Direct Characterization Of Huckleberry Finn

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn In the novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain tells a colorful story about freedom, friendships, and the many conflicts in the pre-civil war society. Set in the 1840’s in St. Petersburg, Missouri; Twain brings to life the adventures that Huckleberry Finn and runaway slave Jim experienced as they travelled down the Mississippi River in hopes for a better life. Throughout The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twain develops a strong racial theme through the use of satire, dialect, and specific characterization to demonstrate the harsh treatment of African Americans in this pre-civil war society. In the novel, Twain shows Jim’s dialect in order to describe the differences between African Americans and white people. An example of his dialect is when a conversation between Jim and Huck occurs discussing the possibility of Jim being sold for eight hundred dollars. At the end of the exchange, Jim states, “Yes; en I’s rich now come to look at it. I owns myself, en I’s wuth eight hund’d dollars. I wisht I had de money, I wouldn’ want no mo” (47). Within this quote, the audience can see a severe shift in pronunciation of words. Part of this is due to the fact that African Americans had very limited education compared to white people. The other part of it is due to …show more content…
During this time period, there were many harsh beliefs on relationships between white people and African Americans. Twain develops a strong bond between Huck and Jim despite these popular beliefs and opinions. This says so much about each of their characters, but especially Huck’s. Any white person in this time period did not want to be seen hanging out with a slave because it would go against all of the society’s social norms. We can see Huck’s character when he is describing a moment when Jim was having a bit of an emotional breakdown. Huck describes it