Huckleberry Finn has the great advantage of being written inautobiographical form.
Every scene in the book is given, not described, and theresult is a vivid picture of Western life in the past. Before the novel begins, HuckFinn has led a life of absolute freedom. His alcoholic father was often missing andnever paid much attention to him. Since Hucks mother is dead he is not used tofollowing any rules. In the beginning, Huck is living with the Widow Douglas and hersister, Miss Watson.
Both women are fairly old and have no patience to raise arebellious boy like Huck Finn. They try to make an attempt to make Huck into whatthey believe will be a better boy. Huck never really enjoys the life of manners,religion, and education that the Widow and her sister impose upon him. Huck decides to try and find freedom with his friend Tom Sawyer. A boy ofHucks age, Tom, promises Huck and other boys of the town a life of adventure.
Huck really wants to join Toms Gang because he feels that if he does join he willescape the boring life he leads with the Widow Douglas. Tom Sawyer promises manythings, but unfortunately, such thing did not occur. Toms adventures turned outimaginary. Huck is disappointed that the adventures Tom promises are not real, soalong with the other members, he resigned from the gang. Another person who tries to get Huckleberry Finn to change is Hucks father. His father is very antisocial and wishes to do all of the civilizing effects that Widowand Miss Watson have attempted to change in Huck.
Pap is a mess: his hair is uncutand hangs like vines in front of his face, he is unshaven, and his skin is very pale. Paps looks reflects Hucks feelings as he demands that Huck quits school, stopsreading, and avoids church. Huck managed to stay away from his father for a while,but Pap kidnaps him three or four months after Huck starts to live with the Widowand takes him to a lonely cabin deep in the Missouri woods. Once again, Huck enjoysthe freedom that he had in the beginning of the book. Huck soon realizes that he willhave to escape from the cabin if he wishes to remain alive.
As a result, Huck makes itappear as if he was killed in the cabin while Pap was away. He leaves to go to aremote island in the Mississippi River, Jacksons Island. After, he leaves his fathers cabin Huck meets Miss Watsons slave, Jim. Huckfound Jim on Jacksons Island because the slave ran away because he overheard aconversation that he will soon be sold to New Orleans. Huck begins to realize thatJim has more talents and Intelligence than Huck.
They begin to get to knoweachother as they float on a raft down the Mississippi River. Huck begins to enjoybeing with Jim and starts to care for him. In conclusion of chapter 11, Huck andJim are forced to leave Jacksons Island because Huck discovers they are looking fora runaway slave. They have a friendship that is unseperable as hey keep driftingdown the river as the novel continues. At the end of their journey, neither havinganything left to run from as Hucks father was dead and Jim was a free man. ITwould seem, then that Huck and Jim had run at thousand miles down the river andended up where they had started from.
Mark Twain is saying a lot of things in the story. First, the book stands byfirmly saying slavery is bad mostly because it is hypocritical. It is well supportedconsidering Huck is able to interact with Jim as a human being, while the southernslave society treats Jim as an object. Furthermore, the southerner representations arepale in comparison to Hucks wits and intelligence. For example, when the slavecatchers who are tricked into thinking Jim is Hucks small pox riddled father, and thewhole feud thing does not show much in the line of smarts for southern slave owners. On a superficial level Huckleberry Finn might appear to be racist.
The first time youread the description of Jim it is a very negative description. Although Huck is not aracist child, he has been raised by extremely racist individuals who have ingrainedsome feelings of bigotry into his mind. In chapter six, Hucks father fervently objectsto the governments granting of suffrage to an educated black professor. Twain wantsthe reader to see the absurdity in this statement. Hucks father believes that he issuperior to this black professor simply because of the color of his skin. When Huckfirst meets Jim, he makes a enormous decision, not to turn Jim in.
