Huckleberry Finn American Dream

1460 Words3 Pages

American ideals come from the concept of “The American Dream”. This dream includes ideals of freedom and opportunity, success, and social mobility. These American ideals are supposedly available to every American citizen, however reaching this dream is not easily accessible to everyone. Human beings yearn to be accepted socially and acceptance typically comes from being successful. It is the materialistic comfort, job security, and personal happiness that overall creates this idea of success. In Huckleberry Finn and Charlie Chaplin’s Modern times, we see that these American ideals are not exactly realistic. In Huckleberry Finn, Huck comes from a broken home, with a drunk for a father. The life style he comes from makes it hard for him …show more content…

Like previously mentioned, he wants to be free. "What's the use you learning to do right, when it's troublesome to do right and ain't no trouble to do wrong, and the wages is just the same?" (Ch. 16). He doesn’t see the purpose in learning how to be an upstanding citizen in society, he rather do wrong and be left alone than to do right and get no recognition. Money and success isn’t a necessity for Huck and Jim. It means more to them to be free of sterotypes and being held back, than to have large amounts of money. Although it seems as if the American Dream today is all about money and power, when it comes to racism and even discrimination of gender, many people would rather be free from mockery than to be the most successful person in the world. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is able to depict the disillusions of American ideals versus the actually political and social realities. Even though slavery has technically been abolished, Jim was still being held back by Jim Crow Laws and the prejudices of the South. And Huck cannot seem to escape the wrath of his drunk father, who seems to do nothing but burden him. It is sad to see that their dream of freedom is being blocked by miniscule, yet overriding, …show more content…

The Orphan Girl even finds a small wooden shack for the two to live in. The shack is decorated and furnished, however it is old and everything is breaking. The Little Tramp opens the door, and a piece of wood falls down. The Little Tramp Sits in a chair, and the chair breaks. This pattern continues and the repetition is intended to show the audience that the rigid reality these two characters face. No matter how hard they work and how much they strive for success, the dream is too far out of their reach. For the Little Tramp and the Orphan Girl its one step forward, 2 steps back. This is evidence of the inequalities that the middle and lower classes face. The American ideals that these characters strive for, such as freedom and opportunity, are not realistic. We live in a world where we should be able to gain success by working hard, but sometimes your hardest isn’t

Show More
Related

  • Similarities Between The Glass Castle And The Crucible

    125 Words  | 1 Pages

    The almighty American dream, commonly misconceived as the property of those who reap great materialistic wealth, has been analyzed and sought after through generations. However, this dream, “could come from anywhere and be anything you want in this country” (Goldberg), and the numerous success stories of impoverished beings proves this. This subjectiveness stems from the great diversity within human nature and the variation of goals and pleasures. The characters in novels such as The Glass Castle, To Kill a Mockingbird and the play, The Crucible, act to portray several attempts towards achieving this dream. Ultimately, the almighty American Dream manifests itself through the novels as the desire to accomplish stability and content within one’s

    Read More

  • Turning Points In Huck Finn

    1285 Words  | 3 Pages

    He gets into all sorts of conflicts that force him to battle and work his way out of them, and in turn, they propel his moral position’s evolvement. It is especially hard on Huck when it comes time to resolving moral dilemmas. He is always stuck between making his own moral decisions, be it conventional or not, or allowing influencers, his father, the widow, and society, to make the decisions for him. He can never let go of the guilt associated with taking the unconventional path and rejecting what society upholds because that is all he has ever been taught in his life. That is why it is hard to apologize to Jim at first, but given time Huck is able to muster the courage to do so because that is the right thing to do even when society says so otherwise. The same goes for helping a slave, such as Jim, escape to a free state where he can find the opportunity to reunite with his family. Ultimately, he violates the demands of society to do what is right and not contribute to the enslavement of another human being. And it is not until the end of the novel that Huck no longer views his decisions as moral failings, but instead as moral triumph because he stayed true to himself and not once did he allow society to dictate his

    Read More

  • Huckleberry Finn Hero's Journey

    945 Words  | 2 Pages

    A hero puts other people before themselves and is admired for their qualities, courage, and achievements. A hero obtains knowledge throughout their journey of helping and healing. From Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huckleberry begins his journey with his first dilemma to save a slave, Jim. Huckleberry Finn begins to transform into a courageous hero when he learns the value of a human being.

