Mark Twain's The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn

(McKeon 2)In the novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn the author, Mark Twain uses the setting as a way of conveying ideas, moods and opinions. (McKeon 1)The novel takes place in antebellum Missouri and narrates the life of a young boy, Huck, who tired of being “sivilized” by the Widow Douglas (his guardian) and instead goes down the Mississippi river with his friend, the escaped slave Jim. On their way down the river Huck and Jim encounter many people and places that change Huck’s understanding of the world. In Huck Finn, Twain uses the setting as a way of addressing many of society's problems, as well as to provide contrast between civilization and personal morals, and to reflect the general mood of the story. (McKeon 4)Interestingly Twain’s uses setting to address his concerns with society's problems, including racism and sectarianism. Twain set the novel in antebellum Missouri, a slave state, and Twain uses this setting to exhibit many of the problems of the old south. Twain shows the problems with racism in chapter 32 when Huck lies about how he got to Aunt Sally with the following conversation. “Good gracious! Anybody Hurt?/ No’m.

In other words, the term people does not include blacks which of course looks terrible from Twain’s perspective because he wrote this book after the civil war when society had begun to move towards racial equality. Finally Twain shows the problems with sectarianism in chapter 18 when Buck, a new friend of Huck’s,