Mark Twain and Huckleberry Finn :: essays papers

Mark Twain and Huckleberry Finn In 1884, Mark Twain wrote one of the most controversial and remembered novels in the world of literature, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Mark Twain was the pseudonym of Samuel Langhorne Clemens. He was born in Florida, Missouri, Nov. 30, 1835. Twain was one of six children. This contributed to his family being poor. Twain often had to find inexpensive forms of entertainment. Twain made Huckleberry Finn represent him fictionally in this book. Huck did the same typical boy things as Twain. ^Now, we'll start this band of robbers and call it..." was one of the things Huck said (Twain 9). When Twain was four years old, his family moved to Hannibal, Missouri, a small town on the west bank of the Mississippi River. The Mississippi River and the towns along it were used as the setting in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. "We judged that three nights more would fetch us to Cairo, at the bottom of Illinois, where the Ohio River comes in^^ (Twain 106). Huck and Jim were trying to reach a town named Cairo. It was located in a free state, Ohio. Cairo was just one of the many towns Twain referred to in this novel. Twain even used familiar dialects in his novel. He stated at the beginning of the novel, "the Missouri negro dialect; the extremest form of the backwoods Southwestern dialect; the ordinary Pike County dialect... are used to wit..." (Twain 1). In this book, as they traveled down the Mississippi River, the values of Huck and Jim were contrasted against those of the people living in the southern United States. Huck (the narrator and one of the main characters) and Jim(another main character) were both trying to reach freedom. Twain based this book on things that were happening during this time in his life. Huck was introduced without a father in his life. Twain's father had died when he was about Huck's age in the book. Twain portrayed religion and the morals of the southern society with satire. "The men took their guns [to church] ... and kept them between their knees...^ (Twain 142) was just one example. In the time of Twain's life that he wrote this novel, the Civil War had just ended. The war had tested society's morals. The issue of slavery was important to Twain which was the reason morals were portrayed in this way. The freedom and peacefulness of the river soon gave way to the