Maura: Entry #3 Huckleberry Finn Critical Lens Experts

"Reformers and Maidens" was written by Nancy A. Walker, a literary writer who has written more than 40 works on gender in literature. In this article, she comments upon the female characters in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and the roles they fill.

Walker claims that Twain's main failing as a writer is that all the women in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn are stereotypes, filling one of two roles; "either reformers one could tease by temporarily conforming to their rules, or innocent maidens who could restore one's faith in decency and goodness". This seems to hold true, as any female character that Huck Finn has any true interaction with seems to fall into those roles. The Widow Douglas, Miss Watson and Aunt Sally, as the reformers, all appear to have only one aspiration: to make Huck civilized. Others, such as Brogg's daughter and Sophia Grangerford, are the "maidens"; described as "sweet" and "gentle". Their only purpose as a character is to mark a difference between their femininity and Huck's attempts to be masculine. Again, at the end of the novel, when Huck escapes from Aunt Sally, he claims that he won't be "sivilized", reaffirming Aunt Sally's role as a reformer.

Additionally, Walker asserts that the reason why Twain only writes two dimensional female characters arises from two sources in Twain's personal life. Firstly, she claims that the belief that women exist to fill these two roles in life emerges from the Victorian beliefs that women's purity was meant to soften men's harshness and ruggedness and to serve as a "moral guide". This certainly follows along with the effects that the women in the novel have on Huck, such as the Widow Douglas' success in (temporarily) educating and "civilizing" Huck, or the soft-heartedness that Mary Jane Wilks brings out in him, pushing him to reveal the truth about the Duke and Dauphin. However, Walker also claims that the rigidness of how the female characters fall into these roles comes from Twain's relationships with the female members of his family, and how they failed to fit perfectly into the roles he expected of them. She alleges that Twain's frustration with his wife and how she didn't not fit the mold perfectly is what prompted Twain to create characters that do fit their expected roles. Walker quotes a letter written by Twain to one of his friends, complaining that there is "no romance" in his wife, Olivia, that she is practical and overbearing. This description of his wife, does appear to prove Walker's claim, but one letter to a friend lamenting his irritations with his wife does not mean that Twain had issues with his wife or other family members. With only one piece of evidence, with little context, this claim is difficult to support.