preview

Huckleberry Finn Movie And Book Comparison Essay

Decent Essays

Activity #2

In these two critiques, we notice many similarities and many differences. As a whole, we see the difference of writing style. The one, published by the 'New York Times' seems to take more of an emotional overview of the book. Although providing plenty of facts of the author and the time period the book was written in, the author goes into detail how HE feels about the novel, and what the novel meant to him. In contrast, the other critique is almost entirely made up of the author finding similarities between the book and modern times. He keeps his emotional connection to the book separate from the review, and we feel the emotional disconnect in his review. Second, we see the difference of ideas. In the critique published by the Harvard Press, the author finds every …show more content…

However, in the other review, the author, Norman Mailer, believes that Mark Twain, although a distinguished and accomplished writer, gathered the story-line of his book from other works of that time. Mailer relates some similarities between the book and modern times, yet keeps along with the idea that although a masterpiece, Huckleberry Finn took away from other literary works. Normal Mailer, unlike the author of the Harvard Press (Ishmael Reed) does not take up much of his review in comparing the book to modern times. The third difference between the critiques is the way they described Mark Twain. Although both agreed that he was a fantastic writer who created a masterpiece, through the way they wrote their reviews, the reader can identify how each author felt about Twain. Ishmael Reed had nothing but glowing feelings for Mark Twain. He thought him to be a fantastic writer, who clearly wrote a classic masterpiece. However, Norman Mailer, although he agreed that Mark Twain was an impressive legend of a writer, he also spotted some of his faults, saying as quote "It would be superb stuff if only the writer did not keep giving away the fact that he was a modern young American

Get Access