How Does Mark Twain Criticize The Civilization Of Huckleberry Finn

Society during the era from 1835 to 1845 in the rural South was known to be oblivious of education and other civilities in the everyday life. Set in an era of slavery and ignorance, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, written by Mark Twain was a story of a young boy named Huckleberry Finn, who views the orderly structures of civilization as unbearable. In the novel, Mark Twain criticizes the everyday Southern society by using the idea of freedom against civilization, slavery, and other social norms. As he experienced a dysfunctional upbringing growing up, Huck has a strong opposition against everything that he believes might civilize him, which in turns allowed him to have a perpetual desire to escape from civilization. Throughout the novel, Mark Twain reveals Huck’s defiance to the conformity in a society full of hypocrisies as he is trapped by the restrictions that society had placed upon him.
With the opening of the story, it is clear that Huck does not consider highly of civilization as he believes that it is an insignificant practice and a form of entanglement. When the Widow Douglas set to adopt him and conform him into a socially respectable person, Huck dreads the idea that he is being civilized as he …show more content…
Even though he was taken by his abusive father, whom he dearly hates, Huck has no objection of being taken away by him as he is being released from civilization and enjoys the fact that he is free at last. He then told himself that, as long as he is free, he will not go back to the demise of civilization ever again. “I didn’t see how I’d ever got to like it so well at the widow’s, where you had to wash, and eat on a plate, and comb up, and go to bed and get up regular, and be forever bothering over a book, and have old Miss watson pecking at you all the time. I didn’t want to go back no more”