    Read More

  • Theme Of Racism In Huck Finn

    1080 Words  | 3 Pages

    Hence, the prejudice ways that were reflected upon black people just as Jim situation. He was a slave and then became a runaway slave because he did not believe that, that was the life for him. Giving the original readers a rather difficult time in understanding how Twain viewed the racial discrimination he portrayed through Jim and Finn, as being equals, having Huck be humane towards Jim and may have been one of the many main readers Twain published this book. Having shown his reader’s the relationship young Huck and Jim shared their experiences and traveling together in the search for both of the freedoms. Jim was seeking freedom from the slavery while Finn was trying to find where he belonged because he felt that even know he was of the lowest class in the white society he still did not fit with anyone of his kind. Needless to say, through the process, Jim became a father figure to Huck if anything that again was a challenge set into place. As white folks would definitely not accept this gesture or act of kindness between a slave and a white young teenage

    Read More

  • Change In Huck Finn

    1528 Words  | 4 Pages

    Through the character of a 13-year-old boy, Twain shows how vulnerable Huck is to fall into the societal norm of thinking. Throughout the novel it is crucial to remember that whites at this time did not recognize black slaves as humans, but rather as property. By the way Huck was raised, he sees Jim as a black slave who can’t think for himself and has a very small range of emotions. In one instance in the book when Huck and Jim are stuck on the raft together, Jim starts talking enthusiastically about gaining his freedom and traveling back up the river to “steal” his family back. When Huck hears Jim’s excitement for what Huck knows is breaking a law, he immediately falls back into the learned mindset he was raised to believe: “Saying he would steal his children—children that belonged to a man I didn’t know; a man that hadn’t ever done me no harm” (95). At this point, all Huck knows is that Jim wants to steal “properties” from an innocent white man who hasn’t done anything wrong to deserve it. One of the most key places where Huck demonstrates what he’s been taught by society about African Americans is when Huck tries to explain that there are people from different countries outside of America that speak different languages other than English. Huck and Jim go back and forth arguing over why French people

    Read More

  • Huckleberry Finn

    532 Words  | 2 Pages

    Attempting to make decisions is difficult when one experiences doubt in one’s mind or when one’s upbringing goes against it. In “Huck Finn'; by Mark Twain , the main character Huck has to first confront doubts and then form plans to surmount an impossibly tragic end. These efforts demonstrate that one’s upbringing and morals are sometimes insufficient to cope with the immense problems that arise along a journey, and that the

    Read More

  • Analysis of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

    1724 Words  | 4 Pages

    Huck Finn learns from the actions of people around him, what kind of a person he is going to be. He is both part of the society and an outlier of society, and as such he is given the opportunity to make his own decisions about what is right and what is wrong. There are two main groups of characters that help Huck on his journey to moral maturation. The first group consists of Widow Douglas, Miss Watson, and the judge. They portray society and strict adherence to rules laid out by authority. The second group consists of Pap, the King, and the Duke. They represent outliers of society who have chosen to alienate themselves from civilized life and follow no rules. While these characters all extremely important in Huck’s moral development, perhaps the most significant character is Jim, who is both a fatherly figure to Huck as well as his parallel as far as limited power and desire to escape. Even though by the end of the novel, Huck still does not want to be a part of society, he has made a many choices for himself concerning morality. Because Huck is allowed to live a civilized life with the Widow Douglas, he is not alienated like his father, who effectively hates civilization because he cannot be a part of it. He is not treated like a total outsider and does not feel ignorant or left behind. On the other hand, because he does not start out being a true member of the society, he is able to think for himself and dismiss the rules authority figures say are correct. By the end of the novel, Huck is no longer a slave to the rules of authority, nor is he an ignorant outsider who looks out only for himself. This shows Huck’s moral and psychological development, rendering the description of “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” as a picaresq...

    Read More

  • Theme Huckleberry Finn Essay

    705 Words  | 2 Pages

    The book Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, has many themes that appear throughout the text. One such theme is that people must live outside of society to be truly free. If one lives outside of society, then they do not have to follow all of its laws and try to please everyone. They would not be held back by the fact that if they do something wrong, they would be punished for doing it.

    Read More

  • Similarities Between The Great Gatsby And Mark Twain

    685 Words  | 2 Pages

    Within the debate on who is to be crowned the “Great American Novel,” a valid factor that may be taken into consideration is how ideals in culture become altered with an evolving environment, and therefore, the argument can be made on the behalf of The Great Gatsby to be considered for the title. Due to its more recent ideological concepts, the novel addresses American ideals that are not fully developed or addressed at all within The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. These ideals can be boiled down to primarily two concepts: the fully-developed American dream of richness and upper-class goals, and consumerism in the industrialization of America. While Mark Twain’s piece touches on the “American dream” with Huck beginning the book off with $6,000

    Read More

  • Rejection of Civilization in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

