Transcendentalism and Self-Reliance as Mechanisms of the American Antihero in Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) and Scott F. Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925)
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Date
2020
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Publisher
Université Mouloud Mammeri Tizi Ouzou
Abstract
The present dissertation aimed at analyzing the way Transcendentalism and Self-Reliance intervened as Mechanisms of the Antihero in American literature. In this context, we have analyzed Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925) under the angle of the historical, political, economic and literary backgrounds. For this reason, we have shed light upon some historical events that characterized the nineteenth century America mainly the role of the Frontier. To reach our aim, we have relied on Fredrick Jackson Turner’s thesis on the Frontier developed in his book entitled The Significance of the Frontier in American History (1893). Then we have carried out a comparative study of the two novels as concern the antihero. This comparative study has helped us determine whether Transcendentalism and Self-Reliance are, indeed, mechanisms of the antihero in the two novels. Both works depict typical American anti-heroes, Huck and Gatsby, going away from the hypocrisy and corruption of society and seeking for ideals going the opposite direction of the standard notions of heroism.
Description
30cm ; 67p.
Keywords
The Frontier, Transcendentalism, Self-Reliance, Antihero.
Citation
Literature and Interdisciplinary Approaches