Huck Finn Rhetorical Essay

Prompt: Analyze the strategies Mark Twain uses to satirize American society in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn? Why are those strategies likely to be effective for his audience? What is he saying about American society?

Guidance:

·         Ensure that your argument is cohesive. It should not be simply a collection of paragraphs talking in isolation about Twain’s rhetorical strategies; rather, paragraphs should work together to reveal how Twain’s novel works to communicate his main ideas.

 

·         Do not just identify Twain’s rhetorical strategies. Show how those strategies relate to the historical occasion and the concerns of his audience. (Use your SOAPSTone analysis.)

·         Remember, Twain publishes the novel in 1884, long after the end of slavery. Thus the novel is more likely to be about the failure of Reconstruction than about slavery.

·         Use the four-part quotation analysis pattern for each body paragraph:

1.       Claim

2.       Background/Context for the Quotation

3.       Quotation (or paraphrase, or summary)

4.       Commentary on the quotation

·         Length: I am not specifying a length because I don’t want you to fill pages with fluff. Rather, consider all that we have learned about Huckleberry Finn and consider that this assignment is worth 150 points and is the main assessment of what you have learned this term. It would be impossible to do this topic justice in a five paragraph essay.

To get started, you need to create a T-chart showing Twain’s rhetorical strategies and the effects of the strategies on the readers.