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Introduction to huckleberry finn
Essays on the river as symbolism in huckleberry finn
Introduction to huckleberry finn
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The last sentence in the book "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain reflects the tone and character of Huck, the main character. "But I reckon I got to light out for the territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she's going to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can't stand it. I been there before." (497) The language and grammar reflect the manner of an "unsivilized" stray child. Huck want to remain the way he is - wild and crude, wants to keep his jargon and his lifestyle, without the decency that Aunt Sally wants to impose on him. Huck is not only driven by the fear of being domesticated by Aunt Sally, but also by his love for freedom, the ability to love, and being a survivor. Huck is a child of the wild and feels displaced and uneasy in a decent atmosphere of a house of Aunt Sally or Miss Watson. He has never had a home, and the house of the widow Miss Watson is no cozier to him than the empty barrels he used to sleep in or the woods. He feels even worse in the house because he has to play by the foreign rules. He has to accept Christianity, has to follow a rigid etiquette at dinner, wear clothes that are too stiff and clean for him, and he is not supposed to smoke. "I went up to my room … and tried to think of something cheerful, but it warn't no use. I felt so lonesome I most wished I was dead. The stars were shining, and the leaves were rustled in the woods ever so mournful; and I heard an owl, away off who-whooping about somebody that was dead." (219) Huck's own environment is the uncultivated wild.Huck is a roving character. Most of the time of the story Huck spends on the river on the raft with Jim. The raft on the river is their safe shelter, their only home. "I was powerful glad to get away from the feuds, and so was Jim to get away from the swamp. [Jim and Huck] said there warn't no home like a raft, after all. Other places do seem so cramped and smothery, but a raft don't. You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft." (327) The character of Huck is like the river - flowing and forever changing.
mentally by his redneck guardian Pap. This man had walked into and out of Huck's life on numerous occasions. He was the only father figure in Huck's life and failed miserably at the job. Pap was the first representation of civilization to Huck and it was a sour one. It was also civilization that awarded custody of Huck to Pap. He had been screwed over too many times by the civilized world, and that was the main reason he decided to leave home. & nbsp; Huck ran from his troubles at home down the Mississippi River. river is where he found his sanctuary. Jim and Huck were always safe. independent, and free out on the raft. It seemed that every time they would go to shore, something negative involving civilization would arise. The dark side of human nature and suffering would meet up with the two of them. They always stumble upon the under-belly of society. & nbsp; The symbol of human suffering was the Grangerfords family. When Huck found himself in front of their farm after the ship wreck, his first. impression was a positive one. He thought that the Grangerfords were a pleasant, normal family life.
Society has always denounced the acts of death and children running away from their homes. Huck can be seen as a morbid child as he is always talking about death and murder. Society would rather not have anything to do with people who have such a melancholic outlook on life. Living with years of torment by his drunkard father, Pap, Huck feared the day he would return to daunt his life. When Pap does return, he seizes Huck and drags him to a secluded cabin where Huck is boarded inside and unable to leave: This is where the dilemma occurs. In this position, Huck has a decision to make, either take note to the morals of society and listen to his conscience, which will result in more added years of pain and anguish from Pap, or Huck can listen to his heart and do what he thinks is best.
So when Huck fakes his death and runs away to live on an island he is faced with yet another problem, which revolves around the controversial issue of the time of racism. While living on the island he meets Jim, who was a slave, but Huck soon learns that he has run off and now in the process of making his way up north to Canada. Here Huck is faced with his first tough decision, to go with Jim and help him, or just go and tell the officials of a runaway slave and get the reward. Huck reluctantly joins Jim and promises to get him to free land for the sake of a good adventure, but he still feels guilty to be conversing with a runaway slave, let alone help him escape. Along the way Huck has many challenges, which are just like this one.
“Make the best o’ things the way you find ‘em, says I-that’s my motto. This ain’t no bad thing that we’ve struck here-plenty grub and an easy life-come, give us your hand, duke, and let’s all be friends” (Twain 124). Although this excerpt was taken from a con man in the story, it is an important quotation that is not to be overlooked. Twain wrote characters that have all faced oppression, such as Huck growing up with a complicated family life, or Jim who isn’t even treated as a human. But they all overcame their adversity, had remarkable attitudes, and found their personal freedom within the raft. Huck has had a childhood that has been anything but ordinary. He starts out in the home of the Widow Douglas and her sister who both try to civilize
Huck has been raised in a high-class society where rules and morals are taught and enforced. He lives a very strict and proper life where honesty and adequacy is imposed. Huck being young minded and immature, often goes against these standards set for him, but are still very much a part of his decision-making ability and conscience. When faced to make a decision, Hucks head constantly runs through the morals he was taught. One of the major decisions Huck is faced with is keeping his word to Jim and accepting that Jim is a runaway. The society part of Hucks head automatically looks down upon it. Because Huck is shocked and surprised that Jim is a runaway and he is in his presence, reveals Hucks prejudice attitude that society has imposed on him. Huck is worried about what people will think of him and how society would react if they heard that Huck helped save a runaway slave. The unspoken rules th...
Set in pre-civil war America, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn takes place along the Mississippi river. As Huckleberry travels along it he learns lessons about life, society and most importantly; himself. Surrounded by a world of prejudice and racism, Huck is forced to learn to make decisions on his own. He is able to learn from the imperfections in the rest of the world as he views them. While on the river, Huck and Jim are at peace. The river symbolizes freedom for both Jim and Huck. The river is Jim’s path to freedom from slavery, and it is Huck’s freedom from society. When Jim and Huck journey onto the banks of the river they see the inhumanity to man that goes on in the world. This juxtaposition of the river and the land help emphasize the peacefulness of the river in comparison to the crazy society on land. Huck learns to think for himself, and tries not to conform to the ways of the people on the land. Although the world that he lives in teaches him to be a racist, his journey down the river teaches him to use his own mind, and find out what he really believes in.
