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Huck Finn Civil War Analysis

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In the novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, author Mark Twain attacks the corruptness of Southern society after the Civil War. Through Huck’s wild journey in freeing a runaway slave named Jim, Twain ridicules many problems facing American society in the 1800’s to give the reader insight on the social horrors embedded in the culture and lifestyle of Americans in the American South. Having lived through the Civil War and experiencing its end result on the nation, Twain reflects his own post-Civil War observations throughout the novel as he reveals the truth about living in the reconstructing South during the years after what is known as America’s bloodiest clash. Within white society, Twain satirizes the South’s perspective of “civilization” …show more content…

In Huck’s mind, civilization is the opposite of freedom due to its restrictive factors and ways of life. Widow Douglas adopted Huck to “civilize” him, but she has done just the opposite. At the end of the book, Huck states that “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 294). If civilization just means unnecessary rules, school work, people telling him what to do and scratchy clothing, Huck can do just fine without it. On the raft going down the Mississippi, Huck drifts away from civilization and begins to see the hypocrisy behind the society he lives in. Huck attempts to escape society’s “civilized” ways and aims to reach his own individualism in which he takes him his own morals. In the words of Twain himself, “our civilization is that it is a shoddy, poor thing full of cruelties, vanities, arrogance, meannesses and hypocrisies”, emphasizing the fact that the civilization of the South was everything but polished and civilized. Overall, civilization does not only represent Huck’s crushed natural spirit through his confinement, but also indicates the bad quality of misapprehensions within American …show more content…

Through religious hypocrisy, Twain ridicules the white citizens that constantly go to church, but do the opposite of what is morally just. In the beginning of the book, Widow Douglas demands that Huck prays everyday, yet while she is trying to teach Huck about religion and how he must behave, she owns a slave, contradicting everything that she’s teaching. Twain’s main purpose in satirizing different aspects of American society is to open the eyes of the reader to the social atrocities embedded in the everyday lives of Southerners after the Civil War. By using situational irony, grotesque, parody, deflation and farce, Twain succeeds in poking fun at the South’s attempt at social reconstruction after they lost the “war between the states” in 1865. Mark Twain uses humor to develop the different themes of social development within his novel. As a whole, the novel is not supposed to be a source of comedy as there is a serious issue in the shadow of his humorous work. All through the book, Twain ridicules and mocks the ignorance of American people for their uncivilized civilization. Likewise, Twain’s main aim in publishing this novel was to make a declaration concerning the Southern society’s poor quality at the

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When one reads The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, written by Mark Twain, themes involving morality and conscience become heavily prevalent. The protagonist, Huckleberry Finn, portrays a manifest dynamic character. His actions and statements ranging from the outset of the novel through its ending show Huck’s development of a more concise sense of morality and conscience prevailing over the societal influences of “right and wrong”. In the nineteenth century American South, the inescapable system of slavery and social hierarchy would have discouraged an interracial bond. Yet Huck, while escaping his abusive father, chooses to befriend Jim, the runaway slave whom he encounters, and shares a pivotal stage in his life with his newfound companion, whereby contradicting

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Summary: Through the voice of Huckleberry Finn, a deep criticism of racism and civilized society’s rules is narrated to the reader as Huck and Jim, escape from civilized society and set sail on a raft down the Mississippi river to slavery-free states. Both characters share a common goal: to be free of the rules that a civilized society places. Huck and Jim form an alternative family as they head down the river along with two white adult conmen they rescued, who commit many scams . These conmen are responsible for turning Jim into a local farmer

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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, a novel written by Mark Twain, is often referred to as a great American novel (Goodreads) due to it’s presence of the culture of the United States prior to the Civil War. Not only does this piece of literature demonstrate the mentality of the American society in the midst of slavery, but it also uses the symbolism of Jackson’s Island and the Mississippi river, one of the world’s largest river systems, to emphasize Twain’s message about morality and religion. Although perhaps not initially apparent, Twain tries to convince readers that civilization masks morality and that hypocrisy often lies within religion through Huck and Jim’s journey down the Mississippi River and their various encounters with other characters

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The constant complements and conflicts between Huck and society or parts of society lead him to question himself. Huck struggles between siding with society’s standard of right and wrong or his own personal code of ethics but eventually discovers to trust and rely on himself more than worrying about what society thinks he should do. The author, Mark Twain, instills his opinions about ignorance, slavery, and unique consciences into the hearts of the characters he creates to give the reader an exaggerated example of what is wrong with our society and how we can fix it by being

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Essay The novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain is a story about a young boy who is trying to find who he is during the civil war. In this novel by Mark Twain it speaks about this young boy, named Huck, and how his original morals are beginning to change while he helps free his friend Jim, who is a slave. Though People have argued that this book uses many racial slurs that demoralize the African American race. Though there is solid reasoning why those are not Mark Twain's true intentions.

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Twain does his best to deal with the conflict between society and the individual. Huck does not want to abide by society’s laws and does not want to conform in Mark Twain’s, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Huck is forced to be civilized in the beginning, so he leaves society for freedom and lives by his own rules but even that does not make Huck’s life easy. Huck has trouble obeying society’s rules from the start of the book. The Widow Douglas takes Huck in to try to sivilize him says Huck in the quote, “The Widow Douglas she took me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize me”(Twain 2).

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