Filmmakers have had four main difficulties adapting The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to film: point of view, structure, audience and the novel's ending. By studying the different approaches of various directors to each obstacle, certain facts emerge about both the films and the novel. While literary scholars have studied Huck from practically every angle, none have sufficiently viewed the book through the lens of adaptation, despite the fact that it has been adapted to film and television over twenty times. The few critics who have studied the adaptations have done so using dated methodologies that boil down to little more than a question of how faithfully the films recreate the novel. By judging a movie solely on the basis of the book's merits, critics ignore the fact that a change in medium necessitates a change in material. With each adaptation, a new opportunity arises to study the novel from a fresh standpoint.

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Romanerna som ligger till grund för uppsatsens analys är Thomas Bailey Aldrich The story of a bad boy, Mark Twains Tom Sawyers och Huckleberry Finn samt Richmal Cromptons Just William. Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka de litterära gestalter som tar sig skepnad i företeelsen "bad boys" och de frågor som ställs i uppsatsen är: Hur och varför uppkom företeelsen "bad boys"? Hur växte genren "bad boys" fram? Vad karaktäriserar "bad boys" företeelsen? Uppsatsens narratologiska utgångspunkter bygger bland annat på Mieke Bals teori om fabelns och de textanalytiska begrepp som Maria Nikolajeva redogör för: tid och plats, författarens och läsarens föreställning av författaren, samtid och tidsperspektiv. Uppsatsen tar även stöd i R.W. Connell, John Stephens och Kenneth B. Kidds teorier. Uppsatsen visar att "bad boys"-genren har sitt ursprung under en period då bilden av mannen var under förändring och romaner för pojkar blev allt mer robusta."Bad boys" – genren karaktäriseras av driftiga pojkgestalter som delvis formar sin identitet i pojkgänget. "Bad-boys"- genren är även en konsekvens av de ändrade förhållandena för unga pojkar i USA. Dessa pojkar sågs ofta som små vandaler och det är dessa som återspeglas i "bad-boys" genren.

America has adopted as its own the Eden myth, which has provided the mythology of the American dream. This New Garden of America, consequently, has been a masculine garden because of its dependence on the myth of the Fall. Implied in the American dream is the idea of a garden without Eve, or at least without Eve's sin, traditionally associated with sexuality. Our canonical literature has reflected these attitudes of devaluing feminine power or making it a negative force: The Scarlet Letter, Moby-Dick, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Great Gatsby, and The Sound and the Fury. To recreate the Garden myth, Americans have had to reimagine Eve as the idealized virgin, earth mother and life-giver, or as Adam's loyal helpmeet, the silent figurehead. But Eve resists her new roles: Hester Prynne embellishes her scarlet letter and does not leave Boston; the feminine forces in Moby-Dick defeat the monomaniacal masculinity of Ahab; Miss Watson, the Widow Douglas, and Aunt Sally's threat of civilization chase Huck off to the territory despite the beckoning of the feminine river; Daisy retreats unscathed into her "white palace" after Gatsby's death; and Caddy tours Europe on the arm of a Nazi officer long after Quentin's suicide, Benjy's betrayal, and Jason's condemnation. Each of these male writers--Hawthorne, Melville, Twain, Fitzgerald, and Faulkner--deals with the American dream differently; however, in each case the dream fails because Eve will not go away, refusing to be the Other, the scapegoat, or the muse to man's dreams. These works all deal in some way with the notion of the masculine American dream of perfection in the Garden at the expense of a fully realized feminine presence. This failure of the American dream accounts for the decidedly tragic tone of these culturally significant American novels.