A major ideal in American society is the notion of the American Dream. It is what came to mind to many immigrants as they entered the land of opportunity. It was said that the streets were paved with gold, echoing a passage about heaven in the book of Revelation. In America, anyone could do or be anything they could think of. The American Dream can be defined as a person starting from the bottom of society, and working hard to obtain the freedom, equality, and opportunity held to be available to every American. Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has been labeled by many as the “great American novel”. Taking place around the 1830s, just before the idea of the American Dream started to become popular, Huck strives to find his own, and it is debatable whether he truly finds it. …show more content…
He clearly has the opportunity that many people look for as they obtain the classic American Dream. However, Huck views this very differently. He complains of the widow, who he says is, “dismal regular and decent...in all her ways” (1), and despises all the things she requires him to do. He does not like going to school which is what most people coming to the United States during that time valued above all else. When his father kidnaps him, he thinks it is, “kind of lazy and jolly, laying off comfortable all day” (24), but soon grows tired of life with Pap as well. He realizes the value of the life he had with the widow, “I didn’t see how I ever got to like it so well at the widow’s” (24) but does not go back to it. Escaping again, the reader sees in Huck a sense of adventure. The life that the widow wants for him is not the life he wants to live. Freedom to him is adventure and happiness, and this, although a childish one, is his American