Place For Huck And Jim example essay topic

Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn Essay, Research Paper Mark Twain presents Huckleberry Finn in an admirable light. Throughout the novel Finn matures morally. Huck Finn is used as a way to show the traits of humanity that Twain admired. Huck always takes things very literally. This adds to the humor of the book, and lets some of the books deeper messages come through. In the first scenes of the book Huck is struggling to understand the concepts of Miss Watson's heaven and hell.

He finds her view of heaven boring because he wants to be in an exciting place. When Miss Watson tells Huck that he will get anything he prays for, he takes it very literally and decides to pray for a fishing line, which he gets. But praying for fishing hooks didn't seem to work. Then when he asks her to pray for him to get some fishing hooks she calls him an idiot. These are both gentle pokes at southern religion. These were people practicing Christianity devoutly yet they treated other human beings as property.

At the beginning of the novel Huck had not yet taken in society's way of thinking. When he was with the widow and Miss Watson, he was changing and even getting used to their ways, but by and by I got so I could stand it (school). But as soon as Pap kidnapped him, Huck went back to the much more practical lifestyle. Huck placed very little value on the large sum of money that he had in the bank and found the smaller sums more important. Six thousand dollars was a fortune in the time that the book was written; yet Huck didn t seem to be impressed by it. This is because he took things so literally.

He didn t see the use of six thousand dollars when all he needed were ten cents to buy food or fishing lines. Society put value on wealth and property and book learning. But Huck placed his value on free living. He saw no reason for any of the things society valued when he enjoyed going down the Mississippi with a friend. The isolation on the Mississippi River is a place for Huck and Jim to be equal.

On the plantation Jim was just a slave. Huck may have liked Jim then, but Huck could not get passed the barrier of colors. The trip also allows Huck's conscience to develop. He was able to do this without the direct influences of society. At first Huck regretted helping Jim escape, but he got to know him for the human being that he was. He thought that by helping Jim he was doing the wrong thing, but he realized that it was he had to do.

Throughout their journey, Huck began to notice the things that Jim would do for Huck, for instance Jim wouldn't bother to wake Huck up at night to take the watch, he would always talk to Huck and watch out for him, he was always mighty good that way, Jim was. Jim showed Huck that he loved his family just like a white man loved his family. He was thinking about his wife and his children, away up yonder, and he was low and homesick; because he hadn't ever been away from home before in his life; and I do believe he cared just as much for his people as white folks does for their'n. It don't seem natural, but I reckon it's so. Society had made Huck believe that slavery was a normal thing, but when he comes to know Jim as a human being and not a piece of property his concept changes. There's a point where Huck chooses to go to hell than to sell Jim back into slavery.

If Huck had remained with the widow and would have been influenced by society, he wouldn't have even thought of looking for a person inside of Jim. But instead he was open minded became aware that Jim was a beautiful person. He was not just a "nigger' or a piece of property. He forms new ideas about himself and the world around him. Huck fights so much for Jim that it is obvious that the southern culture did not corrupt Huck and he was able to set his own moral standards.

Huck Finn went from being ignorant to the first steps in becoming a man by simply using his common sense. Jim was another character that Mark Twain portrayed in an admirable light. Jim was not just a character, he represent the African Americans. Jim was always protecting and watching out for Huck. He worried for him and loved him as if Huck was his own child. This is why it can be said that the book is not really racist.

Although Twain seems to poke fun at them sometimes through their belief in witchcraft, Jim and the other black people are portrayed as caring people. Jim helps Huck survive not only physically but also helps Huck in his moral growth. Through Jim, Huck is able to see black people as human beings. Jim cares for Huck throughout the whole story.

He never betrays Huck and knows when to make believe that he didn t know Huck. They cussed Jim considerable, though, and give him a cuff or two side of the head once in a while, but Jim never said nothing, and he never let on to know me, and they took him to the same cabin, and put his own clothes on him, and chained him again Some of the women were portrayed in a favorable light. Mrs. Loftus was one of those women. She advised Huck on how to act if he was going to pretend to be a girl.

She also gave him the information that helped him prevent Jim from getting caught. Another woman portrayed in a favorable light is Mary Jane. She helped catch the Duke and the King by listening to Huck and keeping her word. She also represents Huck's first puppy love. The majority of the people in this book were presented in an unfavorable light. Through this book, Twain was criticizing certain things about society that he presented through characters.

Pap is one of the characters seen in an unfavorable light. In him racism, cruelty, and the abuse of alcohol are seen. Racism is seen in a lot of the characters, but it is just one of the criticisms of society that is seen in Pap. Oh, yes, this is a wonderful gov ment, wonderful.

