Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain is set in the pre-civil war era and begins with the narrator, Huck Finn, introducing himself, the Widow Douglas, and her sister, Miss Watson, who have taken Huck into their home in order to try and teach him religion and proper manners. One day his father, Pap, kidnaps him and takes him across the Mississippi River to a small cabin on the Illinois shore. Although Huck becomes somewhat comfortable with his life free from religion and school, Pap's beatings become too severe, and Huck fakes his own murder and escapes down the Mississippi. Huck lands a few miles down, and there he stumbles across Miss Watson's slave, Jim, who has run away out of fear he will be sold down the river. Huck himself buys …show more content…
into racial stereotypes, and even reprimands himself for not turning Jim in for running away, given that he has a societal and legal obligation to do so. However, as Huck comes to know Jim and befriend him, he realizes that he and Jim alike are human beings who love and hurt, who can be wise or foolish. Having the unique perspective of a fourteen-year-old boy as the narrator for this novel allows Twain to teach readers lessons as Huck learns them himself. Huck explores many controversial issues through a young boy’s eyes, and this youth allows him to get away with mischief that an older character would never attempt.
In addition, Huck can question the unfairness of slavery and society in ways that would be impossible with any other narrator, suggesting that the natural state of a person’s mind is one that doesn’t judge others based on race. Jim proves himself to be a better man than most other people Huck meets in his travels, and by the end of the novel, Huck would rather defy his society and his religion—he'd rather go to Hell—than let his friend Jim be returned to slavery. Huck had previously only seen Jim as a lesser companion, but he begins to see Jim express emotions that he previously thought were exclusive to whites, and his young mind, yet to be manipulated by society, allows Huck to use this to cast Jim as different from the racist southern stereotypes and form his own opinion.
One foggy night, Huck, in the canoe, gets separated from Jim and the raft. After a lonely time adrift, Huck reunites with Jim, but Huck tries to trick Jim by pretending that Jim dreamed up their entire separation but soon Jim notices all the debris, dirt, and tree branches that collected on the raft while it was adrift. He gets mad at Huck for making a fool of him after he had worried about him so much, but Huck eventually apologizes and does not regret it, He feels bad about hurting Jim: “It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and humble myself to a n*****—but I done it, and I waren’t even sorry for it afterwards, neither. I didn’t do him no more mean tricks, and I wouldn’t done that one if I’d knowed it would make him feel that way” (Twain 95). Huck feels guilty for underestimating Jim’s intelligence, but he still fells as if he has to lower himself in order to apologize to Jim, as he shows when he says “it was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and humble myself to a n*****”. At the time when Huck Finn is set, slaves were often understood and referred to in animal terms, which in turn made it difficult for whites to
empathize with blacks in any meaningful way, but Huck demonstrates his ability to empathize across racial lines, a skill which he is able to demonstrate because he is still able to go against contemporary social norms that tended to dehumanize blacks. Huck reaches his moral climax of the novel as he struggles with the question of whether or not to return Jim to his “rightful owner” (Ms. Watson), he struggles because the societal norms that he was taught tell him to return Jim, but his own morals know that in reality, Jim deserves to be treated as a human and nothing less. Jim was sold and is being held in the Phelpses’ shed pending his return to his rightful owner. Thinking that life at home would be better than his current state of peril far from home, Huck composes a letter to Miss Watson, telling her where Jim is: “It was a close place. I took . . . up [the letter I’d written to Miss Watson], and held it in my hand. I was a-trembling, because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself: “All right then, I’ll go to hell”—and tore it up. It was awful thoughts and awful words, but they was said. And I let them stay said; and never thought no more about reforming” (Twain 223). When Huck thinks of his friendship with Jim, however, and realizes that Jim will be sold down the river anyway, he decides to tear up the letter. It is the logical consequences of Huck’s action and his malleable mind, rather than the lessons society has taught him, that drive Huck. He decides that his going to “hell,” is a better option than sending Jim back to hell on earth. This moment of decision represents Huck’s true break with the world around him. Huck decides to help Jim escape slavery once and for all, while simultaneously realizing that he does not want to reenter the “sivilized” world: after all his experiences and moral development on the river, he wants to move on to the freedom of the West instead. While slaveholders profit from slavery, the slaves themselves are oppressed, exploited, and physically and mentally abused. Jim is inhumanely ripped away from his wife and children. However, white slaveholders rationalize the oppression, exploitation, and abuse of black slaves by assuring themselves, that black people are mentally inferior to white people, more animal than human. Though Huck’s father, is a vicious, violent man, it is the much better man, Jim, who is suspected of Huck’s murder, only because Jim is black and because he ran away from slavery, in a bid for freedom, to be with his family. In this way, slaveholders and racist whites harm blacks, but they also do moral harm to themselves, by viciously misunderstanding what it is to be human, and all for the sake of profit. In the end, this realization which Huck experiences, that slaves are just as human as he is, is an epiphany that Huck is able to see because he is still young, and one Twain hopes the reader will experience too.
