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Central theme in the adventures of huckleberry finn
Central theme in the adventures of huckleberry finn
Analysis of Huckleberry Finn
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The only way to describe Mark Twain The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is to say it is an absolute American classic.. The book takes place along the Mississippi River during the dreadful time of racial standards where slavery was at its high point. In the novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn the theme of a journey to freedom is expressed in many ways such as Huck escaping pap’s alcoholism, Jim’s slavery and Tom Sawyers desperate attempts to escape from reality. The book starts in the small town of Huck’s birth where he is living with two old woman until Pap wins custody of Huck. After the custody battle Pap attacks Huck in a drunken state so that he can collect Huck’s money; this causes Huck to fake his own death and run away to a small island where he finds Jim and they begin their trip down the great Mississippi. …show more content…
“He drank and drank, and tumbled down on his blankets…” (Twain 36) Pap didn’t just stop drinking when he got drunk, but he would continue until he fell over and passed out.
Pap’s drinking problem is important to the theme of a journey because when he drinks he becomes violent with Huck, thus causing Huck to want to escape his father. “He chased me round and round the place with a clasp knife...” (Twain 37) The importance of this quote is it shows how violent and deadly Pap becomes when he drinks. After this event of uncontrollable violence from Pap, Huck begins to see the only way out of living with his father for the rest of his life and that is to fake his own death. When Pap leaves for town the next day Huckleberry destroys the cabin to make it look like someone had broken in. Then, he kills a hog and spreads its blood all over the cabin to make people think he was violently murdered in a house robbery gone wrong. After that, he was free, so he began his journey down the great Mississippi, to escape the violence and alcoholism that controls his very
life. Huckleberry Finn wasn’t the only person running away to escape life problems so was Jim, Miss. Watson’s slave. Jim ran away from the old woman because he heard she was going to sell him for eight hundred dollars to a plantation down south and it was his worst nightmare because he had heard stories about how slaves are treated in the big plantations. “I come heah de night arter you’s killed.” (Twain 49) Jim told Huck that he ran away to Jackson island the night after he heard of Huck’s death, a reader may find the significance of Jim running then is too be believe that because everyone would have already been busy looking for Huck’s killer instead of worrying about slaves running away. Actually Jim wasn’t running from anything because Tom Sawyer states, “Old Miss Watson died two months ago, and she was ashamed she ever was going to sell him down the river, and said so; and she set him free in her will.” (Twain 275) Meaning that the entire time Jim and been running away with Huck down the river he had been running from nothing because he was always a free man. Tom Sawyer was running away from something too, he was running away from reality in itself. “Now, we’ll start this band of robbers and call it Tom Sawyer’s Gang…” (Twain page 17) in this quote it describes exactly how Tom escapes from reality he start a gang, which is more like a club, with a group of friends and they steal things and talk about killing people and taking people for ransom, when they don’t even know what ransom means. This is significant to the book because Tom is a kid who has a nice family life, but he still wants to escape all that for a little bit of adventure. “But the rest was out of pirate books and robber books…” (Twain 17) Tom read a lot of books with adventure in them and he wanted his gang to be exactly like the books in every way so when writing up an oath of entry he even took things from the books. Sawyer was dying to get away from reality but yet he didn’t want to do it alone, it’s as if he wanted to share all of his adventures with his “gang.” Hasn’t everyone gone through a journey to freedom at some point their lives? It might not have been as serious as escaping abusive alcoholic parents, slavery, or reality but every human has wanted to be freed of something at some point. Mark Twain’s writing just demonstrates a few ways of escape.
The use of violence used by Twain in his novel is when Huck and his friend, an escaped slave Jim, are separated from one another after a storm on the river. Huck survives the storm and swims to shore. He then finds the Grangerford’s household and stays with the family. Because of Huck’s positions he is stuck in the middle of a feud the Grangerfords have with an opposing family, the Shepherdsons. Huck time spent with the Grangerfords causes him to grow a close relationship with Buck but while fighting with the other family, Buck is shot right in front of Huck and dies in the river. "I ain't a-going to tell all that happened- it would make me sick again if I was to do that," (Twain 115). The violence portrayed in this scene is horrifying that
Huck’s situation is so extreme (the mental and physical abuse from Pap) that he cannot take it anymore. He does what he thinks is best; Huck listens to heart rather than his conscience. In order to get away from Pap, Huck organizes an elaborate plan to arrange his own death and run away – both denounced by society - from the prison cell (cabin) and Pap. Huck, for the first time in his life, had felt what it is like to be free: “The sky looks ever so deep when you lay down on your back in the moonshine; I never knowed it before” (Twain 46).
In the Novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, Huck can seem dumb and naive at times. This tends to occur when he has to pretend to be someone else so he can conceal his identity from others. For instance, when Huck is pretending to be a long lost relative of the Wilks family that lived in England along with the Duke and the King so they could con them and make a big profit by inheriting the family's wealth. Then one day in the house on the day of the funeral of Peter Wilks, Mary Jane asks Huck if he's ever seen the king before and Huck forgot “his identity” and Mary Jane quickly becomes skeptical of Huck. She says to Huck, “Why, how you talk -- Sheffield ain’t on the sea”(175). Huck goes on to question what Mary Jane heard
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain includes characters that have varying views on the importance of education. Both Huck and Jim seem to value learning through experience, rather than learning from books and school. Also Jim cannot read or write so that inhibits Jim from going to school. Jim is a slave which means he is not allowed to get an education. Tom also enjoys learning from experience rather than books, but he reads more than Huck and it seems that he sometimes values learning from books rather than learning from experience.