Many timesthroughout the novel Huck comes very close to rationalizing Jims slavery. However,he is never able to see a reason why this man who has become on of his only friends,should be a slave. Through this struggle, Twain expresses his opinions of theabsurdity of slavery and the importance of following ones personal consciencebefore the laws of society. In my opinion, Mark Twain is using race as a singleelement in his entire picture of the hypocrisy in his society. He isnt showing that thewhole race issue as much as he is showing the society he lives in. He uses race todemonstrate the hypocrisy of the rich and the middle class, among other things.
Whatother way does he show this then by demonstrating the facets of a society of snobbylandowners then by showing the vulgarity of their vocabulary. The dialects of thepeople, white and black, what a study they are; and yet nobody talks for the sake ofexhibiting a dialect. For instance, when they say Niger. If Mark Twain is sayinganything about race, he is making an allegorical statement complaining that the civilwar did not end slavery. Also, that living conditions are still undesirable for mostblacks.
For example, when Jim was free for over two weeks, he suffered mostly whenhe had his freedom. Huck has an struggle with is conscience in regard to slavery. His conscience tells him to help the runaway to escape and to aid in stealing theproperty of Miss Watson, who has never injured him. It is an enormous offense thatwill definitely carry him to the bad place; but his feelings for Jim finally induces himto violate his conscience and risk eternal punishment in helping Jim to escape.
Thewhole study of Hucks moral nature is as serious as it is amusing. His confusion ofwrong as right and his abnormal mendacity, could be followed to his training frombirth, is a singular contribution to the investigation of human nature. Mark Twains next statement about society is Religion. The hypocrisy ofreligion comes when Miss Watson, because of her religion, treats blacks as objectseven though the bible says that people should be treated equally. He also puts ascene in at the church, where the Shepard sons and Grangerfords have gathered tohear a sermon about brotherly love. Well at the sermon both families have guns intheir hands and kill eachother after the service is through.
Both the King and theDuke showed a ridiculous degree of corruptness that it is difficult to believe that allhumans arent at least somewhat evil. Another point made by the author is when Col. Sherbun shot the drunk Boggs and the townsfolk came after Sherbun to murder him. After Sherbun, one man with only a shotgun, held off the immense mob and madethem disperse, it was obvious that no individual really had the courage to go throughthe murder.
The idea that people are basically savages, confined for the moment bysociety, is shown in more than one instance, such as when the war between theShephardsons and the Grangerfords. The aspect of people being basically hypocritesis seen at the beginning when Miss Watson displays a degree of hypocritically oninsisting that Huck follow the Widow and become civilized, while at the same time deciding to sell Jim into a hard life down the river,. A final point seems to be thatMan is continually fleeing from something. Mark Twain put a main character whorejects religion, yet Huck, for the most part, has the clearest view of society. Theirjourney down the river sets the stage for most of Mark Twains comments about manand society.
It is when they stop off at various towns along the river that varioushuman character flaws always seem to come out. For example, the happenings thatoccurred after the bringing on of the Duke and the King. These two con artists wouldexecute the most foolish of schemes to relieve unsuspecting townspeople of their cash. The fact that, after being taken by a poor show they sent rave reviews of it to theirfriends to avoid admitting they had been conned showed that people in groups areafraid of losing position, and will do nearly anything to protect such. Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted;persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find aplot in it will be shot.
That quote proves that there is neither a motive, moral, nor aplot. You have to put the pieces to the puzzle by your own thoughts. The warning inthe book is that persons attempting to seek a moral in the story should be banished. Mark Twain turns his knowledge of Western dialects to account. He knows thatchildren will not read a dull book.
He never makes a dull one. In my opinion, I thinkthat he made the story to make people confused. He didnt want anyone to know amoral to the story. Maybe he even thought his book would sell more by writing thatquote. Authors have many ideas in their minds and they have many ways to confuseyou and make you curious. When it came to a point to figure out the moral, it madeyou more confused than anything.
There were so many things. For example,religion, racism, abuse, and many other things. There is very little of literary art inthe story. Book Reports
