MARK TWAIN AND
"THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN"
Mark Twain was born on the Missouri frontier and spent his childhood there. His real name is actually Samuel Langhorne Clemens. At the age of 12 he quit school in order to earn his living. At the age of 15 he already wrote his first article and by the time he was 16 he had his first short novel published. In 1857 he was an apprentice steamboat pilot on a boat that left Mississippi and was leading towards New Orleans. His characters were created because of the people and the situations he encountered on this trip.
"The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" is a sequel to "Tom Sawyer". "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" is one of the masterpieces of American literature. It was first published in America in January 1885. From all of Mark Twain's novels this one was the only that sold best at its initial appearance. Although it was criticized a lot too. In 1885 it was even banished from the Concord Public Library.
The novel presents the things a thirteen year old child goes through when trying to save a black slave from the woman that wanted to adopt him and educate him to meet the standards of the society she lives in. The two characters, in their journey, meet some dangerous people, like the three thieves they meet on a crashed steamboat, but also some good characters, such as Grangerford family who treated Huck very nice. The Duke and the King are also two characters Huck and Jim meet on their journey down the Mississippi river. This two make money by cheating people in the towns near the river. After a while the Duke and the King sell Jim saying he is a runaway slave from New Orleans. Huck decides to rescue Jim so he follows him to the house where he was sold, only to find ...
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...sions but shocking for the white society. He meets a group of slave hunters and then he discovers that telling a lie is sometimes good. Being a child the world always seems new to him, everything he finds or encounters is an occasion that makes him think.
After a while, Huck returns to the town dressed as a girl to find more news. He discovers that Jim and Pap are suspects to his murder. In this journey Huck and Jim become friends.
Although his background makes him not only to apply the rules he knows, but also to invent new ones. He struggles with the ideas about black people that the society has. "Huck represents what anyone is capable of becoming: a thinking, feeling human being rather than a mere cog in the machine of society".
REFFERENCE POINTS
http://www.gradesaver.com/classicnotes/titles/huckfinn/shortsumm.html
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/huckfinn/
Are humans naturally good, or evil? Many people argue both ways. It has been argued for centuries, and many authors have written about it. One example of this is Samuel Clemens's, more commonly known as Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The book follows a young boy, named Huckleberry, and a runaway slave, named Jim, as they both run away. Huck runs away to escape being civilized, while Jim runs away from slavery. Together, they talk about life, philosophy, and friends. As they travel down the Mississippi River, both Huck and Jim learn various life lessons. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck witnesses the depravity of human nature on his journey on the Mississippi River.
The book starts off telling us that you may know Huck from another book called the adventures of Tom Sawyer. Which was also written by Mark Twain. In the first chapter, we figured out the Tom and Huck found a stash of gold that some robbers stole and hid in a cave. They both got $6,000 a piece. After they both got their shares of the money they had Judge Thatcher put it into a trust, in the bank. Once Huck was known for finding the treasure Widow Douglass adopted Huck. Widow Douglass also tried to civilize Huck, but Huck didn't want to be with Douglass so he ran away. Huck took all of his belongings with him, but nothing that Douglass gave him. After Huck ran away he went to join up with Tom Sawyer and his new gang of robbers. The Widow tried to teach Huck about reading and writing before he ran away. But thats the reason why he left because he wasn't interested in any of that stuff. Huck left the Widow’s house when he heard something outside the house, it was Tom waiting for him in the yard. So Huck got up and left.
Mark Twains The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is one of the greatest American novels ever written. The story is about Huck, a young boy who is coming of age and is escaping from his drunken father. Along the way he stumbles across Miss Watson's slave, Jim, who has run away because he overhead that he would be sold. Throughout the story, Huck is faced with the moral dilemma of whether or not to turn Jim in. Mark Twain has purposely placed these two polar opposites together in order to make a satire of the society's institution of slavery. Along the journey, Twain implies his values through Huck on slavery, the two-facedness of society, and represents ideas with the Mississippi River.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, is a novel about a young man's search for identity. Huckleberry Finn goes through some changes and learns some life lessons throughout his journey. Huck changes from being just an immature boy at the beginning of the novel to being a more mature man who looks at things in a different perspective now.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel and sequel through which Mark Twain weaves a consistent theme regarding the battle of right versus wrong. Twain presents Huckleberry Finn, or simply Huck, as the main character who finds himself on a current-driven journey down the Mississippi River to escape the abuse of his alcoholic father. The encounters of Huck and Jim, the escaped slave of the widow Mrs. Watson, serve as a catalyst for the moral based decisions in this MORAL-riddled novel.