Why, look here, there was a free nigger there from Ohio And what do you think? They said he was a p fess or in a college, and could talk all kinds of languages, and know ed everything. And that ain t the just. They said he could vote when he was at home what is the country a-coming to? when they told me there a state in this country where they d let that nigger vote, I drawer out.

I says I ll never vote ag in Pap is cruel to Huck. Although in the time that this book was written, it was normal for children to get beaten by their parents, what Pap did was too much because he came close to killing Huck and he did it when he was drunk. He (Pap) chased me (Huck) round and round the place with a clasp knife, calling me the Angel of Death, and saying he would kill me he made a grab and got me by the jacket between my shoulders, and I thought I was gone Pap was an alcoholic. That was completely obvious because he would drink whisky every day. Also, he would go and ask the Judge for his money and would be satisfied if he got a couple of dollars because that was enough to buy him drinks.

The Grangerford family except for Sophia is presented in an unfavorable light. The family was in a feud and the reasons for it were unknown. Neither of the families knew who had caused the feud or the reasons for it. What was the trouble about, Buck? land?

I reckon maybe I don t know. Well, who done the shooting? Was it a Granger-ford or a Sheperdson? Laws, how do I know? It was so long ago.

Don t anybody know? These two families were being violent without a reason. The reason Sophia was an exception was that she ran away with Harney Sheperdson. She was the only one who was able to ignore that they were supposed to hate that family and stopped the foolishness. The Grangerford's were also hypocrites. They were willing to be hospitable to a stranger but they couldn t settle their differences with the Shepersdon's to avoid the unnecessary and senseless deaths.

Lastly, the Duke and the King were presented in an unfavorable light. These two characters represent con artists. These two characters take advantage of others and lie. These are the type of people who step on others to make themselves go higher but when they fall, they fall hard.

The Duke and the King were definitely presented in an unfavorable light because the reader took a disliking to them by all their wrongdoings especially selling Jim. Huck begins searching for an identity which is truly his own. In determining his self image, he tries on different identities that do not belong to him, and takes something from each of those identities and forms the conscience that is developed at the end. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn begins with Huck under the care of Widow Douglas as "she took me for her son, and allowed that she would civilize me; but it was rough living in the house all the time.

' Huck has become so used to being free that he sees the Widow Douglas' protection solely in terms of confinement. Huck finds this unacceptable because he loses his freedom amongst "the bars and shackles of civilization. ' Huck feels that he belongs out under the stars where the community cannot bound him. Huck then faces the return of his drunkard father. After escaping from him, Huck is left with himself and his freedom.

The raft on which Huck and Jim travel demonstrates one of symbols of freedom in the story. To Huck, the raft seems to be the safest place that brings freedom on which he can grow and experience life. The only way Huck can escape from the abuse of his father and society is to rid himself of his known identity. This is why Huck faking his own death represents the first steps of his finding his identity. If he "dies,' "they will search the river and they " ll soon get tired of that and won't bother no more about me.

' By faking his "death', Huck will escape his problems and he will allow himself to experience life from different points of view. His "death' actually leads to his own self-survival because his "death' will give him his freedom, the one thing that Huck truly needs. As Huck drifts down the river on his raft, he begins to look for himself. He attempts to slip into the identities of others to experience things in a different way than they normally would be.

Huck's longing for freedom is his only self-desire. His freedom requires that he find a conscious, moral identity. He must discover his true self and know himself as a person and as an individual in order to be free. Huck was able to decide on his own. He followed his heart and ignored what society had told him was right and what was wrong. Both Jim and Huck were looking for freedom.

Jim was looking for physical freedom and Huck needed freedom from society so that he could develop his own sense of what was right and wrong. They each provided the other with the freedom that they needed. Huck helped Jim be free and Jim taught Huck what he would of never learned otherwise. Huck learned that Jim was a human being and came to love him because he cared so much for him.

A general truth is that most men being basically cowards. A good example of this was when Col. Sherburn shot the drunk Boggs and the townsfolk came after Sherburn to lynch him. After Sherburn, one man with only a shotgun, held off the immense mob and made them disperse, it was obvious that no individual really had the courage to go through with the lynching. The book should not be banned from schools or libraries on the claim that it is racist. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is not racist. Mark Twain just showed how the South was and how black people were treated.

But he does poke fun at black people by presenting them to be so na ve and into witchcraft. But the best proof to this book not being racist is the change that Huck goes through. He decided he d rather to go hell than give Jim in. I believe the novel shouldn t be read in school but not because of the use of the word nigger or that it may be somewhat racist.

I don t think it should be read because it was such a stupid and ridiculous book. There were some good parts in it where I wanted to find out what happened next, but there many parts where it was difficult to comprehend what the character was saying. Also, the ending was very disappointing and Tom Sawyer was getting annoying..