Forbidden Love: A Comparative Study of Huckleberry Finn and Romeo & Juliet

In these two works, both authors demonstrate forbidden love. In Huckleberry Finn, Miss Sophia and Harney Shephardson are from two different families who are enemies. They successfully run away together and when the two families find out immediately the feud becomes war. The families are furious and want to stop them. In Romeo and Juliet, the families do not find out about Romeo and Juliet’s marriage while they are alive.The families find that the two were married after their death, and then they become friends. Their death brought the two families together. The similarities in these two works are that they both had feuding families, no one knows the exact details about how and when the feud started and the boy and the girl secretly plan to

run away together and lastly the members of the families fight each other continuously. Jim is also forbidden from freedom because of his race. Slavery sets social chains on Jim's life and obstructs his happiness and his goals in life. The only way Jim can achieve his happiness is through freedom. Freedom for Jim means escape from slavery and a release from the social chains. For example: "Jim said it made him all over trembly and feverish to be so close to freedom" (Twain 97). Huck continues describing and says "Jim was fidgeting up and down past me. We neither of us could keep still. Every time he danced around and says, "Dah's Cairo!"" (Twain 97) Jim was forbidden from freedom and freedom for Jim meant happiness and he was going to do whatever he could to get it. Twain and Shakespeare are criticizing the fact that humanity labels things forbidden for certain people because of their family name or their race. The forbidden love that Miss Sophia, Harney, Romeo and Juliet had to face was only because of the feud that was going on between their families. Jim did not have freedom because of his race and who he is. Labeling others is what society tends to do. For example one person will say to another person that they can’t do a certain thing because of their sexe, or one will hear someone say something wrong about another person and then everyone of that different race or culture will label them because they are different and then forbid them into fitting in society. To conclude, everything that was forbidden in these works caused conflict. Miss Sophia, Harney, Romeo and Juliet and even Jim suffered because of the forbidden things their families or society didn't accept.