Huckleberry Finn Literary Analysis

"Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be executed; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot." (2, notice). Mark Twain opens his American classic, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, with a jab at the more Romantic notions of past authors and a quick view of the satirical, quick-witted story that follows. The notice also serves to make the reader focus even more on the moral of the story, which seems to be that the main character, Huck, needs to find independence when it comes to his morality. Throughout the Book, Huck and Jim -a runaway slave- face many challenges as they try to escape to the free states. Several of those challenges come in the form

of other people trying to capture Jim either for a reward or out of their "morality". While Huck had been raised his whole life to believe that slavery is acceptable, or even good, he makes the decision to ignore the flawed morality of his Family, Church and Community in favor of what he believes is right and continues to help his friend.

Huck is no stranger to adversity, and when it comes to Jim, he (mostly) willingly denies the church, the community and his own family.

Huck is used to distrusting the judgement of the people attempting to interfere with his life, from the way he escapes miss Watson's attempts to raise him properly and Pap's cruelty and racism to running again at the end of the novel "because Aunt Sally wants to make [him] her son and raise [him] in a proper manner," (Twain, 281). But more difficult for him was to break away from the deeply ingrained lessons that his society had taught him, that some people were inherently worth less than others. This was not fringe morality, either, taught only by those on the outskirts of society: there were powerful people preaching this inequality, from positions of power all the way to the church. Yet, he managed to escape that moral deficit and help his friend, ignoring the lessons he'd been provide all his life.

Why?

Huck quickly realizes he can trust his own personal experience to act as guide, especially as the people around him are constantly pointing him in the wrong direction. Huck uses his own feelings of guilt to guide him when considering turning in Jim, at first being "eager to tell someone that Jim was a runaway slave, but when [he] heard Jim’s praise," (Twain, 87) of his moral character, he began to realize that Jim was more than property, with his own goals and ambitions. He knows that in the social climate of his home he should be duty bound to turn in the runaway slave, but he can't bring himself to turn on his friend. Twain did not right Huck this way by accident either, he knew what he was doing with gut wrenching scenes like the one I mentioned above.

Mark twain was a staunch abolitionist, and this book was his crowning piece of anti-slavery work.

The afterword present at the end of the book serves as a short analysis of Twain's intentions, and the author is quick to point out that this was Twain's problem with society. In fact, "it is not Sherburn but Mark Twain speaking when Sherburn tells them off... In this terrifying scene, one of the most powerful weapons ever directed at the complacency of democracy in America," (Kazin, 292) is Twain's passionate writings of the worst of our society. Shining a light on the disfigured morals of the Slaveholding South, Twain wrote this book on purpose, with purpose, and it's up to the readers to recognize that

purpose.

Huck learns throughout the story that sometimes the only way to discover what's right is to accept that some "facts of life" aren't correct, and to trust your own experience. This extends into our own lives too: take the time to examine what's done for the sake of conformity and take note of Twain's protests. In a time of such political turmoil, Twain's voice was one of reason, yet also with a passionate stance. Without those voices, there would be chaos, and it is imperative that the public doesn't fall in to the same trap of complacency he despised so much.