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Huckleberry Finn – Study of His Character

In Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, he takes an alternate route from the normal adventure cliché. On the surface as well as when searching for a deeper meaning, many adventure books are unfulfilling in that they posses no real message. It is not that an adventure book should be deemed poor in quality simply because it lacks depth, because that's not really what an adventure book offers. Conventionally, the adventure book is a descriptive book in that it describes every leg of the protagonist's journey. The pivotal part to a truly fulfilling book is the deeper meaning, the stuff below the surface-- to me, this is what separates The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and puts it head and shoulders above any book I have read in that genre. Twain offers up more than the conventional adventures-- he personifies the characters to the point of showing their exact dialect through improper spelling and grammar. He displays the character's emotions and thoughts, making it easy to relate to many of the things that the characters are thinking, in essence making a better book. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a book saturated with morals and lessons. If you take the tale at face value the characters seem uneducated, but the depth to the book shows that there is a lesson being transmitted through each of the characters.

The vivid and colorful characters make this book pleasing to read, a type of book that makes reading not a burden, but entertainment that rivals even video games. Twain takes Huckleberry Finn, on the surface your average character but because of the extent that Twain develops the characters, the character's rises and p...

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... may look like they are disrespectful and malignant just because of the clothes they wear, their place in society, their dialect, or the way the do their hair. These are all of course outward appearances and should not influence our judgment of someone but they almost always do. Huck and Jim are great examples that adhere to this doctrine well-- Jim for instance is a slave, he almost seems foolish by his superstitions. Though through deeper inspection, Jim turns from a slave to a father figure, offering guidance to Huck and protecting him. Twain illustrates that below every ugly surface, there is usually a great personality to discover.

Works Cited

Bruce, Robert Ph.D. CliffsNotes On Twain's Huckleberry Finn. New York: Hungry Minds, Inc., 2000.

Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. New York: Bantam Books, 1981.

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