The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, arguably author and journalist Mark Twain’s greatest achievement, is perhaps its author’s most profound work. Composed in the late nineteenth century subsequent to the abolition of slavery nationwide, Twain’s controversial novel audaciously tackles several taboo topics of the Reconstruction era, propelled by the author’s own unorthodox - and highly debated - beliefs. Twain’s iconoclastic ideas regarding the southern United States and its notoriously prejudiced society have come to characterize Huck Finn as a whole, as they have been interwoven into every aspect of the novel. So closely intertwined are Twain’s own opinions of Southern civilization with the story’s development that readers are submerged
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As young Huckleberry Finn and the runaway slave, Jim, attempt to navigate the Mississippi River with the hope of attaining freedom, Twain caustically highlights, through the boys’ misadventures, the era’s stereotypical Southern civilization. Southern “sivilized” society comes throughout the novel to denote a culture of uniformity; those who are deemed “sivilized” have conformed to conventional discriminatory beliefs. Despite his seemingly natural aversion to society, in the story’s inception, Huck represents the innocence and passivity of a child who has yet to experience events which would warrant a discrepancy between his own feelings and the prejudice prevailing in the South. However, as Huck’s journey continues, he finds himself increasingly aware of the disparities and injustice in his society, specifically regarding the treatment of colored people. While struggling internally between the Southern chauvinism he has been taught and his own tendencies toward kindness and equity, Huck resolutely declares to the world that he would rather “go to hell” than plunge his friend into servitude once again (Twain 250). Like Jim, Huck begins his voyage as a vagrant, seeking refuge from provincial Southern civilization and his own father, though his quest is not to evade the confines of enslavement. Instead, Huck’s journey is motivated by his …show more content…
From the story’s exposition, Twain emphasizes the centrality of formal education in Southern civilization, expressing a direct correlation between a person’s schooling and his or her status as “sivilized” in society. However, intelligence and aptitude seem to be measured not by innate ingenuity but by one’s literacy and ability to write. Consequently, both Jim and Huck are degraded by their society and unjustly acquire the label ‘uneducated’. Despite his undeserved title, Huck continually resists the education that seems perpetually thrust upon him out of his newfound distrust for the society in which he has been raised. In the novel’s closing paragraphs when the prospect of his “sivilization” arises once again, Huck further demonstrates his desire to detach himself from the predetermined culture surrounding him, whose ideas contradict all for which he has come to stand: “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” (Twain 338). Twain fervently expresses his own hopes though Huck’s ensuing journey West that in this new uncharted territory there lies the promise of acceptance and equality for future
As young Huckleberry Finn and the runaway slave, Jim, attempt to navigate the Mississippi River with the hope of attaining freedom, Twain caustically highlights, through the boys’ misadventures, the era’s stereotypical Southern civilization. Southern “sivilized” society comes throughout the novel to denote a culture of uniformity; those who are deemed “sivilized” have conformed to conventional discriminatory beliefs. Despite his seemingly natural aversion to society, in the story’s inception, Huck represents the innocence and passivity of a child who has yet to experience events which would warrant a discrepancy between his own feelings and the prejudice prevailing in the South. However, as Huck’s journey continues, he finds himself increasingly aware of the disparities and injustice in his society, specifically regarding the treatment of colored people. While struggling internally between the Southern chauvinism he has been taught and his own tendencies toward kindness and equity, Huck resolutely declares to the world that he would rather “go to hell” than plunge his friend into servitude once again (Twain 250). Like Jim, Huck begins his voyage as a vagrant, seeking refuge from provincial Southern civilization and his own father, though his quest is not to evade the confines of enslavement. Instead, Huck’s journey is motivated by his …show more content…
From the story’s exposition, Twain emphasizes the centrality of formal education in Southern civilization, expressing a direct correlation between a person’s schooling and his or her status as “sivilized” in society. However, intelligence and aptitude seem to be measured not by innate ingenuity but by one’s literacy and ability to write. Consequently, both Jim and Huck are degraded by their society and unjustly acquire the label ‘uneducated’. Despite his undeserved title, Huck continually resists the education that seems perpetually thrust upon him out of his newfound distrust for the society in which he has been raised. In the novel’s closing paragraphs when the prospect of his “sivilization” arises once again, Huck further demonstrates his desire to detach himself from the predetermined culture surrounding him, whose ideas contradict all for which he has come to stand: “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” (Twain 338). Twain fervently expresses his own hopes though Huck’s ensuing journey West that in this new uncharted territory there lies the promise of acceptance and equality for future