Are humans naturally good, or evil? Many people argue both ways. It has been argued for centuries, and many authors have written about it. One example of this is Samuel Clemens's, more commonly known as Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The book follows a young boy, named Huckleberry, and a runaway slave, named Jim, as they both run away. Huck runs away to escape being civilized, while Jim runs away from slavery. Together, they talk about life, philosophy, and friends. As they travel down the Mississippi River, both Huck and Jim learn various life lessons. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck witnesses the depravity of human nature on his journey on the Mississippi River.
The Pre-Civil War novel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, is about a young boy named Huck. His mother is dead and his father is an alcoholic. Huck is now being raised by the Widow Douglass, a woman who is attempting to raise Huck to be a successful, educated member of society, despite his many protests. Because of the violence and forced conformity, Huck runs away and unites with a runaway slave named Jim. Instead of turning Jim in, Huck decides to help him break free from slavery. By doing this, he is going against the societal norm and refusing to follow certain rules just because that’s what everyone else is doing. As they run away together, Huck begins to notice and understand the common stereotypes within society. He rebels and goes against society in his attitudes and philosophies. In Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain explores why humans follow ridiculous ideas just because they are the societal norms by pointing out the hypocrisy within society’s ideals, incorporating satirical examples about religion, education, and slavery into his novel.
Mark Twain wrote The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to expose the hypocrisy of racism and religion in society. He clearly displayed how blacks were stereotyped, devalued, and considered to be inferior to whites. He showed how people associated themselves with certain religious beliefs, but only practiced those beliefs at their own convenience. Unfortunately, the issues Twain wrote about still exist in today’s world. Society has made some progress; however, overall, not much has changed since Twain wrote The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
Throughout time, it has been socially dangerous for someone to move against the norm of society. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, Huck is considered an outcast for these very reasons. The values of American society in the nineteenth century are illuminated by the character of Huck Finn by his refusal to conform to those expectations.
	In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain develops criticism of society by contrasting Huck and Jim’s life on the river to their dealings with people on land. Twain uses the adventures of Huck and Jim to expose the hypocrisy, racism, and injustices of society.
The novel is set in the 1930's in St. Petersburg, a fictitious place supposedly reminiscent of the town of Hannibal, Missouri the place where Mark Twain grew up. It follows the events in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, also of the same author.
Censorship is a shroud for the intolerable, a withdrawal from the cold truths of humanity, and ultimately, the suppression of expression. When a book such as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is banned in classrooms, students are not only stripped of an enriching work of literature, but also consequently stripped of the cultural and moral awareness required to survive in a world stained with imperfection and strewn with atrocity.
At the beginning of the story Huck runs away from his friends and family to Jacksons Island. On Jacksons Island he is confronted by Jim who is a runaway slave. Jim being an African American is looked down on by society. When Huck is faced with the decision of choosing to rat on Jim or keep his secret Huck has a hard time. He knows subconsciously that Jim has done something wrong. Yet he follows his heart and decides to keep Jims secret. He says'; people would call me a low-down abolitionist and despise me for keeping mum';. Huck here shows that he isn’t only running away form home but He’s running away from everything that home stands for. This happens many times in the story. Huck starts to see Jim as a friend rather then a black man. When Huck plays the
The American author Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by his pen name Mark Twain, is famous, or rather infamous, for satirically criticizing the values of society while demonstrating human nature through his characters. His novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, is no exception. There is a warning at the beginning of the novel to not try to find a motive, a moral or a plot.
Studying the novel points out moral issues of the 19th century that cannot be overlooked. This was a time that society created this hypocritical concept of morality that was clearly evident throughout the The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, as Huck is influenced by different factors including his caretakers, Jim, Tom, the duke and the dauphin and even the raft one could add. By attempting to uncover the realities and better meanings of the world, Huck molds his own values and morals, but at the same time he creates an identity for himself that is not based on the ideas of those around him.
Often throughout a person’s life negative and positive influences are infused into one’s mind through friends, and family. In Mark Twain’s novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the lead character, grows up under the guidance of three different adult views on how a boy should behave. Huck, the lead character, learns helpful and damaging life lessons from the Widow Douglas, Miss Watson, Jim, and pap.
The Adventure’s of Huckleberry Finn’s unique ability to incorporate moral lessons through satire and simmilar literary techniques prove it to be vital for High school students, especially at Rye, to read. The vast nature of things it teaches is something very rare for one book to do. It not only provides the reader with important life themes like other great novels do but it also shocks the reader to show the power of racism which makes it one of the greatest pieces of literature of all time. Just think of how different things would be if no one had read such an important book.
Mark Twain’s masterpiece The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn through much criticism and denunciation has become a well-respected novel. Through the eyes of a thirteen-year-old boy, Huckleberry Finn, Twain illustrates the controversy of racism and slavery during the aftermath of the Civil War. Since Huck is an adolescent, he is vulnerable and greatly influenced by the adults he meets during his coming of age. His expedition down the Mississippi steers him into the lives of a diverse group of inhabitants who have conflicting morals. Though he lacks valid morals, Huck demonstrates the potential of humanity as a pensive, sensitive individual rather than conforming to a repressive society. In these modes, the novel places Jim and Huck on pedestals where their views on morality, learning, and society are compared.
Initially starting as a religious and philosophical reform movement in the Unitarian church, Transcendentalism is the philosophy emphasizing individualistic spiritual intuition transcending empirical thinking and material based scientific knowledge utilized to comprehend and interpret reality and the connection between the world, the universe, and the individual. Since Transcendentalist acknowledge that humans are inherently born morally and ethically unbiased, they believe that society and its established institutions corrupt the untainted individual. The social and religious conformities of the society imposed on Huck Finn is shown through The Widows and Miss Watson’s adopting of Huck as an attempt to civilize and cleanse him, “The Widow
On February 10, in chapter nine and ten, Huck and Jim have developed somewhat of a friendship. They hide the canoe in a cavern; just in a case there were visitors that had dropped by. Unfortunately, it rains very hard, and the two hide in the cavern. The two find a washed-out houseboat, they find a dead body in the house, the body had been shot in the back. While heading back to the cave, Huck has Jim hide in the canoe, so he would not be seen. The next day, Huck puts a dead rattlesnake near Jim's sleeping place, and its mate comes and bites Jim. Jim's leg swells. A while later, Huck decides to go ashore and to find out what's new. Jim agrees, but has Huck disguise himself as a girl, with one of the dresses they took from the houseboat. Huck practices his girl impersonation, and then sets out for the Illinois shore. In an abandoned shack, he finds a woman who looks forty, and also appears a newcomer. Huck is relieved she is a newcomer, since she will not be able to recognize him. The two characters share a few important traits in common. One of the most obvious similarities is their confidence in superstition, though superstition was also a part of the society in which they lived, where people thought cannon balls and loaves of bread with mercury could find drowned corpses. The two are from “civilization” and more generally the white upper class world. Of course, Jim’s background is much deeper than Huck's. As an African American, he simply is less a part of it. Jim's freedom is endangered by that world; he must hide himself during the day so that he is not taken back to it. Journal Entry 6