The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an iconic story, as it deals with many ideas that people face at some point during our lives. The main theme of the novel is that society tends to conflict with the natural being of people. Society shapes the identities of people and strips us from our natural right to act kind and moral to people around us. Throughout Huckleberry Finn’s story we witness how society raises people [of Huck’s world] in strict and conservative ways, which leads to people without the freedom to be who they would like to be, unnecessary disputes regarding status of people within the society, and ultimately, the oppression of slaves and unfair treatment of minorities.
During Huck’s story, especially at the beginning of the …show more content…
It is as if while society shapes people’s moralities, it also makes people greedy and self centered. The reader witnesses a situation such as this when Huck becomes part of the Grangerfords family, and learns about their feud with the Shepherdsons. After the scandal of one of the daughters of the family, Miss Sophia, running off with one of the sons of the Shepherdsons family, Huck witnessed the murder of Buck and another Grangerford boy. This makes Huck realize how cruel society and its people are. The reader reads about Huck’s discomfort with the feud when Huck thinks, “It made me so sick I most fell out of the tree. I ain’t a going to tell all that happened - it would make me sick again...I wished I hadn’t ever come ashore that night to see such things. I ain’t ever going to get shut of them-lots of times I dream about them” (117). Huck also realized that society is an ugly place that takes away people’s willingness to act kind to one another. People of their community are so used to conflict, that it became part of their norms to fight one another. Huck realized that society corrupts the natural minds of people when he states that, “I was powerful glad to get away from the feuds, and so was Jim to get away from the swamp. We said there warn’t o home like a raft, after all. Other places do seem so cramped up and smothery, but a raft …show more content…
At that time, slavery was still legal in the States, and along with slavery came a high degree of prejudice against the African American slaves. For example, the reader is exposed to a situation at the very beginning of the story where Huck and Tom Sawyer tease Miss Watson’s slave , Jim, and make a plain fool of. This shows how people gather fixed opinions of minorities in their society from a very young age already. Later in Huck’s story, the reader learns that Huck’s father is an extreme racist that is dissatisfied with the fact that African Americans are allowed to vote. The reader witnesses this racism when Huck’s father, Pap, claims that, “Why, looky here. There was a free nigger there from Ohio-a mulatter, most as white as a white man. He had the whitest shirts on you ever see, too, and the shiniest hat; and there ain’t a man in town that’s got as fine clothes as what he had; and he had a gold watch and chain, and a silver-headed cane-the awfulest old gray-headed nabob in the state. And what do you think? They said he was a p’ffessor in a college, and could talk all kinds of languages, and knowed everything. And that ain’t the wurst. They said he could vote, when he was at home. Well, that let me out. Thinks I, what is the country a-coming to? It was ‘lection day, and i was just about to go vote myself if I warn’t too drunk to get there; but when
During Huck’s story, especially at the beginning of the …show more content…
It is as if while society shapes people’s moralities, it also makes people greedy and self centered. The reader witnesses a situation such as this when Huck becomes part of the Grangerfords family, and learns about their feud with the Shepherdsons. After the scandal of one of the daughters of the family, Miss Sophia, running off with one of the sons of the Shepherdsons family, Huck witnessed the murder of Buck and another Grangerford boy. This makes Huck realize how cruel society and its people are. The reader reads about Huck’s discomfort with the feud when Huck thinks, “It made me so sick I most fell out of the tree. I ain’t a going to tell all that happened - it would make me sick again...I wished I hadn’t ever come ashore that night to see such things. I ain’t ever going to get shut of them-lots of times I dream about them” (117). Huck also realized that society is an ugly place that takes away people’s willingness to act kind to one another. People of their community are so used to conflict, that it became part of their norms to fight one another. Huck realized that society corrupts the natural minds of people when he states that, “I was powerful glad to get away from the feuds, and so was Jim to get away from the swamp. We said there warn’t o home like a raft, after all. Other places do seem so cramped up and smothery, but a raft …show more content…
At that time, slavery was still legal in the States, and along with slavery came a high degree of prejudice against the African American slaves. For example, the reader is exposed to a situation at the very beginning of the story where Huck and Tom Sawyer tease Miss Watson’s slave , Jim, and make a plain fool of. This shows how people gather fixed opinions of minorities in their society from a very young age already. Later in Huck’s story, the reader learns that Huck’s father is an extreme racist that is dissatisfied with the fact that African Americans are allowed to vote. The reader witnesses this racism when Huck’s father, Pap, claims that, “Why, looky here. There was a free nigger there from Ohio-a mulatter, most as white as a white man. He had the whitest shirts on you ever see, too, and the shiniest hat; and there ain’t a man in town that’s got as fine clothes as what he had; and he had a gold watch and chain, and a silver-headed cane-the awfulest old gray-headed nabob in the state. And what do you think? They said he was a p’ffessor in a college, and could talk all kinds of languages, and knowed everything. And that ain’t the wurst. They said he could vote, when he was at home. Well, that let me out. Thinks I, what is the country a-coming to? It was ‘lection day, and i was just about to go vote myself if I warn’t too drunk to get there; but when