Mark Twain and Huckleberry Finn

Mark Twain and Huckleberry Finn

In 1884, Mark Twain wrote one of the most controversial and

remembered novels in the world of literature, The Adventures of

Huckleberry Finn. Mark Twain was the pseudonym of Samuel

Langhorne Clemens. He was born in Florida, Missouri, Nov. 30,

1835. Twain was one of six children. This contributed to his

family being poor. Twain often had to find inexpensive forms of

entertainment. Twain made Huckleberry Finn represent him

fictionally in this book. Huck did the same typical boy things as

Twain. ^Now, we'll start this band of robbers and call it..." was

one of the things Huck said (Twain 9). When Twain was four years

old, his family moved to Hannibal, Missouri, a small town on the

west bank of the Mississippi River. The Mississippi River and the

towns along it were used as the setting in The Adventures of

Huckleberry Finn. "We judged that three nights more would fetch

us to Cairo, at the bottom of Illinois, where the Ohio River comes

in^^ (Twain 106). Huck and Jim were trying to reach a town named

Cairo. It was located in a free state, Ohio. Cairo was just one

of the many towns Twain referred to in this novel. Twain even

used familiar dialects in his novel. He stated at the beginning

of the novel, "the Missouri negro dialect; the extremest form of

the backwoods Southwestern dialect; the ordinary Pike County

dialect... are used to wit..." (Twain 1). In this book, as they

traveled down the Mississippi River, the values of Huck and Jim

were contrasted against those of the people living in the southern

United States. Huck (the narrator and one of the main characters)

and Jim(another main character) were both trying to reach freedom.

Twain based this book on things that were happening during this time in

his life. Huck was introduced without a father in his life. Twain's

father had died when he was about Huck's age in the book. Twain

portrayed religion and the morals of the southern society with satire.

"The men took their guns [to church] ... and kept them between their

knees...^ (Twain 142) was just one example. In the time of Twain's

life that he wrote this novel, the Civil War had just ended. The war

had tested society's morals. The issue of slavery was important to

Twain which was the reason morals were portrayed in this way.

The freedom and peacefulness of the river soon gave way to the