“I was a-trembling because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it… ‘All right, then, I’ll go to hell’-and tore it up” (Twain 205). In Mark Twain’s novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, a warm-hearted, young teenager living in the 1840’s escapes from his abusive father and sails away on the Mississippi River. He encounters a recognizable, runaway slave named Jim and aids him on his quest to freedom. As the two encounter many hardships and obstacles (such as slave hunters, bandits, and con men), their friendship binds together despite the difference in skin color. The book, Huck Finn, contains three main themes that are still relevant today: friendship, education, and the nature of man. In this novel, Mark Twain eludes to …show more content…
Twain uses two characters, nicknamed the king and the duke, to prove that people who are educated are less likely to be taken advantage of. The king and the duke are two con men that travel with Huck and steal money from people using ridiculous scams and tricks. They convince a church that the king is an ex-pirate that wants to change his life, they run off with $465 after three rip-off performances, and they persuade a family that they are the rightful heirs to the money of the recently deceased Peter Wilks. They are constantly taking advantage of the lack of education in southerners and using it to gain money. None of their scams are threatened until an educated doctor calls them out. “It’s the worst imitation I ever heard. You Peter Wilks’s brother! You’re a fraud, that’s what you are!” (165) This situation shows the reader that intelligent people are not as vulnerable to these kinds of gimmicks. Twain is trying to say that gaining an education in school is not only important for a career, but it is also a protection. He uses the clever doctor to show that people in the modern world who go to college and learn are less likely to be scammed by liars and