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 about the great adventures that Huck finn has with his slave Jim on the Missouri River. The story tells not only about the adventures Huck has, but more of a deeper understanding of the society he lives in. Twain had Huck born into a low class society of white people; his father was a drunken bum and his mother was dead. He was adopted by the widow Douglas who tried to teach him morals, ethics, and manners that she thought fit in a civilized society. Huck never cared for these values and ran away to be free of them. During Huck’s adventure with Jim he unknowingly realized that he didn't agree with society’s values and could have his own assumptions and moral values. Twain uses this realization to show how the civilized and morally correct social values that was introduced to Huck was now the civilized and morally contradicting values.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, is the story of a young southern boy and his voyage down the Mississippi River accompanied by a runaway slave named Jim. Throughout the journey Huck and Jim face numerous obstacles and encounter a variety of interesting characters. These experiences help Huck to develop physically, intellectually, and most importantly, morally. Throughout the long expedition, readers can observe Huck’s transformation from an immature boy with poor values and ethics, to a matured young man with a moral conscience and a heightened sense of what is right and what is wrong despite what society says.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain is a classic novel about a young boy who struggles to save and free himself from captivity, responsibility, and social injustice. Along his river to freedom, he aids and befriends a runaway slave named Jim. The two travel down the Mississippi, hoping to reach Cairo successfully. However, along the way they run into many obstacles that interrupt their journey. By solving these difficult tasks, they learn life lessons important to survival.
“Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain is about a young boy and a slave who run away from their normal lives in Missouri, in the 1830’s. Huckleberry Finn, a young, immature boy forced to live with his drunken, abusive father decides to fake his own murder in run away. His guardian's slave, Jim ends up running away too, and they both hideout on an island. Later on, after finding out, the whole town thinks, Huck was murdered by the slave, they decide to build a raft and run away down the Mississippi River. They run into a few problems along the way, but together learn how to get passed them. Huck teaches Jim how to talk and become more educated and in return, Jim teaches Huck to be more mature and grow up. In the end, Huck does what he thinks is right and let’s Jim go free.
Mark Twain’s best works is The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The main characters in the book are Huckleberry Finn, Jim and Tin Sawyer. This book is about the adventures Huck Finn takes to get away from his drunkard father. When Huck gets suck of his father he decides to run away to Jackson’s Island which is in the middle of the Mississippi river. On the island he ends up finding Jim who is a slave of Miss Watson’s. Jim wants to be a free slave so they both decide to head to the Free states. On the way Huck and Jim run into some obstacles. They somehow end up in a feud with the Grangerfords and Sheperdsons also they meet two thieves. After facing all of these problems, Huck decides to go to the Phelps’ who are actually related to Tom Sawyer and were expecting to see Tom. Knowing this, Huck decides to act as Tom for a while. By the end of the story word comes out the Jim was already free. He was free because Miss Watson had passed away and had freed him before she did. At the end of the story huckleberry decides again that he will go north without telling anyone.
Pap Finn instills a "Southern race prejudice" and leads Huck to believe "that he detests Abolitionists" (374). Huck comes into conflict with this philosophy as he journeys on the raft with Jim. He can not decide if he is wrong in helping Jim escape slavery, or if the philosophy is wrong. The education of Huck also stirs some values from Pap. When Pap tells him that education is useless, Huck is confused because the Widow Douglas told him that education was important.
Almost immediately we are introduced to the drunken, deranged man who is Huck?s father, Pap. Pap is an alcoholic who roams from place to place buying up booze and sleeping wherever he can. Huck has never viewed him as a real father figure because Pap has almost never been there for Huck, except when he is ?disciplining? him. Pap is uneducated and disapproves of Huck attending school. Pap tells Huck, "you're educated...You think your're better'n your father, now, don't you, because he can't?" (14) Huck puts up with Pap?s numerous beatings because he does not want to be the cause of any more controversies between himself and Pap. Huck explains, "If I never learnt nothing else out of pap, I learnt that the best way to get along with his kind of people is to let them have their own way" (95). Pap?s addiction to alcohol is how Twain views the affect that alcohol can have on a person. He believes that alcohol is a money waster, can affect the sanity of people, and how it can turn even decent men into complete scoundrels.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, is considered a classic novel from the realism period of American Literature that accurately depicts social conventions from pre-civil war times. Despite this reputation as a historical lens of life on the Mississippi River, elements of blatant racism overshadow the regionalist and realist depictions. Huck Finn does not promote racism because all derogatory or racist remarks are presented as a window to life during the 1850s, in a satirical context, or to show Mark Twain's moral views on racism.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, is an immensely realistic novel, revealing how a child's morals and actions clash with those of the society around him. Twain shows realism in almost every aspect of his writing; the description of the setting, that of the characters, and even the way characters speak. Twain also satirizes many of the foundations of that society. Showing the hypocrisy of people involved in education, religion, and romanticism through absurd, yet very real examples. Most importantly, Twain shows the way Huckleberry's moral beliefs form amidst a time of uncertainty in his life.
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...