Critics of Mark Twain’s novel Huckleberry Finn view the protagonist’s proclamation “All right, then, I’ll go to hell” in chapter 31 as the story’s climax. Twain’s novel lent itself to such radical interpretations because it was the first major American work to depart from traditional European novelistic structures, thus providing critics with an unfamiliar framework. The remaining twelve chapters act as a counterpoint, commenting on, if not reversing, the first part in which a morality play receives greater confirmation. Huck’s journey down the Mississippi represents a rite of passage, in which the character’s personal notions of right and wrong come into constant conflict with his socially constructed conscience by the various people and situations the protagonist encounters.

The novel’s cyclical structure encourages critics to see the novel’s disparate parts as interlinked; the novel begins and ends with the boys playing games. Granted, this need not argue to an authorial awareness of novelistic construction; however, it does facilitate attempts to view the novel as a unified whole. Nevertheless, any interpretation that seeks to unite the last few chapters with the remaining book is bound to be tenuous. This is not because such an interpretation is unnecessarily rigid, but because Huckleberry Finn encompasses individual scenes of the protagonist’s self- recognition that are difficult to accommodate in an all-encompassing interpretation. In this respect, the protagonist can best be likened to the Greek tragic figure, Oedipus.

The author mentions the “novel’s cyclical structure” in order to

A. demonstrate that Twain was keenly aware of novelistic construction     
B. show that the remaining twelve chapters have little connection to the rest of the novel     
C. support the critic’s position that Twain was unaware of novelistic construction
D. provide support for a particular critical interpretation of Twain’s work
E. argue that Twain’s protagonist has much in common with Oedipus



Which of the following best expresses the main idea of the passage?     

A. In order to understand Twain’s novel, critics must compare its protagonist to Oedipus.     
B. Twain’s novel contains some chapters that resist easy inclusion into a unified interpretation.     
C. The unconventional structure of Huckleberry Finn indicates a lack of authorial awareness.     
D. Twain’s novel was the first major American novel to discard traditional European structures.
E. The protagonist of Huckleberry Finn is considered a modern-day Oedipus by critics.