While staying with a farming family, Huck’s partner, known as “The King,” sold off some slaves that he swindled away from the family. While the slaves were crying and saying goodbye to each other, Huck thinks that “I couldn’t a stood it all but would a had to bust...if I hadn’t knowed the sale warn’t no account and the niggers would be back home in a week or two”(Clemens, 234-235). While traveling with Jim down the Mississippi, Huck’s transformation on his outlook on slaves is drastic. He no longer sees Jim as “Miss Watson’s big nigger,”(Clemens, 22) but as a
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 a novel about a young man's search for identity. Huckleberry Finn goes through some changes and learns some life lessons throughout his journey. Huck changes from being just an immature boy at the beginning of the novel to being a more mature man who looks at things in a different perspective now.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel and sequel through which Mark Twain weaves a consistent theme regarding the battle of right versus wrong. Twain presents Huckleberry Finn, or simply Huck, as the main character who finds himself on a current-driven journey down the Mississippi River to escape the abuse of his alcoholic father. The encounters of Huck and Jim, the escaped slave of the widow Mrs. Watson, serve as a catalyst for the moral based decisions in this MORAL-riddled novel.
Mark Twain's novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn depicts how he is a racist. He shows it in many ways in which his characters act. All of the people in the towns are slave owners, and treat black slaves with disrespect. In the time period of the novel slavery was not legal, but racism was. Many scenes in his novel make slaves look like fools. Mark Twain does this purposely to make colored people look and sound like fools, because he is a racist person.
Jim’s anticipation for freedom grew higher as he expressed his future dreams and aspirations. Jim began saying things that “niggers” wouldn’t normally dare say. Jim was speaking like a white man, not like someone’s property, a slave. This attitude began to lower Huck’s vision of Jim, and his conscience grew even hotter. Huck had never been exposed to a slave who spoke this way. It was his inadequate education that told him this was wrong.
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 reinforcement of racial stereotypes in literature and films can be a difficult topic for many individuals. There have been a great deal of works throughout the history of our country that have encouraged and promoted racial stereotypes among the African American race, such as the sambo; the buck; the mammy and the magical negro. All of these racial stereotypes have desensitized the American culture and created the view that racism in literature and films is acceptable. In the movies and novel The Help, The Whipping Man, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the rude and offensive ways in which African Americans were seen and treated, only worked to promote the horrible, racial stereotypes that many people are still trying to challenge to this day.
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.
Discrimination has been a dark shadow over America for decades. African Americans, Indians, women, and people of different religions and views have always been treated differently than the so-called average white European descent. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, discrimination is pointed towards Blacks. Some characters develop a new vision of Blacks in this classic novel and unintentionally develop the idea of an African American being able to be equal to a Caucasian. Not in all circumstances can the people of America rise above these ideas of discrimination though. White’s attitudes toward minorities grew increasingly worse in the 1800’s The Emancipation Proclamation and black codes helped much of America change their views, but the
Throughout the course of the novel, as they travel down the river in search for freedom, Huck’s opinion of Jim changes. Initially Huck feels he should not be helping Jim to freedom and almost turns him into slave catchers. Huck says, “I was paddling off, all in a sweat to tell on him”, the use of the idiom accentuating his over-eagerness to conform to society’s expectations by advocating slavery. Although painfully slowly for the reader Huck eventually recognises Jim’s equality with white men. “It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and humble myself to a nigger but I done it, and I warn’t even sorry for it afterward neither.
Despite all the criticism, of racism and other questionable material for young readers, Mark Twain’s The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn is a superbly written novel, which in the opinion of this reviewer should not be remove the literary cannon. Twain’s novel is a coming of age story that teaches young people many valuable lessons and to some extend makes students reexamine their own lives and morals. The most common argument for its removal from the literary canon is that the novel is too racist; it offends black readers, perpetuates cheap slave-era stereotypes, and deserves no place on today’s bookshelves. However one must ask if Twain is encouraging traditional southern racism or is Twain disputing these idea.