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Huckleberry Finn Romanticism Essay

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Romanticism flourished in America from 1800 to 1850, celebrating the power of the individual and celebrated emotions, feelings and imagination over logic. Authors like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau emphasized on imagination, adventure, nature, and independence. Soon after this time period, Mark Twain published his acclaimed novel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, in which he held nothing back in order to satirize and mock the characteristics of the Romantic Period. His characters he creates are manifestations of opposite literary concepts- pragmatic versus romantic. He sets up these characters and events to effectively portray Romanticism in a ridiculous manner through their actions and the results that ensue. In Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck’s …show more content…

Huckleberry is logical and pragmatic; his thoughts and actions are based off of facts and common sense. In stark contrast, Tom Sawyer is a dreamer, creating wild, elaborate adventures and living by the heroic plots of Romantic novels. Immediately shown in the novel is the difference in the way Huck and Tom think- Tom conjures a valiant game of “robbers”, in which Huck says they “...hadn’t robbed nobody, hadn’t killed any people, just only just pretended... Tom Sawyer called the hogs “ingots,” and he called the turnips and stuff “julery,” and we would go to the cave and powwow over what we had done, and how many people we had killed and marked. But I couldn’t see no profit in it” (Twain 16). Tom obsesses over make-believe adventures and gallant mischief, but Huck can see no logic behind it. He describes their game in a long-winded sentence, continuing on with four “ands”, creating a feeling of boredom for the reader as the phrase drags on. He follows up with a declarative statement, putting emphasis on his opinion and drawing attention to the lack of logic behind

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Despite the long journey on the Mississippi and overall growth as a person, Huck relapses again once he meets with his drug Tom Sawyer, regressing all the progress he had made from detoxing from Tom. All the progress he made as a person best signified through his respect for Jim evaporates and returns Huck to his initial immature self due to Tom’s influence. Huck’s actions before leaving the Mississippi demonstrates how he has not purged Tom’s influence on him yet. Huckleberry (Huck) Finn, a 13 year old boy living in Petersburg, Missouri, is seemingly obsessed with Tom Sawyer before he embarks on a journey to run away.

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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a classic novel that takes the reader on a series of thrilling adventures full of life threatening situations, racism, and slavery. The author Mark Twain, uses the novel to highlight the flaws in society by creating a character like Huck, whose personal sense of morals and justice are more noble than those of the very people trying to civilize him. Throughout this captivating novel Huck endures his fair share of trouble and morally challenging decision but he always comes out on top by following his heart and doing what he feels to be right.

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Throughout chapters 35-38, the character foil between Huck and Tom is highlighted through their constant reasoning and problem solving to free Jim. Tom’s reference to novels he has read, and making their goal much harder to reach all for the sake of “living the adventure”, reveals his romantic character. Instead of using doors or other easier methods, Tom insists on a number of extra things such as moats and underground holes and escape ropes in pies all to free Jim. Huck, while reluctant at first (like his character can be), eventually goes along with Tom, because he seems to have a sense of obedience around Tom. The difference, however, between the two of them, is that Huck has Jim’s best interest in mind, while Tom is simply doing this for

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In the beginning of Huckleberry Finn, some women take Huck into their home and try to teach him about religion and proper manners. But instead of listening to the ladies, Huck sneaks out of the house at night and meets Tom Sawyer's gang and they all pretend that they are robbers and pirates. Huck ends up meeting Jim, who is Miss Watson's slave. They escaped on a raft on the river. Jim's plan is to reach Cairo and then take the Ohio River up to the free states.

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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain is set in the late 1800’s during the early Americas. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain takes a very liberal approach when writing this novel. Twain writes about a boy who tries to free his negro slave friend Jim. Twain writes about Huck and Jim’s adventures down the Mississippi River and all their other side adventures. While this quest is going on the reader notices Huck’s metamorphosis from being an innocent boy to, in a way, a man.

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Huck’s moral ambiguity is intimated when, for example, he underhandedly dodges paying for the circus performance mentioned above, self deceptively rationalizing his act as precaution against senselessly “wasting” money (162), as well as he is somewhat complicit in the king and the duke’s deception of pretending to by relatives of a recently defunct wealthy man in order to lay their hands on their supposedly rightful fortune, either because he is motivated to dissemble merely by a sense self-preservation due to fear for them, or due to partly being enticed by the potential monetary gains of such deception. With the latter being a plausible interpretation, Huck the idea of the inevitability of a loss one’s innocence becomes more substantial in the text. This ideological view, however, can be more sensibly argued over in view of Huck’s participation, albeit reluctant, in Tom Sawyer’s, not physically, yet deeply sadistic act of tormenting the imprisoned Jim, turning his confinement into a puerile game of personal entertainment. Although Huck is unaware of Jim having already become a freed slave, unlike Tom, his partaking in this arguably virtual minstrel show, as well as its ominously being the final interaction between Huck and Jim, eclipsing other moments where Huck has certain epiphanies about the latter’s humanity, and its place toward the end of the novel in general, all cast a pall of ambiguity over Huck’s character, thus giving rise to this question of one’s ability to preserve a kind of moral integrity and evade the violence and injustice that have virtually

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