The Tragic and the Comic Modes in Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations and Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: A Comparative Study

Abstract

This dissertation is an investigation into the tragic and the comic in Charles Dickens‘ Great Expectations and Mark Twain‘s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Although the two novels are associated with the tragic and comic, the question is whether or not the two novelists use the same tragic and comic modes. The method of investigation that is implemented in this study is an eclectic method, in which psychological, stylistic and thematic approaches overlap. The data we used in this research are taken from the texts of the two novels and from a number of books that are related to the topic. Data samples i.e. words, phrases, and sentences, are quoted from the corpora so long as they correspond to the items being discussed: plot, characterization, and style. The analysis that had been conducted in this research shows that the tragic and the comic in Great Expectations are not interrelated with each other whereas in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn they are interrelated with each other. Thus, the different use of the comic and the tragic modes in the aforementioned novels is a consequence to the different characteristics of the English and the American cultures that the two writers come from.