Huckleberry Finn

1181 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Character analysis

MARK TWAIN AND

"THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN"

Mark Twain was born on the Missouri frontier and spent his childhood there. His real name is actually Samuel Langhorne Clemens. At the age of 12 he quit school in order to earn his living. At the age of 15 he already wrote his first article and by the time he was 16 he had his first short novel published. In 1857 he was an apprentice steamboat pilot on a boat that left Mississippi and was leading towards New Orleans. His characters were created because of the people and the situations he encountered on this trip.

"The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" is a sequel to "Tom Sawyer". "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" is one of the masterpieces of American literature. It was first published in America in January 1885. From all of Mark Twain's novels this one was the only that sold best at its initial appearance. Although it was criticized a lot too. In 1885 it was even banished from the Concord Public Library.

The novel presents the things a thirteen year old child goes through when trying to save a black slave from the woman that wanted to adopt him and educate him to meet the standards of the society she lives in. The two characters, in their journey, meet some dangerous people, like the three thieves they meet on a crashed steamboat, but also some good characters, such as Grangerford family who treated Huck very nice. The Duke and the King are also two characters Huck and Jim meet on their journey down the Mississippi river. This two make money by cheating people in the towns near the river. After a while the Duke and the King sell Jim saying he is a runaway slave from New Orleans. Huck decides to rescue Jim so he follows him to the house where he was sold, only to find ...

... middle of paper ...

...sions but shocking for the white society. He meets a group of slave hunters and then he discovers that telling a lie is sometimes good. Being a child the world always seems new to him, everything he finds or encounters is an occasion that makes him think.

After a while, Huck returns to the town dressed as a girl to find more news. He discovers that Jim and Pap are suspects to his murder. In this journey Huck and Jim become friends.

Although his background makes him not only to apply the rules he knows, but also to invent new ones. He struggles with the ideas about black people that the society has. "Huck represents what anyone is capable of becoming: a thinking, feeling human being rather than a mere cog in the machine of society".

REFFERENCE POINTS

http://www.gradesaver.com/classicnotes/titles/huckfinn/shortsumm.html

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/huckfinn/

Show More
Related

  • Tom Sawyer Chapter Summaries

    1883 Words  | 4 Pages

    The book starts off telling us that you may know Huck from another book called the adventures of Tom Sawyer. Which was also written by Mark Twain. In the first chapter, we figured out the Tom and Huck found a stash of gold that some robbers stole and hid in a cave. They both got $6,000 a piece. After they both got their shares of the money they had Judge Thatcher put it into a trust, in the bank. Once Huck was known for finding the treasure Widow Douglass adopted Huck. Widow Douglass also tried to civilize Huck, but Huck didn't want to be with Douglass so he ran away. Huck took all of his belongings with him, but nothing that Douglass gave him. After Huck ran away he went to join up with Tom Sawyer and his new gang of robbers. The Widow tried to teach Huck about reading and writing before he ran away. But thats the reason why he left because he wasn't interested in any of that stuff. Huck left the Widow’s house when he heard something outside the house, it was Tom waiting for him in the yard. So Huck got up and left.

    Read More

  • moralhf Moral Choices in Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

    572 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn you meet a rebellious young teen named Huck Finn. Huck is not your everyday hero especially in the beginning of the novel but slowly through the story his mature, responsible side comes out and he shows that he truly is the epitome of a hero. Huck is forced to make many crucial decisions, which could get him in serious trouble if not get him killed. Huck has natural intelligence, has street smarts, which are helpful along his adventure, and is assertive. Huck has always had to rely on himself to get through things because he is from the lowest levels of white society and his dad is known more or less as the `town drunk." 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.

    Read More

  • The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn

    1062 Words  | 3 Pages

    	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.

