Persuasive Essay On Huckleberry Finn

The story The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is set in the mid 1800s and was written by Mark Twain. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is the sequel of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Mark Twain intentionally included Huck and Tom who are opposites to make the story more relatable to more people.
In the novel Tom and Huck have very different imaginations and outlooks on life. Tom is a very adventurous person that likes to make thing up. “Well,” he says, “there’s excuse for picks and letting-on in a case like this; if it warn’t so, I wouldn’t approve of it, nor I wouldn’t stand by and see the rules broke—because right is right, and wrong is wrong... Gimme a case-knife” (Twain 223). When Tom refers to the case knife he is really talking about a

I called it borrowing, because that was what pap always called it; but Tom said it warn’t borrowing, it was stealing. He said we was representing prisoners; and prisoners don’t care how they get a thing so they get it, and nobody don’t blame them for it, either. It ain’t no crime in a prisoner to steal the thing he needs to get away with, Tom said; it’s his right; and so, as long as we was representing a prisoner, we had a perfect right to steal anything on this place we had the least use for to get ourselves out of prison with. He said if we warn’t prisoners it would be a very different thing, and nobody but a mean, ornery person would steal when he warn’t a prisoner. So we allowed we would steal everything there was that come handy. And yet he made a mighty fuss, one day, after that, when I stole a watermelon out of the nigger-patch and eat it; and he made me go and give the niggers a dime without telling them what it was for. Tom said that what he meant was, we could steal anything we needed. Well, I says, I needed the watermelon. But he said I didn’t need it to get out of prison with; there’s where the difference was. (Twain

Huck for one grew up with a lot less than Tom. “I got into my old rags and my sugar-hogshead again, and was free and satisfied. She put me in them new clothes again, and I couldn’t do nothing but sweat and sweat, and feel all cramped up” (Twain 5). Huck grew up in old ratty clothing and out in the wild. He hated school and being forced into civilized society. When he moved in with the widow he was shoved into a society that he really did not want to be a part of. Tom grew up the exact opposite of Huck. While it is mostly explained in the book before The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, it is shown in small parts in the novel such as showing off his interests of books. “Look at Lady Jane Grey,” he says; “look at Gilford Dudley; look at old Northumberland! Why, Huck, s’pose it IS considerable trouble?—what you going to do?—how you going to get around it? Jim’s GOT to do his inscription and coat of arms. They all do” (Twain) 233. Tom shows his background by proving himself knowledgeable when it comes to literature. He does this many times in the start and end of the book as he tries to get others to follow his adventurous ideas. There is no way Tom would have these wants for adventure or be able to name drop authors if he hadn’t read books growing up. The vast differences in how the two boys grew up would help relate more readers to the