Regionalism in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn In his novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain creates the narrator Huck as a realist character. Huck’s tendencies toward realism— a minute fidelity to the common course of ordinary life— cause him to be a concrete thinker, contrasting the romantic Southern lifestyle that he lives with. Although he understands Southern culture, Huck’s realist perspective leads him to resist the regional ideals of the romantic hero and the Southern gentleman. Huck contrasts his friend Tom Sawyer, a romantic hero with archetypal qualities of youth, innocence, intuition, and honor. This novel exemplifies regionalism: literature that highlights a specific geographic setting and the speech, manners, …show more content…
When he and Jim meet two men who claim to be a king and a duke, Huck recognizes the deception but chooses to not challenge it. He narrates, “It didn’t take me long to make up my mind that these liars warn’t no kings nor dukes at all, but just low-down humbugs and frauds. But I never said nothing, never let on; kept it to myself; it’s the best way; then you don’t have no quarrels, and don’t get into no trouble” (166). The king and the duke abuse their false titles to convey status. The ideas of the Southern gentleman and romantic hero date back to the aristocracy in medieval Europe. The king and the duke display the power of titles and sophistication in this time period, which translate to the American South. They earn respect because of their titles as a king and a duke. Although Huck recognizes that they are frauds, he chooses to accept it without conflict instead of challenging the culture. Twain shows us the consequences of Huck’s choice because the king and the duke create trouble and perform scams to get money. Huck narrates, “I never see anything so dis- gusting” (217), displaying his disapproval of the act that the men are putting on. Twain communicates that when Huck does not challenge his culture, he cannot be at peace with the