Jim had run away from his abusive father and enabling small town to find himself traveling down the Mississippi on a raft. His traveling partner was a black slave, Jim. Wondering why Jim was there, Huck discovers that Jim had run away from his slave owner, Ms. Watson. Jim had spoken about his harsh life as a slave, and resented talk of being sold down to Orleans for a “big stack o’ money.” Huck felt that Jim’s escape was wrong, but kept his promise of secrecy, like any good friend would.
This book is set in the year 1852 in the south. It is a coming of age novel about an adolescent boy named Huckleberry Finn. In this early stage of his life, Huckleberry is taught many of life’s lessons that will help him deal with events that may occur later on in his life. Huck fakes his death in order to run away from his alcoholic father and his caretaker, Mrs. Watson, and also to escape from being “sivilized”. While floating down the Mississippi River, he meets Jim, the runaway slave who is owned by Mrs. Watson. His life begins to change when he is faced with many moral struggles along the way. He has to fight against society’s views, which conflict with his views. One of the most significant moral struggles that confronts him is the issue of slavery. Throughout the novel, Huck Finn becomes more self-reliant and mature. He begins to understand the evil in slavery and he realizes that he must follow his own conscience in his actions towards Jim.
Mark Twain’s masterpiece The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn through much criticism and denunciation has become a well-respected novel. Through the eyes of a thirteen-year-old boy, Huckleberry Finn, Twain illustrates the controversy of racism and slavery during the aftermath of the Civil War. Since Huck is an adolescent, he is vulnerable and greatly influenced by the adults he meets during his coming of age. His expedition down the Mississippi steers him into the lives of a diverse group of inhabitants who have conflicting morals. Though he lacks valid morals, Huck demonstrates the potential of humanity as a pensive, sensitive individual rather than conforming to a repressive society. In these modes, the novel places Jim and Huck on pedestals where their views on morality, learning, and society are compared.
Throughout his journey, Huck finds different ways of separating himself from society while being a part of it. He sees how quickly life changes and how lifestyles can affect a person. Further set apart by his views, Huck forsakes traditional beliefs for superstition and the balance of luck. Through his journey along the Mississippi River, Huck also understands how much intelligence changes. Feeling no affinity for any aspect of mainstream society he experiences, Huck willingly spurns what he knows as humanity for the society that suits him. At the close of his journey when Aunt Sally makes plans to “adopt [Huck] and sivilize [Huck],” Huck informs the reader that he has no desire to join high society—“[he] been there before” (220).
As Marcel Proust said, “We don’t receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us.” Set 20 years before the Civil War, Mark Twain’s novel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, depicts the adventures of a young troublemaker named Huck Finn and his companion, a runaway slave named Jim. Throughout the journey, Huck is depicted as a hero, cut from the mythical mold. At every step of his journey, he conforms to one or another of the eight elements of Campbell’s paradigm. We see this most readily in Huck’s trials and tribulations, his symbolic death and rebirth, and his special traits from birth.
separation from society is what allows Huck to be more accepting of new ideas and
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, the renowned author of the novel, better known by the pseudonym Mark Twain was born in Florida, Missouri in 1835. He was raised in the port town Hannibal, Missouri and it was his inspiration for the setting of the novel. At an early age he got to know slavery and later on he became a steamboat pilot. All things aforementioned influenced his work largely.
The novel starts out with Huckleberry Finn living with Widow Douglas and Miss Watson; two ladies who are trying to civilize him and teach him religion. For hours Miss Watson would teach him manners and spelling to the point where Huck wishes he was in the bad place she was preaching to him about. However, “All I [Huck] wanted was to go somewheres; all I [Huck] wanted
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a sequel to Twain’s original novel, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. The novel picks up shortly after the events in its predecessor. Huck Finn, a in his own words “low-down and ornery,” (Twain) boy has been living with Miss Watson and the Widow Douglass and receiving a weekly stipend of his money from the local Judge. He despises the civilized lifestyle being forced upon him, but is fine with being there, so long as Pap, his abusive father, is kept away. Shortly after the novel begins, Huck becomes paranoid over the possibility of his father returning for him. Fear drives him to seek guidance from Jim, a slave owned by Miss Watson, who he believes can contact spirits based upon local lore. Unfortunately
In the novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck and Jim's journey as a whole taught a valuable moral lesson. Living in a town full of racism Huck establishes his own standards and turns against society's rules and guidelines. After a crazy, wild adventure with a runaway slave, Huck became alienated from the people of his area for his different belief and values developed along his time with Jim.