    Read More

  • Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

    965 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • charhf Changes in Huck Finn's Character

    669 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Parallelism In Huckleberry Finn

    1353 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

    670 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Huck Finn

    1211 Words  | 3 Pages

    Jim had run away from his abusive father and enabling small town to find himself traveling down the Mississippi on a raft. His traveling partner was a black slave, Jim. Wondering why Jim was there, Huck discovers that Jim had run away from his slave owner, Ms. Watson. Jim had spoken about his harsh life as a slave, and resented talk of being sold down to Orleans for a “big stack o’ money.” Huck felt that Jim’s escape was wrong, but kept his promise of secrecy, like any good friend would.

    Read More

  • The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

    1359 Words  | 3 Pages

    Ever since the day the book Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was introduced to the readers, the critical world has been littered with numerous essays and theses on Mark Twain’s writing achievement, yet many of them are about the writing style of Bildungsroman, the symbolic meanings of the raft and Mississippi river, the morality and racism color. Whereas few of them ever talked about why Mark Twain wrote so many lies in this novel. Probably because people usually thought that the splendor of this masterpiece will be obscured by the immorality nature of lying. But actually this is no the thing, even Mark Twain himself does’t think lying is an immoral thing. As what he said in his lecture on a meeting of the Historical and Antiquarian Club of Hartford, the essay later published as “On The Decay of the Art of Lying” , he called the art of lying “a Virtue, a Principle...a recreation, a solace, a refuge in time of need, the fourth Grace, the tenth Muse, man's best and surest friend, is immortal” (Twain, “On The Decay of the Art of Lying”). We can see that Mark Twain has a mature understanding about the value of lying and he wanted to share with us his philosophy of lying through Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Therefore, the major task of the paper is to investigate this philosophy of lying in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

    Read More

  • Huckleberry Finn ( Huck Finn )

    669 Words  | 2 Pages

    The concept of what truth is, is a prevailing theme in both The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and the essay excerpt by Andrew Lang. Lang writes about truth as being found in lack of distortion from the actual world. Lang’s idea of truth is certainly found in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. For Twain, morality is a larger part of his concept of truth than likeness to nature.

    Read More

  • Positive Changes in Character in "The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain

    1973 Words  | 4 Pages

    Huckleberry Finn, the son of a known drunk in town, is already able to look back at some exciting adventures and a chaotic and disobedient lifestyle. As he was taken under the wings of the widow Douglas. He lived in her nice house with the intentions of making him an acceptable figure of the american society. After three months Huckeberry Finn cannot take, living a high social life, full of annoying expectations, that he eventually leaves the town St. Petersburg. On his way to freedom and away of authority he gets to know Jim. A colored slave who also escaped from his owner because he was about to be sold to a new plantation owner. They become friends and start to head down the Mississippi river on a self-made raft. On which they experience a bunch crazy adventures, sometimes even dramatic ones. While on their trip Huck basically only experiences fraud, theft and lies as he runs into his father and a clever couple of swindlers. He soon notices that justice, faith and humanity is only presented as a camouflage. At the end of their travels Huckleberry Finn and Jim meet Tom Sawyer and eventually return back to St. Petersb...

    Read More

  • Satire In Mark Twain's Short Stories

    1324 Words  | 3 Pages

    Mark Twain uses humor, irony, and satire in his short stories. Also known as Samuel Clemens, he was a writer of the late 19th century in America. Most famously known for his work The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Mark Twain was born on November 30th, 1835, in the state of Florida, Missouri. He was the sixth child in his family, making him the youngest child.

    Read More

  • Huckleberry Finn

    1052 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Huckleberry Finn Book Report

    1094 Words  | 3 Pages

    Mark Twain was born Samuel Langhorne Clemens on November 30, 1835, in Florida, Missouri. When Samuel Clemens was four years old, his family moved to Hannibal, Missouri, where he spent his childhood. Clemens first approach to literature was through typesetting for a newspaper in 1851. At the time Orion, his brother, was a newspaper publisher in Hannibal. From 1857 until 1861, he served as the pilot of a riverboat on the Mississippi River. He later used this experience in creating his novels. His first writings appeared in a newspaper on February 2, 1863 under the pen name “Mark Twain.';

    Read More

  • Huckleberry Finn Journal Entry

    921 Words  | 2 Pages

    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

    Read More

More about Huckleberry Finn

Open Document