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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

In Mark Twains novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), he asserts that there
are many things wrong in the Southern society at the time, such as injustice and hypocrisy, and
that looking at real life rather than the romanticized life will be the key to solving the issue.
Throughout the whole story, he backs up his claim with characters who symbolize the wrongs of
society, such as Ms. Loftus symbolizing judgement by color or the judge in Hucks home town
ignoring the moral implications of letting his abusive father take custody of him. He opened the
eyes of the public to the failures of the communities of the day and also showed the Southern
society how slavish it is in order to expose the wrongdoings that had been ignored by the
American public. He tries to connect primarily towards the Southern people and society, but can
also apply to the sivilized people of the North by criticizing and poking fun of their works and
trends of that time..

Many issues pop up throughout the story. One issue it begins with is Huck being
forcefully sivilized by Widow Douglas, which he does not enjoy; this serves as Hucks
character: not sivilized or religious (All right, then, I'll go to hell.), but a country boy who
does not feel the need to change drastically. The main problems that are brought up throughout
the story start off as Hucks father comes to town. The first major issue is that his abusive father
has come back, and the new judge in town gives him custody of Huck; this issue causes Huck to
be essentially kidnapped by him. He escapes his father along with the society that had failed him,
and it coincided with Jim, a slave of Miss Watson, escaping the terrible conditions of slavery.
The issues seem to fizzle out when they go out to nature, but nature also has plenty of things to
worry about, as seen with the snakebite. However, the most issues stem out when they ride to
other areas in the nation. The so-called duke and the dauphin (both con artists) leads the last huge
problems in the story. As they are introduced, they start scamming people by putting up horrible
plays ("H'aint we got all the fools in town on our side? And ain't that a big enough majority in
any town?) and as they continue their scamming, they start scamming a duo of sisters, the Wilks
sisters. They end up stealing the familys money and their property, including separating a slave
family. After exposing them and getting the family their money back, they both catch up to Huck
and Jim. They then kidnap Jim and sell him, and the last problem occurs is trying to get Jim
back, almost thwarted by Toms romanticism-inspired plan. Almost every character they meet is
very malicious and/or cruel people, who either contradict one another or symbolize another
characteristic of broken society, such as the aforementioned Ms. Loftus and her discrimination
towards Jim or the duke and the dauphin who are con artists, but the ones who are victims are
also shown to be very selfish and unhelpful towards the community and do nothing but to boost
their scam. Many people they meet are also very racist, not caring for the well being of blacks,
including Tom Sawyer who uses Jim as a way to make an adventure. All of Hucks situations
can be summarized by his words: Human beings can be awful cruel to one another.

One book that can help support Twains claims of a broken society and the awfulness of
racism and slavery is the novel Uncle Toms Cabin (1852), which was written by Harriet Beecher
Stowe. This story tackles the horrifying actions done towards slaves and how slavery is an
immoral thing in this nation, which synchronizes with the theme of racism as an immoral thing,
which is found in Twains story. The plot is also quite similar: they both take place in the
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Southern US, there are slave characters who escape from their masters and are hunted throughout
the story (Jim leaves and coincidentally meets up with Huckleberry Finn, Eliza and her son
escape and meet up with her husband George), and they also feature an interracial bond (Jim
bonds with Huck, Tom bonds with Eva St. Clare). Despite the similarities, they are both in
different tone: Stowes novel is very melodramatic (Witness, eternal God! Oh, witness that,
from this hour, I will do what one man can to drive out this curse of slavery from my land!)
while Twains novel is very carefree (Jim said that bees won't sting idiots, but I didn't believe
that, because I tried them lots of times myself and they wouldn't sting me.). Another difference
is when they were published: Stowe published it during the time of slavery to show how immoral
it was, and Twain published it after it was abolished but uses slavery as an allegory to the
Reconstruction in which blacks were still treated like slaves. Uncle Toms Cabin uses the
Southern US as an allegory for a hypocritical, backwards area full of immoral people, just as
Twain does throughout the story. In the end, Uncle Toms Cabin immensely helps out the anti-
racist and the condemnation of Southern values of Huckleberry Finn.

Twains book is filled with allegories of American society. Tom Sawyer represents the
looking out to romanticism instead of real life; Hucks town symbolizes injustice and cruelty;
Hucks dad symbolizes the worst of whites; and Huck and Jim symbolize the unity of runaways
who have been betrayed by this broken society and the horrible consequences it has entailed.
These are some of the examples of oral allegories in the story. There are also jabs of popular
works: Romanticism is jabbed much throughout the story, such as Toms foolish behavior and
stories and the feud between the Grangerfords and the Shepherdsons; Victorian works are also
comically satirized in the scene where they first go to the Grangerford house and see Emmelines
hilariously bad works that are inspired by the dark works of the time. Most importantly, Huck
and Jim symbolize a family in which both really didnt have one: Huck is really just a kid who
need to be cared, and Jim is like an adult figure who cares for the child. By the end of the story,
Jim turns into an allegory of judging one by actions rather than by skin color as despite being
black, he and Huck end up being the most respectable characters in the whole book, and the
sivilization is an allegory for the messed up society of the US. In short, the whole story is one
huge bag of allegories, which leads the story to be a bit difficult to decipher since you really do
need to look in between the lines and all over.
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Sources Cited
1. Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. New York: Tom Doherty
Associates, LLC, 1989. Print.
2. Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom's Cabin. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1952. Print.