Self-Structure and the Rhetorics of Social Discourse in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

In this thesis, I argue that Mark Twain's runaway slave, Jim, displays the characteristics of a brilliant modern rhetor; that is, Jim accounts for the historical and cultural complexities influencing the meaning of the linguistic sign and applies several effective rhetorical strategies based on this knowledge. Significantly, I borrow Toni Morrisons's term "American Africanism" to assert that Jim consciously becomes with or embodies Africanist American stererotypes influencing "white" American racial discourses. In other words, Jim appropriates an ethos consistent with antebellum "white" rhetorics aimed at racial subordination. To explain Jim's ironic decision, I employ Marshall W. Alcorn's theory of self-structure: a theory defined in his article "Self-Structure as a Rhetorical Device: Modern Ethos and the Divisiveness of the Self" and ironically rooted in both sociolinguistic and psycho-analytic philosophies. In the end, this study seeks to identify the technique and trace the influence of social discourses on the self-structure of Huckleberry Finn, and map Huck's moral growth in the context of rhetorical argument.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts in English

Level thesis:degree_level

Masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

English

Year

1994

Author dc:creator

• Desnoyer, Brett Patrick

Contributors dc:contributor

• Donald Holliday

• English Language and Literature

Statement dc:rights

• © Brett Patrick Desnoyer

Repository record dc:identifier

https://bearworks.missouristate.edu/theses/350

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:bearworks.missouristate.edu:theses-1351