and could not possibly be anything else. Yet Tom is convinced otherwise, as he tells Huck that "if [he] warn't so ignorant, but had read a book called 'Don Quixote'" (21), he too would see the so-called Spaniards and nonexistent A-rabs. Tom thus implies that Huck's lit-eral perception of the world stems from his limited, and therefore inadequate, acquaintance with literature. Were Huck as well-read as him, Tom suspects that his friend's stubborn focus on reali-ty would be replaced with an outlook similar to his own.
And finally, Tom understands the world as an extension of the novels he relentlessly absorbs. He is "knowing and not ignorant" (247), as he feels Huck is, and remains convinced that if he has "seen [something] in books" (17), then "that's what [he's] got to do" (17). To him, every book is a bible, a guide to life, an instruction manual for proper living. It seems that for him there is no alternative; literature holds the laws that he cannot willingly disobey. He "reckon[s] that the people that [make] the books knows what's the correct thing to do" (17) and decides to adhere to the paradigmatic writings of "the best authorities" (254). He sees novelists as the world's experts on life whose works of fiction contain nature's ultimate truths. If he only abides by their teach-ings, he feels, he can do no wrong, and for this reason, he bases his existence in literature. While liberating Jim in the manner outlined by Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo, Tom wishes that he could "keep it up all the rest of [his life]" (262), acting as his books decree. By emulating the archetypical characters of literature, he believes he is living as he should: in accordance with so-called literary law. In his eyes, those he imitates epitomize humanity because they are the creations of the "best authorities." So as defined by his worldview, Tom is simply another character in Life: the Book.
Just as beliefs about the world and its many facets differ from Tom to Huck, the frauds, and to the escaping slave, Jim, existential perceptions vary between all humans, past or present. Shakespeare has eloquently described life as a stage and humans as mere players, living only to act their part then exit at the final curtain, but that is only one perspective. As to the truth-who knows? Each view is simply speculation, an observation, a personal, uncertifiable opinion.
Works Cited
Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. New York: Penguin Books, 1985.
1,240 words / 5 pages
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