Huckleberry Finn Transcendentalism Analysis

Throughout Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain uses three philosophical movements to encourage societal change. Twain use these three movements, realism, romanticism and transcendentalism, as rhetorical devices symbolizing the growth and development of Huck and his opinion of society around him. Twain also uses characters that represents the literary movements and his opinion on their role in society.

In the beginning of the book Twain has Huck understand and accept the characters and the ideas they represent. Hucks reaction, however, to these same characters changes as he starts to symbolize the transcendentalism movement. Twain shows this with the development of Hucks opinion of the romantic movement, Tom Sawyer. In the earlier chapters of Huckleberry

Hucks responses change to his environment and Tom as he grows up. The environment represents the realist movement, Twain uses the embodiment of this movement in order to mock the way people lived at the time. The way people act is over exaggerated by Twain to encourages the change in his audience. He uses Huck as a commentator on the way people live. Huck makes comments about the unnecessary and cruel violence that the characters act on to each other. Twain also creates scenes to make the stupidity of the characters that surround Huck more evident. This is seen during Hucks time with the Duke and the King. During one of their bigger jobs the Duke and the King pretend to be two english gentlemen that have come back for their brothers funeral. The dead mans doctor claim that they are frauds and brings enough evidence for the crowd to question their validity.”You talk like an Englishman, don’t you? It’s the worst imitation I ever heard. You Peter Wilks’s brother! You’re a fraud, that’s what you are. ” (pg 169) Even with this evidence the crowd easily falls for the King and the Dukes charade. This paradizes the general public's gullibility. Twain also mocks the irony of the politeness in the southern culture when Mary Jane scolds Jo about questioning the validity of Hucks past when he is acting as the King and the Dukes vale. “... you oughtn’t to say a thing to another person that will make them feel ashamed.” (pg. 175) The publics action shows their inner cruelty after finding out the true nature of these