    603 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the book, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck rejects "sivilized" life. He dreads the rules and conformities of society such as religion, school, and anything else that will eventually make him civilized. He feels cramped in his new surroundings at the Widow Douglas's house. He would rather be in his old rags and sugar-hogshead because he was free and satisfied. He felt out of place when he tried being "sivilized" because he grew up fending for himself and to him it felt really lonely. Huck Finn grew up living in the woods and pretty much raised himself because his pap was a drunk. He never had a civilized lifestyle and he believed that his way of living was good enough for him. He was free to do what ever he liked and that is how he learned to live. He did not believe in school because all you need to know to live is not found in a book that you read at school. He believed that you learned by living out in the wild. Huck would rather be an individual than conform to society. Huck would rather follow his heart then his head and because of this Huck is ruled as a bad person because in society your suppose to use your head. Huck is being penalized for his beliefs and he does not want to be apart of a lifestyle that does not support his ways. For instance his choice not to turn in Jim shows that Huck understands why Jim is escaping. Huck sees Jim as a friend not as a slave and so he truly is able to see that society's way of treaty Jim is wrong. Huck is portrayed as a boy who sees life at face value and not by the set "standards" of the "sivilized" society. The rejection of the "sivilized" lifestyles shows that Huck does not agree with it rules. Because of this, he is able to see life from different perspectives. He can sympathize with all the class in society. He learns to figure out what is morally correct and wrong. Through out his journey down the river, Huck is able to learn more about himself and others.

    Read More

  • The Great Gatsby - Dreams of Happiness

    1685 Words  | 4 Pages

    The American Dream seems almost non-existent to those who haven’t already achieved it. Every character in the novel has moments of feeling happy and endures a moment where they believe that they are about to achieve their dreams. Naturally everyone dreams of being a better person, having better things and in 1920’s America, the scheme of getting rich is quick. However, each character had their dreams crushed in the novel mainly because of social and economic situations and their dream of happiness becomes a ‘dead dream’ leading them back to their ‘shallow lives’ or no life at all.

    Read More

  • The Significance of the Physical Journey in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

    1530 Words  | 4 Pages

    ... he now realizes that stealing property is bad. Since Huck and Tom, although in a drawn-out manner, free Jim it is implied that he regards Jim as a fellow human being, not a slave. Showing Huck this equality and fostering a friendship between him and Jim could only be done by this kind of physical journey, as the idea of equality was only in its infancy at the time and had not taken root with any southerner.

    Read More

  • The Theme of Freedom in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

    2203 Words  | 5 Pages

    Freedom is what defines an individual, it bestows upon someone the power to act, speak, or think without externally imposed restraints. Therefore, enslavement may be defined as anything that impedes one’s ability to express their freedoms. However, complete uncompromised freedom is virtually impossible to achieve within a society due to the contrasting views of people. Within Mark Twain’s 1885 novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, numerous controversies are prevalent throughout the novel, primarily over the issue of racism and the general topic of enslavement. The characters in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn along with their development take an unmistakable, resilient stand against racism and by doing such in direct relation against the naturalized views of society. Twain’s characters, Jim and Huck are at the focal point of this controversy; they together are enslaved in two particularly different forms, nevertheless they both pursue their freedoms from their enslavements. The development of these characters and the growth of their interdependent relationship generate the structure of the anti-racism message within this novel. Twain’s introductory warning cautions the dangers of finding motives, morals, or plots in his novel, ironically proving the existence of each and encourages the reader to discover them. One of the undisputable major themes that extensively peculated my mind as I read the text regarded the subject of freedom and enslavement. Through Twain’s constant contrasting of freedom and enslavement such as its portrayal of slavery in the form of life on land compared to the freedom on the raft on the Mississippi Twain’s novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, suggests that people are subject to various ensl...

    Read More

  • The American Dream in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Great Gatsby

    1197 Words  | 3 Pages

    In conclusion, the American dream targeted the individual working hard in the pursuit to become successful and wealthy, with high-quality job and prosperity. In the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the American dream symbolizes being free from any kind of restrictions and the ability to have the pleasure in the wide-open Western edge. However, The Great Gatsby criticizes the American dream due to moral and social value decay of the society.

    Read More

  • The American Dream in "Death of a Salesman" and "Seize the Day"

    1098 Words  | 3 Pages

    In today’s society the term “American Dream” is perceived as being successful and usually that’s associated with being rich or financially sound. People follow this idea their entire life and usually never stop to think if they are happy on this road to success. Most will live through thick and thin with this idealization of the “American Dream” usually leading to unhappiness, depression and even suicide. The individual is confused by society’s portrayal of the individuals who have supposedly reached the nirvana of the “American Dream”. In the play “Death of a Salesman” Willy thinks that if a person has the right personality and he is well liked it’s easy to achieve success rather than hard work and innovation. This is seen when Willy is only concerned how Biff’s class mates reacted to his joke of the teachers lisp. Willy’s dream of success for his son Biff who was very well liked in High School never actually became anything. Biff turned into a drifter and a ranch worker. In the play “Seize the Day” Tommy who is financially unstable also pursues the idea of getting to the “American Dream” and becoming wealthy. He foolishly invests his last seven hundred dollars and eventually loses it leaving him broke and out of work. In both plays following the American Dream is followed in different characters and in both the characters are far away from it leaving them broke and forgotten by almost everyone.

    Read More

More about Huckleberry Finn American Dream

Open Document