Life on land was filled with many difficulties. There were many rules that Huck had to follow set by both the widow and his father. The widow’s main goal was to “civilize” Huck into a member of society. She expected Huck to go to school, wear clean clothes, sleep in his bed, and go to church. She just wanted him to be like a normal child of his age. Even though Huck bends the rules a bit and tries to sneak a smoke here and there, he eventually grows to like living under the widow’s protection. He proves this point when he says, "Living in a house, and sleeping in a bed, pulled on me pretty tight, mostly, but before the cold weather I used to slide out and sleep in the woods, sometimes, and so that was a rest to me. I liked the old ways best, but I was getting so I liked the new ones, too, a littl...
... in fact frees them from their imprisonment on shore. In vivid contrast, however, Huck acknowledges the river as "miles and miles across," each and every inch of which is "still and grand" (page 28). The river is a utopia for the two friends- they don't have to answer to anyone while they float peacefully along. Instead, he is forced to constantly behave as others think he should. The river allows him to escape the shackles of limitation put on him by the dwellers of the land. For example, the fact that Huck views the land as "cramped up and smothery" (page 137) denotes the imprisonment characterized by society (societies are constantly "weeding out" the menaces to the community by imprisoning them). When the world around the river bank threatens to intrude the calm protected space that is solely theirs, it does not succeed; the river carries the two to freedom.
...ion. Twain ends his novel by setting Huck up for a new experience and personal growth. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn taught an important lesson, one that showed the importance of the self in the maturing process. We saw Huck grow up by having the river as a place of solitude and thought, where he was able to participate in society at times, and also sit back and observe society. Through the child's eye we see how ignorant and mob-like we can all be. Then nature, peace, and logic are presented in the form of the river where Huck goes to think. Though no concise answer is given, the literature forces the reader to examine their surroundings, and question their leaders.
...he width of the river and its magnitude. Huckleberry holds nature in its own realm and regards it when he needs to. He is a nature-man and does things that other people wouldn’t understand. “We was always naked, day and night… and besides I didn’t go much on clothes nohow.” (Twain 118). Huck decides to live his life like a true homeless man and enjoys it because he is living amongst the natural world. Huck values the wilderness so much that he would go out of his way make the experience “right.”
...ore closely related to a bildungsroman than to a simple picaresque novel. Huck shows considerable development, both morally and psychologically. Through the people he meets, he gets a taste of many spectrums of society and morals. This is the very last line of the novel: “But I reckon I got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she’s going to adopt me and sivilize me and I can’t stand it. I been there before.” (AHF, 220). The last line clearly shows he is not the same little boy that he was at the beginning of the book. Because he has been there before, he is no longer ignorant of “there”. By choosing to make his own choices, Huck makes a steady path towards maturity not only of his morals, but of himself as well.
In the very beginning of the novel, the Widow Douglas and Miss Watson read Huck bible stories. After learning that the people in the bible have passed on, Huck exclaims that he does not care about dead people. Later in the night, he wishes that he was dead. He interprets the animal sounds outside as cries that somebody is going to die (Twain 14-16). Daniel G. Hoffman states that superstitions are associated with the “freedom from the restraints of civilization.” He interprets these signs as an “acknowledgement of the fact of death,” and an “admission of evil as a positive force in the natural word.” He points out that Huck’s statement about not caring about dead people only applies to his Bible lessons, not to his beliefs about reality (102). Huck connects learning and civilization with death and superstition. He wants nothing to do with being civilized, and it makes him fear the world that encourages it. Therefore, the passage foreshadows Huck’s escape and ultimate choice to leave civilization at the end of the
The Widow Douglas and Miss Watson try to "sivilize" Huck by making him stop all of his habits such as smoking, etc. They try to reverse all of his teaching from the first twelve years of his life and force him to become their stereotypical good boy. The rest of the town also refused to view him as good and he was considered undesirable. The only time that the town's people were able to put away their views of Huck was when there was excitement to be found, like when they all crowded on the steamboat to see if the cannons could bring Huck's body to the surface. Everyone got interested in him and tried to show that they cared about him, but this is only after he is presumed dead.
Huck and Jim had many adventures while aboard the raft together. Although Jim was black, and supposed to be looked down upon by Huck, he saw Jim as the fatherly figure he never received from his abusive biological father. He looked up to Jim and Jim protected Huck as if he were his son. Jim missed his own family, telling Huck "how the first thing he would do when he got to a free State he would go to saving money and never spend a single cent, and when he got enough he would ...
At the beginning of the tale, Huck struggles between becoming ?sivilized? and doing what he pleases. He doesn?t want to listen to the rules that the Widow Douglas and her sister force upon him, even though he knows the widow only wants what is best for him. Miss Watson pushes Huck away from society even more through the way she treats him. She teaches him religion in such a dreary way that when she speaks of heaven and hell, Huck would rather go to hell than be in heaven with her: ?And she told all about the bad place, and I said I wished I was there?I couldn?t see no advantage in going where she was going, so I made up my mind I wouldn?t try for it? (12-13). Huck is taught a very different kind of morality by his father who believes ?it warn?t no harm to borrow things, if you was meaning to pay them back?? (70). He likes his father?s idea of morality better because he is not yet mature enough to fully understand right and wrong, although living with the widow...