Setting: Late 1800’s along the Mississippi River Plot: When the book begins,
the main character, Huck Finn possesses a large sum of money. This causes his
delinquent lifestyle to change drastically. Huck gets an education, and a home
to live in with a caring elderly woman (the widow). One would think that Huck
would be satisfied. Well, he wasn’t. He wanted his own lifestyle back.
Huck’s drunkard father (pap), who had previously left him, was also not
pleased with Huck’s lifestyle. He didn’t feel that his son should have it
better than he. Pap tries to get a hold of the money for his own uses, but he
fails. He proceeds to lock Huck up in his cabin on the outskirts of town. Huck
then stages his kidnapping and subsequent killing, and takes a canoe across to
Jackson’s Island in the Mississippi River. There he comes across a runaway
slave, Jim, and the two decide to leave the area. Huck leaves to avoid his
father, and Jim leaves to escape a false charge of murder. The rest of the story
follows all of their exciting and action packed adventures down the Mississippi
River. Themes Slavery is a big theme in this story. Mark Twain was obviously
against slavery because it is hypocritical. Throughout the book we see Huck
interacting with Jim as human to human, while everyone else treats him like a
piece of property. He was especially against the Christians who promoted
slavery, since it is obviously wrong and against Christian ideals. Twain also
shows the hypocrisy in another theme, religion. In one scene, the Shepardsons
and the Gangerfords are listening to a sermon about brotherly love, and in the
next scene they are shooting and killing each other. This is exactly the kind of
behavior that twain didn’t like. However, the main theme in this book is
breaking free. He urges his readers to do the right thing, not necessarily what
everyone else is doing. He illustrates this ideal with Huck. Most everyone else
thought of Jim, along with blacks in general, as something less than human. Huck
knew this was wrong, and his actions followed this when he rescued Jim. Main
characters Huckleberry Finn Huck is the narrator of the story and for the most
part is honest to us, the readers. He dreads the rules and conformities of
society such as religion, school, and everything else that will eventually make
him civilized. A big debate surrounds Huck on whether he changes or not
throughout the story. Huck, in the beginning, seems very set in the south’s
anti-black ways, however, Huck states that he will go to hell to keep Jim out of
slavery. At this point it seems like he does change, but at the end of the book,
Huck plays yet another joke on Jim and seems as though any change was temporary.
Huck has little sense of humor, which is ironical, considering the book is
satirical. Twain has also been criticized about Huck’s character, in that it
seems as though Huck knows too much for his age. In one of the movies Huck was
about seventeen, in another he was about eight. I figure from the book that Huck
is probably around the age of twelve or thirteen. Other traits of Huck show that
he is sensible, trustworthy, tricky, deceiving, realist, yet imaginative. Jim
Jim starts off the book as the Widow Watson’s slave, however, because she is
going to sell Jim off he decides to run away. In an ironic twist, Jim meets Huck
Finn, who Jim is charged with murdering. Twain has been criticized for making
Jim too stereotypical in the sense that he is easily tricked by Tom and Huck.
Jim is extremely superstitious, dependable, very trusting of Huck, strong and
hopeful. My Analysis In my opinion this is probably one of the best books ever
written. The way that Mark Twain uses almost all of the literary elements in
this novel make it one of the most fun to read. His use of satire makes this a
very comical look of the south. His use of surprise contributes to the action of
the story. Used along with suspense, it makes the book read very fast. The way
Twain writes most of his novels is very fun and lighthearted, however some of
them are very serious. This novel is written with certain flair and attitude
that, I think, make it stick out as an incredible book. Some other people feel
that the book is not well written at all and needs to be rewritten by someone
else. They also think that Twain doesn’t use very many literary techniques
when he writes. These people need to realize that when they read a novel, that
overwhelming sensation to keep reading to see what happens next is suspense.
When something happens that you thought wouldn’t, that is surprise. All in
all, this novel has been one of the best I have ever read, and I know I will end
up reading it again because it is so good.
Bibliography
“Literary techniques of Mark Twain” 15 pars. 21 Jan. 1998 http://termpaperresearch.com/index.htm
Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. New York: Adventures in
American Literature