Nature Vs. Nature In The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn By Mark Twain

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The story of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn written by Mark Twain follows a young, rambunctious boy named Huckleberry Finn living in St. Petersburg, Missouri. Huck is the son of the town drunk and because of that he has never went to school a day in his life. He has also lived most of his life without a mother and without a home. However, after the events of Mark Twain’s previous novel, Huck has been adopted by the Widow Douglas and her sister Miss Watson who take him in and attempt to “sivilize” him. The widow’s sister is very strict but her teachings often go over Huck’s head. However, she does successfully teach Huck how to read. The Widow and her sister are very well off and own a number of slaves …show more content…
Huck loves to be outdoors and to go on adventures and to live a life of fun without care and stress however, he experiences disappointment when he is confronted with his adoption and the civilized life ahead. This is where the conflict between natural life and civilization comes to a head as Huck is confronted with this new and unusual way of living that he does not understand nor appreciate. This brings up the idea of nurture vs. nature and how a person should live and act according to society. Twain presents this topic to highlight the differing ideas of moral actions in society. He leaves the interpretation open for the reader to decide which way a person should land is supposed to live. This is a major part of the novel as it applies to the racism of the time as everyone had different opinions on the ethicality of slavery. This is another topic that is open to interpretation and it allows the reader to become more engrossed into the …show more content…
My only complaints with this book are characters and their naivety and the slow speed of advancement of the plot. The character I dislike most in this novel was Tom Sawyer. He seemed like an adrenaline junky who only served to hasten the plot even further. For example, near the end of the book, Huck devises a simple and easy plan to free Jim from the new family that was keeping him but, Tom Sawyer feels as though this plan is too boring and needs a little flare. So, Tom comes up with a plan that would have the same end result but with more dangerous situations and varying possibilities. There were more characters that I had problems with but they at least had common sense but Huck and Jim did not have a formal education and got into situations that could have been fascinating but were just bland and misunderstood. My other complaint with this book was the sluggish progression of the plot. This book just seemed too long to me and could have been simplified if it were written in modern times. The style of writing didn’t bother me that much as I usually knew what the characters were talking about but the progression of the plot was a little too slow for me. I guess this speed of the book can be attributed to the environment. The characters are floating down a river and I can view that being the speed of the book. This makes it feel as though the reader is actually floating down the river with the characters and