Literary Vocabulary
A dialect formed from the contact of two languages.
What is creole?
A technique employed by writers to expose and criticize foolishness and corruption using humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule.
What is satire?
Better known by his pen name “Mark Twain,” a 19th-century satirist and humorist.
Who is Samuel Longhorne Clemens?
German for “formation novel,” a coming-of-age story.
What is bildungsroman?
A character who contrasts with another character to highlight qualities of the protagonist.
What is a character foil?
Native language or native dialect of a specific group of people.
What is vernacular?
A belief that certain events or things bring good or bad luck and a common motif in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
What is superstition?
An American author and poet best remembered for accounts of pioneering life in California.
Who is Bret Harte?
A type of novel tracing the adventures of the picaro, or anti-hero.
What is a picaresque?
The only non-human character in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
What is the Mississippi river?
The use of informal words and expressions that are non-standard but acceptable in some social situations.
What is slang?
The vision of the “Old South” with gentile men and women and happy slaves working in the cotton field.
What is plantation myth?
A 19th-century Romantic writer and author of Ivanhoe who was satirized by Mark Twain.
Who is Sir Walter Scott?
Spanish for rogue, tramp, or vagabond.
What is a picaro?
The landscape and setting of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
What is the Mississippi River culture/American South area?
The language of common people
What is vernacular?
In fiction, when the atmosphere mimics the mood of the characters.
What is pathetic fallacy?
The birthplace of Sam Clemens where river culture influenced his writing.
What is Hannibal, Missouri?
The opposite of a conventional hero who makes a fool of himself and imitates heroes from books.
What is an antihero?
Where Pap keeps Huck kidnapped and Huck meets Jim.
What is Jackson's Island?
An account that is fanciful and hard to believe.
What is a tall tale?
he customs, dress, and manner of speech of a particular place or time.
What is local color?
Sam Clemens’ dream job on the river.
What is a steamboat/riverboat pilot?
A character who contrasts with another character to highlight qualities of the protagonist.
What is character foil?
The geographical and symbolic turning point of the story on the river.
What is Cairo?