Toward reflexivity: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and George Washington G'omez

Abstract

Since the publication of Huckleberry Finn in 1885, numerous highly esteemed authors and critics have reviewed the work. By examining the rhetorical situation of currents of praise and rejection in this scholarship, one can understand how complicated rhetorical trends in criticism occurred in discussions on Twain's novel and how discourses of praise lavished on Huckleberry Finn often were articulated as sensational celebrations of "greatness" and "Americanness." To downplay the celebration of jingoistic elements in a work of art or artist, literary critics should articulate more balanced perspectives that encourage the author to include himself or herself into the object of the discourse, showing readers how the critic's own life and circumstances self-consciously shape and influence theory, assessment and the dissemination of an artistic product or how an artist practices his or her craft. Reflexive interpretation involves both a researcher's questions in light of his or her conscientious self-referencing examination of shaping cultural and social assumptions. In this thesis, a reflexive critical approach is utilized as the author explores her own subject position in relation to historical significations in Americo Paredes's George Washington G' omez, a book written in 1936-40 and only narrowly received since its publication in 1990.