Meaning of Characters
The novel The adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain portrayed the life and thoughts of the American people from the 1800s with great realism and detail, typical of this literary period. This was in part because of Twain’s own life experience, having seen firsthand some of the events on the book, making them sound believable as if they really happened. The other and most important reason for the realistic detail in the story were the characters, who were used to depict aspects of the way of life and the way of thinking of the time, immersing the reader in the time period. Characters like Aunt Sally, Tom Sawyer, the Duke, and the King all represent aspects of the 1800s society making this novel feel so realistic and relatable. The character of Tom Sawyer is shown as mischievous and superior to all other kids, having a fondness of playing tricks and going on imaginary adventures. This characterization was used by Twain to represent how the people from that time were attracted by the idea of an adventure and how they portrayed themselves as superior. The band of robbers that Tom creates “we’ll start a band of robbers and call it Tom Sawyer’s Gang”(Twain 7). isn’t really about robbing people, but about accomplishing the things he read on books, just like how people from the 1800s read about finding gold and
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She represents the typical white women of the time, being caring and protective of her family, as seen when she finds Huck, but racist and cold towards slaves. This showed how people from that time didn’t see slaves and people of color as the same as whites. Slaves were seen as tools, not humans, and so when one dies like in the book “Good gracious! Anybody hurt?”“No’m. Killed a servant”(Twain 221). they aren’t shocked because they don't care about a slave's life. And that's what Twain is trying to show with the character of Aunt