Huckleberry Finn
Huckleberry Finn is a literary character invented by the American writer Mark Twain who lived with her friend Tom Sawyer in the fictional town of “St. Petersburg “ experienced all kinds of adventures on the Mississippi . It appears in Mark Twain's novels The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn .
The word "Huckleberry" refers to the American bilberry , whereas it is rarely used as a first name. As a result of Twain's novels, it acquired a third meaning as the epitome of a particularly close friendship. Audrey Hepburn sings about her fictional "Huckleberry Friend" in the song Moon River for the film Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), written by Johnny Mercer . The song, composed by Henry Mancini , received an Oscar for best film song in 1962 .
Huck Finn, aka Tom Blankenship
The character of Huckleberry Finn is based on the real person of Thomas' "Tom" Blankenship (* 1839 in Hannibal, Missouri ), who grew up in Hannibal with Samuel Langhorne Clemens (alias Mark Twain), who was four years his senior. Both families lived in the immediate vicinity.
family
Tom Blankenship is the son of Woodson (* 1799 in South Carolina ) and Mahala Onstat (* 1813 in Iowa ) Blankenship, who married on July 3, 1828 in Hannibal. Tom grew up with seven siblings, one brother and six sisters. His siblings were Benson, Martha, Nancy Jane, Sarah V, Elizabeth, Mary and Catherine.
From "My Secret Autobiography"
Mark Twain describes Tom Blankenship in My Secret Autobiography : “In Huckleberry Finn, I drew Tom Blankenship exactly as he was. He was ignorant, unwashed, and inadequately fed, but he had as good a heart as anyone. His freedom was limitless. He was the only truly independent person in the community - boy or man; consequently he was serene and ceaseless and the rest of us envied him. We liked him; we enjoyed his company. And since our parents forbade us to deal with him, that tripled or quadrupled the value, and so we sought his company more often than that of any other boy. "
More figures
Tom Blankenship, the son of Hannibal's (aka St. Petersburg) town drunkard, was now Huckleberry Finn. So his father Woodson was the town drunk, but he shared that title with a certain Jimmy Finn. Tom's ten year older brother Benson Blankenship is said to be similar in character to Muff Potter. Mark Twain himself was Tom Sawyer, his mother the feisty aunt Polly, a girl named Laura Hawkins Tom's great love Becky Thatcher. There is also said to have been an Indian named Joe in Hannibal who died in a storm in front of a cave. In addition, the Grangerfords & Shepherdsons feud has parallels to the Hatfield & McCoy feud . McCoy's aunt Betty (with whom Roseanna McCoy later lived) was a born Blankenship and thus a distant cousin of Tom Blankenships.
Next life
Various sources report that Tom later served as justice of the peace in the Indian territories of Oklahoma and Montana , other sources say that he perished in one of the cholera epidemics that swept up the Mississippi. There is also no evidence that he should have served in the American Civil War. His brother Benson later lived in Texas while his sisters married in Hannibal and the surrounding area.
Individual evidence
- ↑ The time 15/2010 on 8 April 2010 , p 61st
- ^ The page flipper from June 7, 2010
- ^ University of Virginia Library Sources of Inspiration of Mark Twain
- ↑ Ancestry.com What is Huckleberry Finn really Tom Blankenship?
- ^ Mark Twain, "My Secret Autobiography," Chapter "Thursday, March 8, 1906, pp. 73-74
- ↑ Lady of the house Laura Hawkins memory
- ↑ Nick Harmsen Grangerfords & Sheperdsons vs. Hatfield's and McCoy's. ( Memento from January 23, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ Blankenship Branch Ralph Blankenship Descendants