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Examples Of Nostalgia In Huckleberry Finn

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We may refer to the term of nostalgia as being “a wistful desire to return in thought or in fact to a former time in one 's life, to one 's home or homeland, or to one 's family and friends; a sentimental yearning for the happiness of a former place or time” (www.dictionary.com) In analysing the concept of nostalgia in Mark Twain’s novel we should focus on several aspects: the author’s childhood with specific elements from that period of time, regarding a certain territory and an age in which slavery was accepted and his desire of changing the corrupted America. Huckleberry Finn is a shadow from the past, allowing the author to return to his boyhood, even though from a political point a view, it was a harsh period. “Mark Twain was born in the small town of Florida, Missouri. Four years later his family moved to the small but growing town of Hannibal, Missouri, located on the Mississippi River north of St. Louis. Hannibal would later serve Mark Twain well as the basis for the fictional town of St. Petersburg in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Growing up in Hannibal provided the young Samuel Clemens opportunity to witness slavery, death, disease, river commerce, and most important, the myriad triumphs and failures of handworking American families struggling to build a life in an area of the country far away from the polite manners and refined social graces of coastal New England intellectual culture.” ( Link, 2012, p XII) As Eric Carl Link
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